Fade (27 page)

Cynthia actually did feel a bit more whole when Aern attacked again. Hope had reared its beautiful head. As he sailed toward her, she let her mind go—all the doubts she had about being unable to fight ran and hid, and the pseudo-training she had received from Jonas arrived front and center. Every movement became about reaction to the last and anticipation of the next. She still felt the sting of his blows, but she knew he felt hers too. For some reason, that was enough.

Trees fell, rocks became dust, the ground rumbled. The moon itself seemed to unsettle in the sky. Cynthia’s confidence grew with each punch and kick. She even felt herself gaining the advantage. She could tell that he knew it too. His movement, his visage. He was anxious. She would soon have him on the ground.

“Kill her friends!” Aern yelled, and Cynthia was emptied of all courage. The crew of now far less than thirty Fade moved like dogs unleashed on a hunt. Then Lucy stepped forward. Jonas put a hand on her shoulder as they all, as one, slowed.

Jonas bolted at the mob of Fade, a sword—like the one she’d seen Kah’en carrying—sizzling at his side. Her attention divided, even for that second, and Aern had picked Cynthia up, slammed her into the ground.
Focus!
She rolled and stood.
This is it.
She found Aern was in front of where Cynthia wanted to see Jonas hacking limbs from attacking Fade, so she moved him. A quick look at Jonas found him battling and Lucy staying back, looking as if she were concentrating on keeping too many Fade from overpowering him. Most likely at Jonas’ command, she imagined, as worried as he had seemed for her earlier.

Aern brought his fists down on top of her. Cynthia rolled on her heel out of the way, leapt up to wrap her arms around his neck, and bounded up and around to his back. She straightened her legs against that back, forcing him down, hard. Then she sat on Aern’s back, placed a hand at the base of his skull, another on his chin and ignored the moral crisis of killing another living thing—a picture of Jan hanging against a tree overshadowing it.

A blast that lit up the night blinded, then sent Cynthia soaring from Aern. She landed with a solid
whump
, but did not feel it. Finding her feet again was all that concerned her. She tried blinking everything into focus, trying to suss out what had happened. She watched as Aern rose without any hurry about him. His mouth flat, his face lax, and his red eyes glowing an almost painful pink.

“Stop fighting,” he said in a loud voice, sounding like someone doing a really good impersonation of Aern. The Fade listened, backing away from Jonas.

Jonas took a stance, breathing hard, hunched forward, sword out, his other hand on his knee. “What the hell is going on?” he asked.

Cynthia wondered the same thing.

***

Aern had hit the ground, ready to bounce back up. This human girl would not have the best of him. Especially not in front of his men. Then he felt her on his back, her hands on his head. It was happening too fast. He could not let her—

“Child of the Fanil. Do not fear. I protect you.” Aern stared at what he had only previously seen depicted in ancient carvings and statues. But the form of his Queen was of much more beauty than any of that, or what could even be imagined. “You have the key to my release. I was drawn to it. I am so pleased you did not give up your search for me.”

Standing before her, it almost seemed as though he could feel her pleasure. “My… My Queen.” He could hear his real self speaking, telling his people to stop their fighting, and he knew it was her. It was an honor for his lips to speak her words.

“My brother tried to hold me, but I cannot be held. All I did was to destroy those who oppressed my Janar and who threatened the Fanil. My beloved ones. You are of my beloved, Aern.”

Her skin was the color of a clear day, her eyes twin suns. All of his life he could hope for a moment such as this. “Whatever you desire,” he said. “These people have kept you from us. They have fought to destroy us because of our longing to serve you.”

There was a long pause. “Then, as my gift to you, faithful warrior, protector of my Janar, I will destroy them.”

Aern beamed. “You are truly worth every life given in your name, Mira.”

“The staff at your side now knows where to take us. When you wake, abandon this battle and go there. I will then take you to my remains and rise to lead you.”

He was about to go on gushing over his finally discovered Queen but his sight dulled back into the real world. He blinked twice, unaware of the grin spanning his face. He took the scepter from his belt. Jonas screamed a warning to Cynthia, who readied herself to get out of the way of its blast. But Aern pointed it away from them both.

Its end glowed, making strange shadows in the night, and then bloomed several feet away into a large oval, a long path rolling into its center. “My warriors.” Aern narrowed his eyes at Cynthia, speaking in the language of his people. “The Queen spoke with me. She will live again. Follow.”

He hurried through the portal, not caring if anyone else would come.

***

The girls watched as the remainder of the Fade force rushed through the gate and Jonas scrambled to search his backpack in the flickering blue light of the portal. He slid to his knees, grunting in pain as he unzipped the pack, pulling out the old, yellow, plastic sack, which he ripped to shreds. He held the device that it had been wrapped around toward the portal. It flickered to life and began buzzing, then beeped, then stopped.

The blue portal began to shrink and the black night rushed back over the now quiet battleground. Even the fire that had been roaring when they’d arrived was almost cinders. Cynthia took a step toward Jonas, whose arm had wilted, and was now trying to catch his breath.

Cynthia spoke, pointing at the device he held. “That will take us to them, won’t it? That makes the portal you were telling me about.”

Lucy sat down next to him. “Won’t they be waiting for us?”

“Didn’t look like they were giving us much thought anymore. But he said the Queen spoke to him.” He put a hand on Lucy’s head with his free arm. “So it’s a chance I’ve got to take.”

Cynthia took another step forward. Jonas held up a hand. “I don’t want you two going.”

“You can’t leave!” Lucy stood.

“We’ve had this talk,” Cynthia said, her voice flat.

“I know. And I keep giving in because all I’ve cared about is getting revenge.” He hung his head. “Whatever that means. But Lucy told me that, uh, Angela didn’t make it.” He looked directly into Cynthia’s eyes. “That’s on me.”

“Don’t be stupid, Jonas. We don’t know what their ridiculous Queen is capable of. I hate that Angela didn’t make it.” She bit her lip, fighting the sudden urge to cry. “But that’s all the more reason to do this right. We don’t know how many more people will die because you’re
suddenly
guilty we got pulled into this.”

“It’s not
suddenly.
”

“Please don’t go,” Lucy said. “I need you.”

“It happened so fast,” he said, staring at Cynthia’s feet.

“Jonas.” Cynthia’s voice was tired, brittle. “Feel guilty and sorry for yourself and us poor, little girls tomorrow. It’s too late to take this back. It’s too late to say we can’t be involved.” She hesitated. “Angela can’t just die for nothing.”

“They killed millions. There comes a point,
little girl
, when it just seems silly to think you can make up for
any
of it, or make it mean a thing.” He looked like a walking dead man in the moonlight. “I dream about them. The dead beg me to save them. Curse me for not.” He looked at Cynthia, bright echoes of the moon in each of her pupils. “But I didn’t pull the trigger. I tell myself that over and over.
Over
and over. The Fade did this to them.”

Cynthia nodded, tears crawling down her cheeks. Jonas knew she felt her part in this just as deep as he felt his. Driven to avenge the dead. In the end, warriors were driven by guilt. When heroism, patriotism, and even faith sometimes fell away, guilt was always there to push you on to that next step. But guilt never gave a damn what hell that step might lead you into.

Jonas turned and went back to where his pack lay in the dirt. “This will take a little while. Sleep.”

***

Cynthia tried, but couldn’t sleep. She sat, watching Jonas work; she stroked Lucy’s hair while she slept. Within an hour, he’d managed to figure out where the Fade had gone from the readings the do-dad had taken from the portal. The fact that he was proud of himself showed even through his seriousness.

“Things are ready.” His lips tensed. “But there’s something you should know.”

Cynthia looked up, her face saying what she didn’t have the strength to: that she wasn’t expecting anything
but
bad news.

“This,” Jonas said, “was meant to be a one-time jump box. It was supposed to get us back to our Earth if I ever had a good enough reason. But this small jump will still deplete enough of its reserves so
that
jump won’t be possible any longer.”

Cynthia dropped her head.
Disappointment: what’s new,
she thought.

“I just…” he looked as though it physically hurt to give her more bad news, “want you to know.”

“One piece at a time. They take our lives,” Cynthia said.

That was a well Jonas obviously didn’t want to start drinking from. “Do I start it up?” he asked, really just being kind with the question, she imagined.

“That’s what we have to do,” said Cynthia, nudging Lucy awake. “Let’s just go. See how this ends.” She looked at Jonas. He considered a moment longer and then agreed.

He made as to leave, then stopped. “I never meant this for you girls.”

“We know, daddy,” Lucy said, stretching.

Cynthia picked the armor she’d worn during her fight with Aern from the ground and handed it to Jonas. “You need this more than me.”

He grabbed it, his arm dropping a few inches, the ease with which she held it up misleading.

“Doesn’t fit me anyway,” she tried a smile, but it didn’t fit either.

TWENTY-ONE

C
oming from the nothing of that other place, Angela was expecting a verdant view, but sand as far as the horizon was what they were met with. Her feet sunk into that unnervingly warm sand. The sun almost seemed worse there, stinging every inch of skin it blasted. She had gotten used to this kind of living, but her hope for something other than lifeless earth made it that much worse.

The Guardian told them they would come out right on top of Mira’s not-so-final resting place, and that they must destroy her before she could completely heal. But it was all sand to the horizons. Kah’en stood by one of the Fade that had come with them, pointing at certain areas as if they were somehow different than every other sandy thing. The others huddled together, waiting for instructions. Except Dacus. Angela smiled as he pulled his over-sized feet through the sand to her. His gray lips flattened as he tried to tear a piece of what he wanted to say from the serving or two of English he had picked up over the last weeks.

“Your side.” He grimaced, showing he knew that didn’t convey enough. “Your fighter.”

She smiled and her head bounced up and down. He turned to see Kah’en walking in their direction.

“If they come, we have found the best place to defend ourselves,” Kah’en said.

Angela watched Dacus walk over to the others, smiling after him. “They’re going to be a big help.”

Kah’en nodded, surveying them.

“What’s the plan?”

“We have no idea how long we have been gone or whether Aern will ever find this place. But this does not matter because we do know that the Queen is free. She will rise when she rises. We know that won’t be long. So, until then, we are waiting.”

“Is there a less sunny place we can wait?” Angela snarled at the sun.

Kah’en did not seem to hear her. He was staring into his thoughts.

“Earth to Kah’en.” Angela chuckled.

“I am sorry. My thoughts contained me.”

“It’s actually cute now when you occasionally butcher my language,” Angela said, lacing her arm through his and pulling herself closer. She wiped the persistent sweat from her face. After a while she said, “this is really it, isn’t it?”

“The final battle, you mean?”

Her head bobbed.

“It will be for one side.”

“Honest realism: Not what a nervous girl needs to hear.”

“I do not under—”

“I know you don’t. I just feel all over the place right now. I’m thinking about my family. I’m thinking about Jonas and the others.”
And the Fade they left behind to die
, she thought, but did not say.

“What will be, will be, woman,” Kah’en said.

She held him tighter. “If we’re on the losing side. I just want to say thank you again. I wouldn’t have survived that place if it weren’t for you.”

He nodded. “You were a strong…
asset
,” he said, struggling to find the word.

She started to laugh, but stopped. She wanted it to be a simple misuse of words or a poor attempt at communication. But she thought, with a cold, empty sensation, that she knew him well enough to know that he’d said what he meant. Her heart fell the tiniest bit as she realized any change she’d imagined in him had been hope parading as reality. No matter how much she felt like
she
had changed in those months there, he was still the same Kah’en who kept her around because she had a useful ability that might save his life at some point or another. She just hadn’t wanted to see that. Still didn’t.

She tried to make it be gone, scrambling for memories to defend him. But, in the end, she slipped her arm out of his and took a few steps away.

***

Jonas and the two girls stepped through the gate ready for a fight. But they found sand. It rolled and stretched out before them, but was still. No wind stirred even one of the trillions upon trillions of tiny grains. None of them spoke for the longest time. They only stared at the silky, brown landscape, which looked to Jonas like the rolling back of some sleeping beast. Here he was, ready to wake it.