Fae (3 page)

Some of the citizens still
wore their feathered manes and clothes, like they hadn't had a
chance to change into something more appropriate since the war
started. None of the manes flashed with lighted color anymore. All
the feathers looked stripped and dingy. Some hung onto their owners
by a thread, only to fall like broken dreams behind
them.

I suddenly felt very
foolish wearing my royal Auri dress. It was too bright in this
place, even with the layer of dust clinging to it. And I wondered
then what had become of the old woman's shop where I'd burned
without restraint. Were the charred blocks of stone and ashy
remains of once beautiful clothes--evidence of the monster inside
me--just another part of the war-torn scenery? Had anyone had a
chance to find her blackened corpse before the Mamood
attack?

I coughed to clear away
the lump building in my throat.

We followed behind a group
of shuffling and dejected people, several of them with children
clinging to their sides, to a cleared area where dozens of citizens
already milled around, murmuring to each other, not daring to raise
their voices in this solemn place, the only sound the Mosandarian’s
song swelling in the background. A few tarps, rugs, and solar sails
with their broken circuitry sticking out like shredded yarn had
been spread on the ground. Tents had been pitched along the edges
of the open space. Some tarps held scraps of food, others had burnt
reams of cloth. A few had trinkets and random engine parts, bolts,
screws, nuts; nothing anyone really seemed interested in. There was
one very popular tent almost completely surrounded by people
shoving and fighting to get closer.

"What do you think they're
selling over there?" I said to Cailen. Several people turned to
scowl and I covered my mouth with my hand. Only whispers in this
place.

He leaned down and quietly
said, "Either water or information. Those are the only things
people want now."

"Information?"

"Yes," he said. "Now that
the Communication Tattoos are offline everyone is desperate for
anything new. I overheard some of Lastrini’s men calling them Tat
Wacks."

Three little
children--none of them older than ten--weaved in and out of the
passive crowd, brandishing sticks like guns, and making pew! pew!
noises. One child fell to the ground and wailed, clutching his
chest while the other two children kept firing their weapons and
screaming, "die, you dirty Mamood!" Then they laughed and helped
the child off the ground to run somewhere else and play their war
games.

No one besides me had
taken any notice. No one even turned their head. This had become
life for them. Amidst the coughing and bartering, three children
pretending to kill each other was no more remarkable than anything
else.

I wanted to scream. I
wanted to climb on the nearest pile of rubble, look down at my poor
victims, and wail and beg for their forgiveness.

I'd done all this. The
Mamood had attacked this planet to get to me. And they hadn't gone
away despite the fact I'd annihilated over half their population
along with their god.

These people were
suffering because of me.

Cailen's arm wrapped
around my waist as he leaned in to whisper in my ear. His lips
grazed my lobe as the buzzing warmth oozed down to my very being. I
melted into his hold, vaguely aware of some idea that I'd wanted to
keep my distance. "Don't start," he whispered. Warm breath washed
through my hair and tickled my neck. My skin ached with the need to
be touched by him. "None of this is your fault."

And just like that the
fuzzy warmth blew away as my blood turned to ice. It
was
my fault and he had
no right to play with my emotions, especially because he knew
everything I felt. All because of a chemical that pulsed in our
blood, linking us to each other. I pulled away from his arm to put
some distance between us. I didn't like this bond. I just wanted to
have something that was all mine. I wanted to trust him. But I
couldn't. Not when I always wondered if he cared or if he wanted to
control me like he controlled himself.

"Ella," he called, but I
didn't stop.

I ran past the tarps and
tents, past Soltakians begging for food and water, Soltakians in
ripped and bloody shreds of clothes, and finally a row of
Mosandarian soldiers with their slanted eyes and silver bells
hanging from their necks.

I turned down one of the
few remaining alleys just beyond the broken market.

Cailen didn't follow me. I
could feel his frustration even from this distance and it made me
furious. I picked up a piece of rubble and threw it at a nearby
wall. The mortar smashed into pieces and fell to the ground. I
kicked it away and slid down with my back against the
wall.

A little girl was huddled
up against the same wall, just a few feet away from me. She looked
lost in a wad of shredded blankets with only her head poking out.
The dirt on her face was so thick I couldn't tell if she was pale
or dark-skinned. She looked at me with wide, shaking
eyes.

My heart clenched. I
didn't want to terrorize anymore. That's not who I wanted to
be.

I scooted over to the girl
with what I hoped was a reassuring smile on my face. She backed
away in terror, the whites visible around her eyes.

"I'm not going to hurt
you," I said.

The girl coughed into her
blankets. It was one of those heaving, dry coughs that went on and
on until you were sure a lung was about to follow.

I patted her on the back,
and then pulled her thick, greasy hair away from her face. She
coughed a few more times before lifting her head. Drops of fresh
blood soaked into the stiff fabric where her mouth had
been.

It wasn't until the girl
turned her face towards me again that I noticed her sunken eyes and
papery skin beneath the dirt. Her breath came in quick
gasps.

"When's the last time you
had anything to drink?"

The girl didn't
answer.

Soltak hadn't seen rain
since the night I summoned Manoo three weeks ago. And now, like
Cailen had said, water had become a precious commodity. One this
girl obviously didn't have the money to buy.

I looked over my shoulders
to make sure no one was watching, then turned back to the girl and
cupped my hands in front of her mouth. Calling up the green lights,
I joined them and filled my hands with a pool of water. She looked
through my hands, not seeing what was in front of her. I moved
closer to her until the water was touching her lips. She reacted at
the contact and plunged her face into my palms, lapping up the
water in seconds.

"Do you have any jars with
you?" I whispered. "Anything to hold more water?"

She glanced down at the
ground and I saw just barely hidden beneath her blankets a glass
jar full of rose-colored rocks. I dumped out the rocks and tapped
the bottom of the jar to get most of the dirt out as well.
Positioning myself to hide the jar between my body and the
wall--and away from any curious eyes--I joined more of the green
lights together until the jar was brimming with water. The girl's
eyes widened when I handed it to her. I quickly placed my finger in
front of my lips. She gave a small nod and tipped the jar to her
mouth.

Satisfied she'd be all
right for at least a little while longer, I stood up to walk away.
She recoiled, terrified even though I'd just helped her.

Perhaps for good
reason.

My spontaneous bouts of
rage were pretty much the only genuine emotion I knew I had. I'd
thought I'd loved Meir, but now I wasn't so sure. My feelings for
him were possessive and seemed only to fuel my rage. That couldn't
be love. Could it?

And what I felt for
Cailen...

I needed something I could
trust. Cailen was on the brink of being honest with me since I'd
come back, but only the brink. There was still so much he kept
hidden from me and if I couldn't trust my own body, none of it
mattered anyway. I wanted to fall in love with Cailen. But as long
as the drilium got in the way, I could never be sure. With my hand
on the wall, I slid back to the ground.

Was Cailen with me because
he wanted to be or was it because he needed me to live? I'd avoided
this question, this doubt, for the past few weeks. I couldn't avoid
it anymore.

And like a door had burst
open, my vision tunneled and darkness seeped out of the ground to
envelop me. The market and all its Soltakian patrons were gone. I
was alone in silence and inky blackness. My throat squeezed shut
and my heart seized in terror. I clawed at the air, looking for
something--anything--to pull me back to reality.

Arms stretched out of the
darkness to grab me and I shoved them away, screaming. And then the
darkness was gone and I was back in the market and the hands
outstretched for me belonged to an old man wearing dirt-stained
pants and a ripped shirt. His eyes were wide with worry. He took
hold of my arms and helped me up. I clutched my head and squeezed
my eyes shut.

"It's all right there,
missy. I got what you need." He patted me on the back, and then
pointed to the ComTat on his forearm, a raised bed of swirling
circuitry, no pulsing lights to indicate the passing of new
information. "I got it to work. I know what's going on now." He
pointed to his head. "I can tell you for a price."

My stomach twisted at his
touch and I knew then I needed to get away before I was sick. I
shoved past the old man and ran through the crowd, looking for
Cailen. When I couldn't find him, I fell back to the ground and
fought to hold in my tears.

The hallucinations were
not back. They
couldn't
be back. I needed to be in The Block. I needed
walls around me, not people. Not empty space.

"There you
are."

I jumped at the sound of
Cailen's voice and ran into his arms.

"We need to get back to
The Block," he said. "Something's very wrong."

Chapter Two

Worse Things Than Blackouts

Cailen dragged
me--not
quite
kicking and screaming--down the corridor toward my room. I
knew he must have felt my anxiety. Did he know about the blackout,
though? Is that why he was storming through The Block, leaving
nothing but bewildered soldiers in our wake?

"Is everything okay?" I
tried to control the anxiety in my voice, and failed. It had to be
about the blackout. He knew. I don't how he knew, but this was no
coincidence. He'd discovered my secret and now he was going to trap
me in my room so no one would get hurt by a very obviously deranged
Auri.

But we didn't go to my
room. We stopped at the door right before mine. Cailen's room. He
slammed his palm against the screen and the door slid open at its
own leisurely pace. Very under dramatic after Cailen's stomping and
my struggling to keep up. As soon as we could both feasibly fit
through the opening, he barged in with me coming right behind. He
let go of my wrist as soon as we were inside. The shimmering air
went back to smooth.

"So let's talk about
this." I didn't want to go there. In fact, I'd tried to keep my
first blackout a secret, but secrets were not my friends. I should
have known it would all come out eventually. Best to get it over
with. I took a deep breath and prepared to spill
everything.

Cailen mumbled something
as he sat on his bed and put a small wooden box on his nightstand.
He stared at the box with a hard expression on his face, totally
ignoring me.

Okay, so maybe this wasn't
about my blackouts. I pressed my lips shut.

Minutes passed and Cailen
never took his eyes off the box. I stood there, frozen, watching.
Sweat dotted his forehead and neck. His eyes clouded over from
green to almost completely black. I got the impression he was
trying to glean its contents through the sheer force of his will.
Finally, he took a deep breath and unclasped the lid.

We both made a collective
gasp. Well actually, his was somewhere between a gasp, groan, and
growl. Very hard to do, but he did it.

There, sitting on a bed of
black velvet, were three glowing green ovals with raised silver
markings. I stepped closer and rolled one beneath my finger,
marveling at the way it gave with just a little
pressure.

"What is this?"

He leaned back on his bed,
his head on his stark white pillow, and his eyes closed. "A lot
more than I can handle."

Fear ripped through to me,
and aching weariness, before Cailen took a deep breath and it all
went back to nothing. A tear slid down my cheek. I sat on the edge
of his bed, barely weighing it down. "What's wrong?"

"Do you remember anything
about the Fae'ri? I mean, besides what I told you at
Ranen's."

"You know I don't remember
anything." Nothing but Cailen's eyes. All those years and that's
all I remembered. I smiled, looking at his closed lids, at the
purple veins on his pale skin.

His jaw clenched. "Yes,
nothing."

"Why? Does this box have
something to do with them?"