Lark Ascending (14 page)

“We know nothing about her,” I said softly. “She could be capable of anything.”

Oren tensed. “She's powerful,” he argued.

“So? I'm powerful, Oren. But all it means is that I can stop a man's heart with a thought; it doesn't mean I can change the way things are.”

“You think there is no cure?” He looked up at me, and for an instant his heart was in his eyes. How could I break it?

I hesitated. “I don't know,” I whispered. “I want it to be true.”

“Then I'm doing it.”

It was my turn to pace, the narrow confines of the room making it impossible for me to vent my doubt and confusion. “What's the harm in waiting? Get to know her better, find out what she can do, before she starts trying to change you.”

“She's not changing
me
; she's erasing the shadow.”

“That
is
you!” The words were out before I could stop them. Even in the tiny room they seemed to hang in the air, invisible and permanent.

Oren's eyes closed over, his face shutting down. I hadn't seen him look at me like that since the days we first met, when everything I did was wrong and weak. Now his gaze stabbed through me, my heart cracking.

“You've always said that I am not the monster,” he said quietly. “That we're separate.”

I shook my head, wishing desperately I could erase the last thirty seconds. “I meant that the shadow gives you strength; it's why you're here now, with me. It's terrible and awful, but it's a part of you. And I don't want Eve or anyone else changing you or taking you apart, even if they think they can put you back together exactly the way you were.” The words spilled out of me before I knew what I was saying, before I had time to understand my own heart. “I love you, shadow and all. I love all of you.”

Oren's expression was stricken. For what felt like an eternity, he just gazed at me, breathing hard. My thoughts screamed at him to speak, to break this awful silence—to say something, anything. When he finally did speak, though, I wished he had simply let the quiet hang.

“If you're in love with the monster, then you're not in love with me,” he said quietly. “And all of this has been some sick, twisted charade.”

Before I could reply, he turned and left, the door banging shut behind him. I could hear his footsteps fading down the corridor, swift and angry. I wanted to go after him, but I was rooted to the ground where I stood, my eyes burning in the gloom.

A warm metal body tucked itself close against my neck.
“He is frightened,”
Nix said.
“He will return.”

“Oren doesn't get scared,” I whispered.

“He is human,”
Nix replied.
“More or less.”

•  •  •

Though I had no interest in eating while my stomach was twisting so unhappily, I knew Caesar's advice was sound. Particularly if rations were so slim, I couldn't afford to skip any meals. I didn't know where Oren had gone, but I felt certain he would not have gone to the Hub, angry as he was. He was still, in his heart, a loner. I still had time to convince him to wait before letting Eve attempt anything. I knew Oren well enough to know that I had to let him calm down before I tried to broach the subject again.

So as soon as I could walk steadily, I made my way from the room. I was getting used to the tunnels and managed to find the Hub without any wrong turnings this time. I half expected to find the mass of rebels still gathered, faces upturned, waiting for Eve to come back. But when I arrived, it was as though nothing had changed. Craftsmen were still working on bits of machinery, repairing furniture, and poring over schematics. On the far side of the Hub was a line of people shuffling past a low table, behind which a woman sat handing out crude dishes. Underground or no, I recognized a ration line when I saw one. I headed toward them.

As I threaded my way through the scattered clusters of people, a sound caught my ear. A handful of children were being led by a middle-aged man in a chanting chorus that I recognized—the lilting pledge of devotion to their leaders. When I was a child we pledged devotion to the architects and the Institute that kept us all safe from the horrors beyond the Wall. As a little girl it had made me feel protected, loved, important. Worth keeping safe. In my clumsy, childlike way I'd always felt a surge of loyalty, standing there in my classroom with my hands clasped in front of my heart. I watched the children as I passed, wondering if they felt anything while they chanted, these children of war who never got the chance to grow up feeling safe. Did the chant help?

For a brief second I felt a strange urge to join them, to speak the words that had once so affected me, in the hope of recapturing some of that certainty. But I kept walking. Because this wasn't the chant of my childhood—the words had changed. They weren't promising their devotion to the Institute anymore. Who were they pledging to now?

I resisted the urge to break my stride and listen and made my way over to the ration line. The woman divvying up the food looked about ready to snap, the circles under her eyes making her look twice her age. I'd been heading toward the back of the line, but I paused and redirected my steps toward her.

“Can I help?” I found myself asking.

The woman looked up, startled. She had striking eyes, a green so pure it reminded me of the leaves just beginning to bud on the trees outside. Her face was so plain that I found myself staring, taken by surprise by her gaze.

“Who are you?” she snapped.

I recognized that hostility. She was waging her own war, here at this table, dividing too few rations among too any people, all of whom would have some reason why they should get more than their share. Each one with a story to break your heart.

“My name's Lark,” I said, trying not to respond to the barb in her tone. “I'm—”

“Caesar's sister,” the woman interrupted me, surprised. I held my tongue—I would not have defined myself that way—and nodded. Her brow furrowed in confusion. “Why would you want to waste your time here? You're from beyond the Wall.”

Word traveled fast, even if Eve was the main headline. I glanced at the line, which had already begun to stretch longer since I'd been talking to this woman. “Because I need something to do,” I confessed. Part of me wanted to explain that I wasn't from beyond the Wall, that this was my home. But the words stuck in my throat, and I knew it wasn't entirely true. Not anymore. “I know nothing about machines, I've given my tactical thoughts to Caesar already, and you look like you could use a hand.”

The woman stared a moment longer, but when the old woman at the head of the line cleared her throat loudly, she jumped. “Okay. Yes, thanks. Sit here, use that ladle. Three-quarter scoop of porridge for each bowl, no matter what.” She demonstrated, then passed the bowl out to the impatient lady, who eyed me suspiciously and then carried her bowl off to eat.

I began filling bowls, trying to focus on the ladle. At first I kept dropping clumps of porridge on the table, earning a sidelong look from the woman each time, but eventually I learned the trick of it. I set the bowls down beside my partner, who handed them on to the hungry rebel masses.

After a time, the woman spoke again, startling me out of the repetitive trance I'd fallen into. “Talk to me about something. Martin's coming, and he's always got a sob story about why he should get more. If we're talking maybe he'll just take his food and go.”

On the spot, I just gaped at her for a few moments. Then, stammering, I managed, “So—what is this stuff? That you're feeding them?”

“Grain mash,” said the woman, one eye on the approaching Martin, an old man with thinning gray hair. “Everything goes in. Mostly it's ground-up ration crackers and the occasional handful of oats. We've got plenty of water, so we just add as much as we can to try and fill it out a bit.”

I swallowed, looking down at the off-white mush I was dishing out. There were darker lumps in it, but I was sure I didn't want to ask what they were.

The woman let out a short, quick laugh. “Don't make faces,” she said. “It's not as bad as you think. Whenever we get nuts or the occasional bit of dried fruit, we toss that in too. You get sick of it, but it does the job.”

I watched as she handed Martin's bowl to him. He looked at it, then at my partner. I knew before he opened his mouth that he was about to protest, and so I blurted, “I bet if you ever managed to waylay some sugar beets, you could make a syrup for it that'd be pretty good.”

The woman was watching Martin calmly. “The Institute doesn't send out luxuries anymore, only the bare rations. We make do with what the people above can spare, which isn't much.”

Martin grumbled and moved on, glaring down at his meager bowl of mush.

My partner chuckled and glanced at me. “There, you've already made my job ten times easier. My name's Myrah.”

I smiled and ladled another bowl of mush. “Lark,” I repeated.

We continued to serve out rations, sometimes chatting, sometimes sitting through long periods of comfortable silence, for the next two hours. It wasn't until a familiar voice broke me out of my reverie that I realized how much time had passed.

“He's got you working the food line now?”

I jerked my gaze up to find Kris standing there, smiling that crooked smile at me. He looked tired, but not nearly as bad as he did when we first found him outside.

“My idea,” I said firmly. “Not Caesar's. It looked like Myrah needed some help.”

Kris nodded a thank-you to Myrah as she handed him his bowl. “Can you take a break and come eat with me?”

I glanced at Myrah, who smiled and made a shooing motion. “Go, we've made a big dent in this line. Thank you.” Her face didn't seem quite so plain when she smiled. She pushed a bowl—three-quarters full—into my hand and then turned back to her task.

Kris led me to an unoccupied section near the edge of the cavern and sat down on the floor, cross-legged. I joined him, stretching my legs out and balancing my bowl on my knees.

“Not exactly the glamorous life,” Kris muttered.

“I've spent most of the last year sleeping on dirt and bathing in creeks,” I pointed out. “This isn't so bad.”

Kris's lips twitched, but he was in too solemn a mood to let me coax a true smile from him. “I'm sorry about how this has turned out.” He poked at his mush with his spoon, gazing at it as though it might provide him with whatever he was looking for. “I wasn't expecting them to get Eve.”

“You told them she was being moved. You had to know Caesar would try to use that information.”

“I told them to warn them,” Kris replied drily.

“Do
you
know what they were trying to do? Why unplug their power source at a time like this?”

Kris hesitated, and though his eyes were fixed on his bowl, I detected a hint of a struggle there. “Not entirely. There's a lot that you don't know about the Institute, Lark. We're not all bad.”

“I never said you were.”

“I know, but you think—never mind. The only reason to take Eve off the power grid would have been to let her Resource build up to higher levels. When she's connected, the power flows out. But when she's on her own, it just continues to regenerate. That's what they were doing.”

“To what end? As a weapon?”

Kris shook his head but otherwise didn't answer, his expression troubled. He was hiding something from me; but at the same time, if he was truly keeping secrets, he was capable of concealing it better. I had to conclude that he simply wasn't ready to tell me what he knew. In his heart, he was still an architect. Every moment he lived here with us must feel like torture, a betrayal of his own people.

“Maybe it's for the best Eve's here now,” I said lightly. “Of everyone involved, you were the only one who thought I could lead these people. Eve's a born leader. It just means I can do the work and let her handle the people here.”

Kris tipped his head to one side, conceding that much. “I'd bet a week's rations that you're the reason we're not all pixie food right now.”

“I wouldn't take that bet,” I responded. “I may have dealt with the pixies—but Eve's the one who kept this place from erupting into mass hysteria.”

Kris snorted. “I'd take panicked and alive over calm and dead any day.”

A laugh fought its way free of my throat, and I found myself grinning at him. “You have a point there.”

“What exactly did she do?” Kris asked curiously. “To calm everyone?”

“Just talked. She has some kind of influence over people, some way of making them all fixate on her and only her.” I glanced at him. “Weren't you there?”

Kris looked down at his bowl. “I left as soon as I saw her getting up on that table.” He shoved a spoonful of mash into his mouth.

“You knew what was coming,” I breathed. “You knew what she could do.”

Kris pointed at his mouth, making a show of having to take the time to finish his mouthful before speaking. It bought him a few moments, but even so, he hesitated after swallowing. “Not exactly. But I headed one of the research teams assigned to her when I worked at the Institute.”

I was struck anew by how much responsibility Kris had had there, despite his young age. He was older than me, but not by more than three or four years, and he was the head of an entire team of architects. Now, he was just a boy sitting cross-legged on a dirty floor, eating soggy ration crackers.

“What is she?” I asked finally. “She's no ordinary Renewable.”

“She used to be.” Kris still wasn't looking at me, focusing on his lunch. “Until we began our work.”

He still referred to the Institute as “we.” Maybe that was why Caesar didn't trust him, thinking that he still considered himself one of the architects. But I knew better. For Kris, it was a constant reminder of his guilt. Of a series of decisions that had led him further and further from himself.