Lark Ascending (35 page)

“You're awake!” Basil exclaimed, striding toward me and gazing hard at my face.

Caesar glanced at Oren. “Is she—”

“Feeling fine, I think” Oren interrupted him before he could finish.

I glanced from Oren to Caesar, a dim memory returning to me. “I heard you—I heard you talking, while I was sleeping. What did you think had happened to me? Who was I supposed to be?”

“You,” Oren said fiercely. “You're you.

Caesar turned away, shoulders bowed. Basil watched him, then came closer to me so he could take my shoulders and give them a squeeze. “When we found only you, and no sign of Eve, we thought—damn it, if Kris were here, he could explain it.”

Oren eyed Basil sharply, but when I insisted, he caved enough to add, “Kris had a theory that since you were so connected, your minds, that there was a chance you'd be…”

“You thought I might be Eve on the inside.” I glanced at Caesar's broad shoulders as he sank back down onto the packing crate, unable to look at me. “Sorry to disappoint you,” I whispered.

Caesar's head snapped up, the grief in his gaze turning to anger. “You stupid girl,” he snapped. “I'm not—I'm glad you survived, Lark. You're my sister. More than ever, you're a part of me. But that doesn't mean I'm not—” His voice broke, and he turned away again. “I'm allowed to grieve too.”

I closed my eyes. “I'm sorry, Caesar.” As I exhaled, the tiniest flicker stirred in the back of my mind. “But—I don't think Eve's dead.”

“What?” Caesar's voice was rough.

“I'm not sure, but I can still feel her. We're still connected. Not in my mind, where the magic was, but—she's out there, somewhere.”

A commotion at the door caused all three men to tense, leap to their feet, and step between me and the exit; when it opened to reveal Kris, Caesar grunted and dropped back onto his crate.

Kris's eyes fell on me, and for a moment it was like none of this had ever happened, and he smiled at me the way he had when teasing me about eating all the watermelon at the Harvest feast. “You're awake,” he said softly, still standing with one foot outside and the other on the lip of the door.

“And I'm myself,” I added wryly, noting the way his shoulders dropped with relief as I spoke.

“That's the best thing I've heard all day,” he replied.

I had one more question I needed to ask—even if I was pretty sure that the lantern by my bedside had given me my answer. “Did I—what about the magic?”

“Gone,” said Kris, his smile vanishing. “No trace, no sign it ever existed at all.”

I glanced at Oren, who nodded confirmation. “A city full of shadows like me,” he said.

“Not exactly,” corrected Kris. “A city full of people who no longer have magic to separate the light and dark. In time I think we'll learn to control it, as you have.”

I sighed, grimacing when the air brought with it the stench of underground decay. “Why are we down here?” I asked. “Why not recover up in an apartment, with real beds?”

Basil and Oren both looked at Kris, who looked back for a long moment before looking at me. He opened his mouth to speak, but hesitated so long he had to let his breath out before trying again. “Lark,” he said slowly. “The people… they don't understand what you did. They only know that you destroyed the magic.”

“They don't know that you saved them all,” Oren broke in, anger on my behalf making his skin flush dark.

“They want justice.” Caesar's voice was heavy.

Numbness crept back in, sighing through my limbs until they hung like lead, the iron bird dangling from my fingertips. “You're hiding me—from all of them.”

“Give them time,” Basil said earnestly. “They'll understand. They will. Oren will teach them to control the darkness as he does, and they'll realize that they're free. They'll realize that you've given them back this world.”

“They'll understand… the way my parents did?” I glanced at Caesar, whose good eye met mine for only a fraction of a second before sliding away. I closed my eyes, the truth welling up like tears. “I can't stay here, can I?”

My answer came in silence; Oren was the only one who would meet my eyes, the winter-sky blue muted by the lantern flame.

I swallowed. My voice sounded dull and empty. “I'm tired; I think I'd like to go back to bed.”

•  •  •

It took weeks for me to be able to use my hands again, and even then it was hard to do much of anything without pain. My struggle with Eve over the dome had burned the flesh from my palms, the heat so intense that even the backs of my hands were wrinkled and scarred. I had to teach myself again how to do the simplest of tasks. Kris removed a set of stitches from my cheek, a gash I'd forgotten getting in that final battle against Eve and the architects. I knew there was a scar there, that there'd always be a scar there; I knew that, between it and my hands, I looked like a monster. But Kris never blinked, and if Oren even noticed, he never said a word.

Oren—Oren, who watched over me, Oren, whose faith never faltered. Oren, who never left my side unless he absolutely had to rest, letting my brothers take over the watch. Even Caesar, who struggled to be near me for long and never spoke, took his turn.

It was late one night—or possibly midday, I had no way of knowing—that Caesar finally broke the silence between us. “I'll always know what you did,” he said quietly.

I looked up, bracing myself for censure.

“Even if these people never understand.” He met my eyes, his gaze sober. Though the beard and the patch over his eye concealed his features, for a brief moment I could see past them. “I always will.”

I didn't reply, my throat too tight for words. I dropped my gaze, and when I managed to look up again, he'd returned to the book he'd been reading.

Oren helped me learn to use my hands again, with a patience I never knew he possessed. And yet he was no less fierce, no less quick and wild—his fierceness was for me, for his belief that I could be whole again. He made me do stretches and exercises, curling my hands around his, squeezing until my eyes watered in pain. He kept at it, massaging the damaged tissue and nerve endings that would never fully heal, until slowly the scar tissue began to thin, and stretch, and give me hope that someday I'd be able to do again the things I'd taken for granted, like hold a pen, or turn a page, or slide my fingers in between Oren's and let them nestle there, the way they were made to interlock.

“But my face,” I whispered one night, touching the scar on my cheek with fingertips too swollen to feel it. “My hands. How can you stand to—”

Oren leaned over to kiss me just beside my ear, where I could feel the change; the way his lips felt against the scar tissue was different from the flush of sensation in the healthy skin. “How could I stand not to?” He pulled back so I could see his face, and while I watched, he allowed a swirl of shadow to caress his features, flickering through his eyes and past his lips. “You've seen my face; do you love me any less?”

His dedication only made my heart ache all the more. Part of me would have been happy to stay here forever, hidden underground with Oren, and with Kris and my brothers. But that was no life for them, and no life for Oren. And sooner or later, the people I'd saved would find me. I had to go. And the boy who'd struggled so long on his own had a home now—how could I expect him to give it up for me?

Quietly, I began to make plans to leave the city. I knew Kris and Basil would understand; though I hadn't been aboveground, I knew the city's hatred for me must be strong indeed, if they'd rather see me banished than stay. But Oren—Oren wouldn't understand. He
couldn't
understand. He'd tell me to stay, to fight for myself, that I was strong enough to face down anyone in the world. And so I couldn't tell
anyone
, for fear Oren would know, and stop me.

Basil was staying only long enough to see me safe and help Kris reestablish order in the city above. Lethe was his home now, and though there was no longer a crisis of magic to deal with, someone would have to teach his people how to live in this new world, how to deal with the new aspects of themselves. Dorian had left some days before I woke up, planning to return to the Iron Wood. It stood empty now, but without the need to protect its people from the Institute, he expected them to return.

Even Kris had his place; I saw less of him than the others, because he was helping to rebuild the government of the city. The Institute lay abandoned, in ruins, but most of the city was unharmed and, following the collapse of magic, in a panic. Kris's charisma and talent for handling people were proving vital.

I made mental lists of supply caches to raid on my way out, calculated my exit route, composed and discarded a thousand notes to leave for Oren. And I waited.

It was midmorning, according to the time up above, when Oren next left my side to get some rest. This time Kris took over for him; my brothers were both up marshaling the crowd, preparing for a rally in which Kris would begin assigning new work orders to the city's people. According to him they'd begun to adjust to having their darker sides manifest, now that the magic suppressing them was gone. There'd been incidents, but casualties were low. Kris was optimistic.

I feigned sleep until he began to doze, cheek resting on one hand propped up against his knee. I lingered for a moment after I slipped out of bed, scanning Kris's features. I thought he'd look older, wiser, more battered for our experiences; but he looked just the same as he always had, that brown hair tumbling down over his brow, the handsome features relaxed in sleep. I swallowed the urge to push his hair back and reached for my pack. The pack held my knife and the fire-starter I'd been carrying since Oren gave it to me all that time ago, when I was still a weakling, when I knew nothing of survival; when I was still just Lark.

I quietly slipped the straps over my shoulders and reached for the door; but then I heard a sigh and the rustle of movement. Kris was awake.

“Wait—Lark, where—” He blinked at me, frowning. “Where are you going?”

I bit my lip, hesitating. I could tell him I was going for a walk, let him think I'd be back in an hour or two.

But he read my answer in my hesitation, and confusion dimmed to understanding. “Are you sure you're ready?” There was no sign of his old smile on his features.

I flexed my fingers; they hurt only a little, and every day I could move them more. I could hold my knife; I could start a fire. I could survive on my own. But that wasn't what Kris meant. “I think so.”

“He's going to try to follow you, you know.”

I winced, glancing at the corner where Oren usually sat while I was asleep, watching over me. It was empty, but I could imagine him there anyway, quiet and unyielding. “I know. That's why I'm leaving now. Don't tell him, Kris—give me as much of a head start as I can get.”

Kris's features hardened a little. He didn't approve, but he didn't argue, either. I'd noticed that none of them argued with me anymore. They let me win every conversation, always, like I'd earned some sort of free pass. It made my heart ache, made me long for the days when Caesar would call me stupid and Kris would protest my headstrong plans of action. It was like I was no more than a ghost already.

“Thank you,” I said when he didn't answer; I took his silence as acquiescence.

“There's food in the room next door,” he said, clearing his throat. “Now that people can gather food outside the Wall, they don't much care about the rations left down here. That's what we've been feeding you.”

I swallowed hard. I'd been planning to detour to the old resistance caches and raid them for supplies—Kris had saved me valuable time. “You're not going to try to tell me to stay, or to say good-bye to everyone?”

The ghost of Kris's smile flickered across his lips. “I know better than to argue with you.”

I found myself smiling back, in spite of myself. We watched each other, and our smiles faded slowly, like drawings in the sand, washing out on the tide.

“Lark,” he whispered, moving toward me. “I don't… I don't know if I ever truly apologized for my part in what was done to you.”

My throat closed. I shook my head, looking down at the floor so he wouldn't see my eyes growing wet, that even now the apology stung like fire. “You were doing what you thought was right.”

“And I regret it every moment.” His fingertips sought my chin, lifted it, forcing me to meet his eyes. “Promise me you'll come back to us, one day.”

I stretched up onto my toes—I hadn't realized how much taller Kris was than Oren—and leaned in to press my lips to his cheek. “I promise.”

I stopped long enough in the room next door to fill my pack the rest of the way with Kris's supplies, laying the fire-starter on top and tucking the knife into my boot. I'd regained my health in the days since I'd woken, but as I navigated the tunnels, I realized there was still a long way to go before I'd be fit again. Leaving the city this time would be only marginally easier than it had been the first time; I'd be just as weak. And this time I wouldn't just be leaving my home, I'd be leaving my heart.

It took all my strength to climb up the ladder and shoulder the hatch open. When light came pouring in, nearly blinding me, I realized I had no idea what the city above looked like anymore. As I dragged myself up to street level, I gazed around, blinking my streaming eyes. I lifted one hand to shield them from the light and gazed upward.

The iron Wall overhead had shattered, great sections of it crumbling to rust and raining down on the city below. Some of it remained, jagged shards like eggshells standing as a reminder of what the founding architects had built here; this great technology, lost and now useless without the Resource—without magic.