Swords of the Imperium (Dark Fantasy Novel) (The Polaris Chronicles Book 2) (38 page)

“Trash.” Lucatiel planted a foot on my chest and pushed me over. “You’d hit your own sister, but you won’t raise a fist to scum who steal from you? Humiliate you? Try to hurt you?”

I wanted to insult her—tell her she wasn’t family. But what she’d said was horribly correct. In this moment, I was no different from those blackguards who beat their wives and children because they were too cowardly to do anything else. I punched the ground hard as I got to my knees. “Yeah. I guess I’m trash, after all. I’m sorry. Even though you tried to hit me first.”

She sighed and paced. “Does it happen every time?”

“Does what happen?”

“I’ve been watching you, and this confirmed it. You know what people will do to you before they do it. Don’t you? That’s why you hopped out of the way of the knife. That’s also why I couldn’t lay you out right away.”

My stomach turned. “That was just luck. And you’re a spiteful sort, so I knew you’d try to menace me somehow.”

“You’re a shitty liar. Tell me the truth, or perhaps I’ll accuse you in public next time. The authorities
really
don’t want little demons running free, you know.”

“Damn you!” I clenched my fists but decided against simply swinging at her. If I wanted to save myself, I’d need to get on her good side. “Okay, fine, you win. I’ll tell you everything, but I need some time to collect my thoughts.”

“Stop stalling and tell me now.”

There was no evading her, it seemed. “I…sometimes get these visions of what people’s actions will be a few moments before they happen. I don’t want the visions, and most of the time I’m scared shitless. I’d managed to suppress them, too, before you showed up. Now, I’m having them more often. So please,
Sister
, if you really want to watch over me, help me keep this secret.”

“That’s the first time you called me Sister…” Lucatiel bit her lip and for a moment, her scowl wavered. “Though I know you didn’t mean it. That aside, clairvoyance is a pretty big deal. If you were fighting alongside Father, he’d have a much better chance of survival out there. So why should I do a damned thing to help your stupid cover-up? Why won’t you just come out and enlist?”

I clasped my hands together. I looked pathetic, but I didn’t care. “Because I don’t want to hurt anyone! I just want to be a clerk! Or a scribe or…or whatever! I want to live in peace!”

“That’s what your mother wants. Not you.”

“I have a good future in the bureaucracy. I won’t end up digging ditches. I refuse to end up in the army.”

Lucatiel snorted. “I’d love to go back. That was
living
, you know.”

“You call starving and killing all the time ‘living’?”

She poked my chest. “I call things as they are. And you,
Brother
, are lying to yourself.”

“I’m not. I just want to live in peace.”

“You
don’t
. You actually wish you were out there fighting in the trenches and gutting fools. You’re frustrated when you have to hide your gift and rely on the adults to bail you out. You’d kill Feyd without hesitation if you thought you’d get away with it.”

I frowned and massaged my sore stomach. “What’s your problem? Why are you so violent? Why did you have to come to my house? Why did you have to wreck my family?”

“I didn’t ask for any of this,” she said. “I didn’t make Father carry on with
my
mother, though after meeting yours, I can understand why. But unlike you, I’m honest with myself and know what I want.”

“Then go! Run away! Stop making Mother so miserable!”

“I can’t.” Lucatiel threw up her hands. “Much as I’d like to pack up and leave the bitch, I can’t.”

“Is it money you need? Take mine, then!” I thrust my handful of credit slips at her.

“The only thing these are good for is wiping my ass. Do you have any milligrad?”

“Of course not. Only yokels pay for things with…with ancient bullets.”

Lucatiel rolled her eyes. “Well, I’m just japing, anyway. Even if you gave me a clip of Old Nayto, I wouldn’t leave. I have to watch over you.”

“I don’t want you to. I don’t like you.”

“I don’t like you, either. But I made a promise to Father, and I can’t take that back.”

I shook my head. “That man abandoned us both. You don’t have to honor
any
oath to that deadbeat.”

Lucatiel slapped me. “Show some respect. He sacrificed much for me when he didn’t have to. And through me, he’s watching over you too.”

My cheek stung, and I grimaced. “He doesn’t care about me.”

Lucatiel drew back as if to strike me again but relented. “No, he
does
. He knew you were special, and he knew you’d slip up one day. You’ll show everyone what your mother wants you to hide. So he made me promise to not let you die.”

“Ridiculous! I’m not going to die. We’re in the heartland. This isn’t some mudhole.”

“You’re naïve. Those boys who like to beat you are a bunch of true sickos. Do you realize that any other little thug would’ve gotten bored with you long ago? Not these assholes. They aim to kill you. Feyd wanted to shove his pigsticker in your gut today.”

“That’s not true. He’s just…” In truth, the beatings had become more vicious. And more than a few times, they hadn’t even bothered to take my credits. I’d been seeing more weapons as well.

Lucatiel sighed. “If you really used your foresight, you’d beat Feyd easily. Maybe even take on all three of the boys at once and win. I’d love to have what you have.”

“I already told you why I can’t.”

“What a coward!”

“I just want to be a godrotting clerk.”

“You may not get the chance.” Lucatiel crossed her arms and spat. “After I broke his face, Feyd swore he’d come back with a rifle. I’m not sure I’ll be able to stop him if he does. Watch your back, Aslatiel.”

For the next few days, I was buoyed by optimism. My tormentors were nowhere to be seen, I received no summonses to behind the shed, and even Lucatiel left me alone. I was finally free to do as I wished. I was free to practice my letters in the stillness of the small school archives, and for the first time in a while, I had enough to buy from the women hawking sweet snacks outside the walls.

I even started to feel a small measure of gratitude to Lucatiel for what she had done. Perhaps it had been as she had said, and she had driven my bullies off for the moment. With any luck, that moment might stretch out until I left to take the placement exams for the bureaucracy.

After classes finished, I would often take refuge on the school’s rooftop and while away the hours with a copy of Kongze’s
Analects
. Mother was rarely home early, and I found an empty house to be burdensome on my spirit. Up here was the right combination of solitude with the reassuring sounds of activity below. So I settled in on the rooftop and quickly lost myself in my book.

A hobnailed boot crunched into my midsection and sent me sprawling on the ground. I choked and sputtered in vain while my lungs burst into flame and stomach juices raked my throat. Before I could even take an agonizing breath, two pairs of meaty hands hoisted me to my toes. I recognized those hands, and I recognized the snickering duo they belonged to.

Pyotor and Fedor weren’t brothers, but they looked enough alike that it was easy to make the mistake. They also shared the same interests, which mainly involved torturing captured mice and voles with live embers from the fires the pair would set in the outskirts of school property. More than once, they’d made me capture the creatures for their amusement. There had been rumors that they’d once abducted a girl from our school and killed her, but no corpse had ever surfaced, and nothing had ever come of the investigation. The only one who ever seemed to command their respect—or perhaps fear—was Feyd. And now, Feyd was right there with them and laughing in my face.

Normally, he possessed an elegantly refined beauty that made most everyone swoon in his presence. Today, his face looked like a rotting tomato. His nose was pushed over to the left, his cheeks were purplish green, and his eyebrows were so swollen that they almost obscured his eyes. A garish laceration on his chin oozed blood down his shirt. This was all Lucatiel’s doing.

“After I kill you, I’m going to rape your sister and then kill her, too,” Feyd said. In his hands was a rifle. To make matters worse, the rifle was a true relic from the days before the Fall: a tool for slaughter.

My eyes widened. Feyd grinned to reveal that his front teeth were missing. He thumbed a lever on the gun, detached the magazine, and flashed it at me. It was stuffed with shiny, brass-cased, copper-jacketed cartridges. Also relics of the old world; they amplified the power of their companion guns to completely destroy targets. We called them “milligrad,” and in less civilized parts of the world, they were currency.

“I’ve more than enough firepower to end you and that ugly blue-eyed bitch ten times over,” Feyd said. He slapped the magazine back into his rifle and charged it.

“Feyd, you bastard,” I said. “If you’re caught with that, you’ll hang. I’ll make sure of it! I don’t care who your father is!”

He jabbed the butt of the rifle into my gut, and I started to retch again. Pyotor and Fedor cackled. “If you beg for mercy and kiss my boots, I’ll shoot you in the face. If not, I’ll blow off your parts one by one, and you’ll die screaming.”

Mother had always told me never to fight, not even if my life depended on it. If I threw away my future and got thrown into the army, it would be the same as death. But up here, what was the alternative? There was no one else to rely on right now. No teachers, no administrators, no gendarmes. And would any of them really care? I was laughably helpless.

The realization made me desperately desire a weapon in my hands. Now I wanted, above all else, to hurt my captors. I gleefully imagined plunging a sword into Feyd’s gut and decapitating the others. At least then I’d take the bastards down with me.

My body warmed, as if I’d been doused in liquid fire. What had felt like steel vises restraining my limbs now felt like flimsy scraps of cloth. I knew I could break away now. Then, I’d kill them all. I felt Fedor and Pyotor tremble with realization. Triumph burgeoned in my throat.

A blur invaded my peripheral vision a moment before Lucatiel’s knee crashed into the side of Feyd’s head. Before he hit the ground, Lucatiel drove her fist into Pyotor’s throat. I felt the cartilage of his larynx collapse on itself before I actually heard the sound. The boy flopped backward with a whiny gasp. Fedor pushed me to the ground, and as I tumbled, I saw him attempt to grapple my sister. She ducked under his clumsy try at a bear hug and caught one of his arms behind him to whirl his body in front of her.

A piercing crack buffeted my senses, and Fedor went limp, gushing crimson from his chest. Now I could see why: Feyd’s gun smoked, and he tugged at the bolt to send a brass cartridge flying off to the side. If he had any regrets over shooting Fedor, I could not say for sure. He aimed and pulled his trigger again. Lucatiel zigzagged out of the way and then sprinted up to Feyd before he could chamber another round.

I stretched out my hands and tried to call to Lucatiel, but she’d already grasped him by the ruff of his shirt. Effortlessly, she spun him around and then threw him against the rusting links of an ancient fence that ringed the rooftop. The barrier disintegrated, and Feyd disappeared from view. I heard a short shriek and then a thud.

I dashed up to where Lucatiel was and peered over the edge. Feyd was face down with his limbs twisted at unnatural angles. Surprisingly, there was no blood splattered around him as I’d expected. I wheeled on Lucatiel. A corona of energy shimmered around her.

“You murdered them! You’re…you’re
glowing
!” Realization hit me like one of Feyd’s bullets. I’d always assumed I was the only one in my family with the taint. But Lucatiel’s was plain as day to see. Nausea struck me and stung my eyes.

She backhanded me, and I fell to the ground. I wasn’t surprised at that. But what came next rendered me dumbstruck. She was crying.

“Why, Aslatiel? I protected your secret! Haven’t I earned your praise? Why can’t you just be grateful?”

A moment later, the city guard burst on to the rooftop. Lucatiel turned, wiped at her eyes, and put her hands up.