The Lotus Effect (Rise Of The Ardent)

The Lotus Effect

Bridget Ladd

Text and Artwork/Cover Design © Bridget Ladd
2013

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be produced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses provided by copyright law.

Sited Sources for Artwork and Cover Design

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Photo of girl on cover: © Nejron Photo - Fotolia.com, Thank you!

To my readers: thank you for giving,
The Lotus Effect
, your time. YOU are amazing—do not allow anyone to tell you otherwise.

And much love to Stephen, ‘Boba Fetz’, and my family—for believing in me.

“
The Lotus grows in the most inhabitable of environments, and yet its beauty and purity persevere. A reminder that not all have to conform . . . or settle for what is.
”

—Theodore Teizel

~Prologue~

 
The Purge

I had never seen a single tree.

I wondered . . . I wondered if it would billow or stand firm against the currents of the wind. I wondered if it would be as straight and rigid as the city streets I see laid out endlessly before me. Or would it,
I wonder
, act upon its own bidding?

No one that I had ever known had spoken of them; only rumors in the streets, whispers of an Outland. No one but one.

And they had taken her.

No
. She was clever, the smartest even. Maybe she wasn’t captured, maybe she . . .
maybe she left
?

I looked with tear-filled eyes to the leather bound Architect’s journal that still smelled of my grandmother. She never would’ve given this to me if she thought everything was okay. This journal was her
life
, her world.
Why would she give her life away to me?

Running my finger down the length of the stained page, I despaired. In all my nine years, I’d never seen a single tree. To find my grandmother, I
had
to find the trees. And since they existed only as rumors here, tarnished illustrations on a page . . . this could only mean one thing: I had to go.

Leave Prosper.

I stood, still wearing the frilly dress from supper, and held the journal firmly to my chest. I tapped my small fingers against its hardened binding:
Tap
,
tap
.
Tap.
Repeat
.
Two quick dots and a longer dash—a cadence which soon fell in step with my beating heart.

In a flash, my fingers stopped their nervous drumming. My decision made. If I was to become the next Mistress of Science, then I might as well start acting like one.

I looked up, my eyes resting upon the curling wrought iron of the Estate’s main fence.

If no one else would go after her,
I
would.

~

Covering my bare arms with my hands, I rubbed what little warmth I could back into them. Perhaps I should’ve taken the time to grab my sweater—the soft one Mrs. Fawnsworth had knitted for me while she sat and scolded me through my arithmetic lessons of the past few weeks. What did she know about Science? She hated any of that ‘
learn’ied
’ stuff as she called it. She only feared what my mother would say if she found out I rather enjoyed drinking the sticky juice from the fruit bowls and grimying my hands as I played with the hanging roots of the Estate’s Hydroponics garden. Someone had to detangle them, otherwise they wouldn’t spread or grow to the edges of the glass tubes like they should.

What Mrs. Fawnsworth
really
feared was that, unlike my mother, she secretly enjoyed these things too.

A resounding sound in the distance made me jump, bringing me back to the reality of my mission.
Pop. Pop. Pop
. The noise again. I stared down the length of the deserted cobblestone street. The street that lay beyond the gates of the Estate. And its safety.

Where is everyone?

I had never traveled alone through Prosper, not even during the daylight hours and
especially
not at a time like this where the moon now rode triumphant. Though, surely the streets were never
this
deserted? Being the daughter of both the Head of Council and Mistress of Science, it could be dangerous. That Waif Wanderers and Abnormals roamed the streets at night.

I fidgeted in my dress.
How much time had passed since I’d been walking down this dreadful street?
Thirty minutes? An hour? And still, I saw no one. Only brick building after brick building, the occasional cart left out by a vendor. There was no point in trying to keep myself hidden within the low-hanging clouds. There was no one to hide from.

Do they even know I’m gone?

Keep moving
, I urged myself. One foot in front of the other . . . one breath after the next. If I was to find Grandmother Everette I had to find the things she loved most: her trees.

I slowed as I came to a fork in the road of Sector 8, unsure which way to take. I looked behind me, up to the arched footbridge that spanned the distance between two homes, not recognizing it.
Or was this Sector 7?
The two sectors looked the same to me: rows upon rows of stacked brick buildings that loomed above like giant shadows ready to topple. Sometimes, I wondered, if the footbridges were the only things that kept the structures standing. I had only ever glimpsed Sector 7 once, peeking from behind the slivered tear of the curtain in my father’s steam driven carriage. It had not been enough to form a strong impression then, leaving me utterly disoriented now.

Come on Lily, think!

Wasn’t Sector 7 the closest to the Wall? And the only trees to be found were beyond the Wall. Was
this
the reason why Mother was so angry with Grandmother? Had she flown her airship where she shouldn’t have . . . ?

I hate when Grandmother and Mother fight,
I thought absently
.

Turning left, I squinted as I saw an orange glow bounce erratically, mesmerizingly in the sky ahead. It was hypnotic, a thing of natural beauty that illuminated the fog of the buildings above. Surely Grandmother would have gone this way! She never would’ve passed up a sight this lovely.

I ran, swatting at my laced collar that kept rising to slap me in the face as I continued towards the dancing patterns in the sky. “Drat you, dreadful dress!” I yelled, as it once again plastered itself to the side of my now sweaty cheek.

I skidded across the gravel as I fought with the hateful fabric, but soon stopped, realizing the streets weren’t so silent anymore.

A rhythmic hum of foreboding and piercing sounds loomed further down the path that I had now managed my way onto. I dropped the ruffled end of my skirt and stood ramrod still.

That was not a spectacle of beauty in the sky I was following. That was a fire.

And those piercing sounds . . . those were screams.

~

Much like forgetting my sweater, perhaps I should’ve thought twice before running towards the danger.

It didn’t matter, I wouldn’t need my sweater now anyhow. It was hot. Sweltering even. What I
did
need was to find my grandmother, and I needed to find her soon. She
had
to be here. I knew it to the very core of my heart. And if she was, I had to prove to her that I could one day be a Mistress with as much zeal as she.

I will set things right again.

Like me, Grandmother Everette always ran towards trouble.

But tonight, I had to save her. Not because of duty, but because . . . because she was
my
journal. She was
my
life. In Mother’s eyes, I was never good enough. To her, something was broken within me—something that she’d never be able to fix. Grandmother however, told me on numerous occasions to ignore my mother, that in her eyes—I was the perfect blossom.

Following the awful sounds I suddenly skidded to a halt as I came around the corner of a tall stone building. A clock tower. The elaborate ornamentation carved across the tower’s siding struck a memory inside of me:
this is Sector 9.
I knew this because
Sector 9 had far surpassed any of the other Sectors with its superior architecture. Even mine.

My eyes traveled up the clock tower’s sides spiraling high into the sky—half of which was missing and crackling with fire.

I covered my ears when a shrill explosion went off to my left. A large mass of something pummeled through one of the buildings further down the street, shattering glass and mortar across the narrow path.

Hesitantly, I came out of my crouch, carefully removing my hands away from my ears. I realized then that people were trying to step over me, suddenly driven from their hiding.

“What’s happening . . . ?”
I asked breathlessly to anyone who would listen.
This is City Prosper. This isn’t supposed to happen . . . .

A woman in a torn gown grabbed my arm and pulled hard, trying to help me stand. “Come with us,” she urged. “We’ll find your parents as soon as we can. It’s not safe here!”

Her face was half hidden by a darkened bloody gash that swiped across her nose. It looked like an illustration of a river carved from her face, traveling downstream from her beautiful hair. It was wrong, out of place. Terrified, I tore my arm from her grip and staggered backwards. “No . . . NO. I have to find my grandmother! Have you seen her?
Please
.”

The clock tower above us started clanging the bong of each hour, the sound ominous, a warning almost—reminding me I was running out of time. The lady shook her head and reached for me again, but I backed away, stumbling away from her grasping fingers, determined to carry on my mission. I looked at her sadly as I backed further down the dangerous street. “I’m sorry, but I must find her,” I whispered, though I knew the woman couldn’t hear me. The crowd of frantic people ran into her, blocking her from my path—her presence already swallowed by the mass of those fleeing.

Ignoring how difficult it had become to breathe through my tight-fitting dress, I continued down the abandoned street littered with broken glass and rubble. Though soon I stopped and propped my hands upon my knees, willing myself to breathe properly against the heat and billowing smoke. The ends of my blond hair curled around my legs as I bent low, and somehow, it wasn’t the color that I remembered. Now it was gray, soot covered. Panting hard, I looked to the sky—it was snowing ash. The falling remains of Sector 9 spiraled to the ground like tiny memories. A tranquil daze almost. Coughing, I swiped the back of my hand across my leaking nose and eyes, the harsh smell already burning a path behind both.

Returning my hands to my knees, I looked to the stone beneath me.
 

—I stumbled backwards, not able to control the cry of horror that escaped past my lips. A dark crimson liquid pooled around the tips of my boots and clotted in the gathering ash. It trailed to my right, spilling from a crumpled form in the darkened corner.

I screamed.

“Lily! Move!” The unfamiliar voice called out to me just as another wave of rippling light tore into the stone of the building above my head.

Rocks pummeled sharply into my shoulders and I fell to the ground, watching in suspended horror as a massive stone broke away from the roof and tumbled heavily towards me.

I cried out again, squeezing my eyes tight.

But the impact never came.

Hesitantly, I peeked through my lashes only to open them in a rush, seeing the boulder unmoving, hovering a mere foot above my head. I blinked as I watched it linger there seconds before it veered to the side, crashing and shattering harmlessly into the cobblestones below.

Swiping the dust of gravel from my lashes, I turned quickly onto my belly and gasped when a hooded figure approached, offering a hand. My heart pounded against my ribs, the rhythm frantic, erratic.

Not knowing what else to do, I involuntarily reached out, finding my small hand enclosed within the stranger’s warm and calloused palm. It was a gritty embrace—small stones and bloody ash, I now realized with horror, clung to my palms. The stranger pulled me to my feet, then let go.
Who
? I coughed and though I tried, I could make nothing of a face beneath that hood. All was shielded within its darkened void.

My eyes skittered to the lifeless form to my right whose blood now too darkened the hem of my dress. My eyes widened in dread. I began to panic, frantically wiping my palms across a clean patch of dirt near my feet.
Oh, please, no . . . .

“It’s not her,” the stranger answered for me, before the thought even took form.

“But, how?
Who
are
. . .” I began, but became distracted . . . .

The cloaked head turned right, peering into the depths of the shadowed alley. “I know you’re there, boy,” the hard male voice called out. “Make sure she gets home.” His tone was demanding, authoritative.

I directed my attention to the narrowed corridor and saw no one as I stood shivering. No boy.
No one
he could’ve spoken to.

The hooded man left my side suddenly and I spun in time to see him striding openly in the direction from which everyone else fled. Bright lights flickered in great bursts in the fog ahead, beckoning him closer.