The Young Elites (4 page)

He doesn’t say a word. Instead, he kneels at my feet, then grabs the chains that shackle my ankles to the stake. The chains in his grasp turn red, then white hot. They quickly melt, leaving my legs freed. He straightens and does the same to the noose around my neck, then to the chains binding my wrists.

Black scorch marks on the walls. Bodies melted from the inside out.

My arm shackles break. Immediately I collapse, too weak to hold myself up, but the boy catches me and lifts me effortlessly into his arms. I tense, half expecting him to sear my skin. He smells like smoke, and heat emanates from every inch of his body. My head leans wearily against his chest. I’m too tired to fight, but I still try. My surroundings swim in an ocean of darkness.

The boy brings his face close to mine. “Stay still,” he whispers into my ear. “And hold on.”

“I can walk,” I find myself muttering, but my words slur together and I’m too exhausted to think clearly. I think he’s taking me away from this place, but I can’t concentrate. As darkness descends, the last thing I remember is the silver insignia on his armguard.

The symbol of a dagger.

City of Estenzia

Northern Kenettra

The Sealands

To the north, the snowy Skylands. To the south, the sweltering Sunlands. Between them lie the island nations of the Sealands,
jewels of wealth and trade in a world of extremes.

—
Nations of Sky, Sun, and Sea,
by Étienne of Ariata

I
dream of Violetta. It’s late spring. She is eight, I am ten, and we are still innocent.

We play together in the small garden behind our home, a blanket of green surrounded on all sides by an old, crumbling stone wall and a bright red gate with a rusty latch. How I love this garden. Over the wall climb blankets of ivy, and along the ivy bloom tiny white flowers that smell like fresh rain. Other flowers grow in bouquets along the wall’s edges, brilliant orange roses and cornflower patches, red oleander and grape-colored periwinkle, stalks of white lilies.

Violetta and I always loved to play among the clusters of ferns that sprouted here and there, huddled together in the shade. Now I spread my skirts on the grass and sit patiently while Violetta braids a crown of periwinkle blossoms into my hair with her delicate fingers. The flowers’ scent fills my thoughts with heavy sweetness. I close my eye, imagining a real crown of gold, silver, and rubies. Violetta’s braiding tickles me, and I nudge her in the ribs, suppressing a grin. She giggles. A second later, I feel her tiny lips plant a playful kiss on my cheek, and I lean against her, lazy with contentment. I hum my mother’s favorite lullaby. Violetta listens eagerly, as if I were this woman that she barely knew. Memories. It’s one of the few things I have that my sister doesn’t.

“Mother used to say that faeries live in the centers of white lilies,” I tell her as she works. It’s an old Kenettran folktale. “When the flowers fill with raindrops, you can see them bathing in the water.”

Violetta’s face lights up, illuminating her fine features. “Can you really?” she asks.

I smile at how she hangs on my words. “Of course,” I reply, wanting to believe. “I’ve seen them.”

Something distracts my sister. Her eyes widen at the sight of a creature moving under the shade of a fern leaf. It’s a butterfly. It drags itself between blades of grass under the fern’s shelter, and when I pay it closer attention, I notice that one of its shining turquoise wings has been torn from its body.

Violetta whimpers in sympathy, hurries to the struggling creature, and scoops it into her hands. She coos at it. “Poor thing.” The butterfly’s remaining wing flutters weakly in her palm, and as it does, tiny clouds of glittering gold dust float up in the air. The frayed edges of its torn wing look like teeth marks, as if something had tried to devour it. Violetta turns her wide dark eyes to me. “Do you think I can save it?”

I shrug. “It’s going to die,” I say gently.

Violetta holds the creature closer to her. “You don’t know that,” she declares.

“I’m just telling you the truth.”

“Why don’t you want to save it?”

“Because it’s beyond saving.”

She shakes her head at me sorrowfully, as if I’ve disappointed her.

My irritation rises. “Why did you ask me my opinion, then, if you’ve already made up your mind?” My voice turns cold. “Violetta, soon you’re going to realize that things don’t end well for everyone. Some of us are broken and there’s nothing you can do to fix it.” I glance down at the poor creature struggling in her hands. The sight of its ripped wing, its crippled, deformed body, sends a jolt of anger through me. I slap the butterfly out of her hands. It lands upside down in the grass, legs clawing at the air.

I’m instantly sorry.
Why did I do that?

Violetta bursts into tears. Before I can apologize, she clutches her skirts and jumps to her feet, leaving periwinkle blossoms scattered in the grass. She spins around.

And there behind her stands my father, the smell of wine hovering about him in an invisible cloud. Violetta hurriedly brushes away her tears as he stoops to her eye level. He frowns. “My sweet Violetta,” he says, touching her cheek. “Why are you crying?”

“It’s nothing,” she whispers. “We were just trying to save a butterfly.”

Father’s eyes settle on the dying creature on the grass. “Both of you?” he says to Violetta, his eyebrows raised. “I doubt your sister would do that.”

“She was showing me how to care for it,” Violetta insists, but it’s too late. His gaze wanders to me.

Fear hits me and I start to scramble away. I know what’s coming. When the blood fever first passed through, killing a third of the population and leaving scarred, deformed children everywhere, we were pitied.
Poor things.
Then, a few parents of
malfetto
children died in freak accidents. The temples called the deaths acts of demons and condemned us.
Stay away from the abominations. They’re bad fortune.
So the pity toward us quickly turned to fear. The fear, mixed with our frightening appearances, became hate. Then word spread that if a
malfetto
had powers, they would manifest when he or she was provoked.

This
interested my father. If I had powers, at least I could be worth something. My father could sell me off to a circus of freaks, gather a ransom from the Inquisition for turning me in, use my power to his advantage,
anything.
So he has been trying for months now to awaken something in me.

He motions for me to come to him, and when I do as he says, he reaches toward me and holds my chin in his cold palms. A long, silent moment passes between us.
I’m sorry for upsetting Violetta,
I want to say. But the words are choked by my fear, leaving me quiet, numb. I imagine myself disappearing behind a dark veil, vanishing to somewhere he can’t see. My sister hides behind Father, her eyes wide. She looks back and forth between us with growing unease.

His eyes shift to where the dying butterfly is still struggling in the grass. “Go ahead,” he says, nodding at it. “Finish the job.”

I hesitate.

His voice coaxes me on. “Come now. It’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” His grip on my chin tightens until it hurts. “Pick up the butterfly.”

Shaking, I do as he says. I grasp the butterfly’s lone wing between two fingers and lift it into the air. The glittering dust smears on my skin. Its legs scramble, still fighting. My father smiles. Tears shine in Violetta’s eyes. She had not intended this. She never intends anything.

“Good,” he says. “Rip off the wing.”

“Don’t, Father,” Violetta protests. She puts her arms around him, trying to win him over. But he ignores her.

I try not to cry. “I don’t want to,” I whisper, but my words fade away at the look in my father’s eyes. I take the butterfly’s wing between my fingers, then rip it from its body, my own heart tearing as I go. Its naked, pitiful form crawls in my palm. Something about it stirs a darkness within me.

“Kill it.”

In a daze, I crush the creature under my thumb. Its broken carcass twitches slowly against my skin, before finally growing still.

Violetta cries.

“Very good, Adelina. I like it when you embrace your true self.” He takes one of my hands in his. “Did you enjoy that?”

I start to shake my head, but his eyes make me freeze. He wants something out of me that I don’t know how to give. My shake changes to a nod.
Yes, I enjoyed that. I loved it. I will say anything to make you happy, just please don’t hurt me.

Nothing happens, and my father’s scowl deepens. “There must be something more inside you, Adelina.” He picks out my ring finger, then runs one hand along it. My breaths quicken. “Tell me I’ve at least been given a
malfetto
daughter of some use.”

I’m confused. I don’t know how to answer. “I’m sorry,” I finally manage to utter. “I didn’t mean to upset her. I just—”

“No, no. You can’t help yourself.” He glances over his shoulder at my sister. “Violetta,” he says gently, nodding for her to come close. She inches forward. “Come. Let’s see if your sister has any value.”
Let’s see if she has any powers.

“No, Father, don’t—please—” Violetta begs, then tugs at his arm. “She didn’t do anything. We were just playing.” My heartbeat quickens to a frenzied pace. We exchange a frantic look.
Save me, Violetta.

My father shakes her off, then turns his attention back to me and tightens his grip around my ring finger. “Are you worthless like that butterfly, Adelina?”

I shake my head in panic.
No. Please. Give me a chance.

“So
show me.
Show me what you can do.”

Then he breaks my finger at the joint.

I bolt awake, a silent scream on my tongue. My crooked finger throbs, as if it’d been broken only a moment ago instead of six years earlier, and I rub it instinctively, trying as always to straighten it out. Dark tides churn in my stomach, the familiar ugliness that my father liked to nurture.

Then I squint in the light. Where am I? Sunlight slants into my unfamiliar bedchamber from arched windows, filling the space with a cream-colored haze, and gossamer curtains ripple in the breeze. On a nearby table, an open book lies beside a quill and inkwell. Plates of jasmine blossoms sit on dressers and balcony ledges. Their sweet scent was probably the reason why I dreamed of my sister and me in our garden. I shift gingerly, then realize I’m lying in a bed piled high with blankets and embroidered pillows. I blink, disoriented for a moment.

Perhaps I died. This room doesn’t really look like the waters of the Underworld, though. What had happened at the burning? I remember the Inquisitors lined up on the platform, and my hands struggling against iron shackles. I look down at my hands—white bandages cover both of my wrists, and when I move them, I can feel the burn of chafed skin underneath. My torn, dirty clothes are gone now, replaced by a clean silk robe of blue and white. Who cleaned and changed me? I touch my head, then wince. Someone also wrapped a cloth tightly around my head, right where my father had pulled at my hair, and when I gingerly comb a hand through my hair, I realize that it’s been scrubbed clean of its filth. I frown, trying to remember more.

Teren, the Lead Inquisitor. A beautiful, blue day. There were the iron stake, the soldiers, and the lit torch. They had thrown the torch onto the pile of wood at my feet.

And then I turned the sky black.
My eye widens as the memory comes rushing back.

A knock at my chamber door startles me. “Come in,” I call out, surprised at the sound of my voice. It feels strange to give orders in a bedchamber that isn’t my own. I brush locks of my hair over the left side of my face, hiding my scar.

The door opens. A young maid peers inside. When she sees me, she brightens and comes bustling in, holding a tray laden with food and a glass of sparkling cordial. Flaky rose bread, still giving off warm clouds of steam; a thick stew swimming with golden chunks of meat and potatoes; iced fruit; fat tarts of raspberry and egg. The rich smell of butter and spices sends my head spinning—I haven’t eaten real food in weeks. I must look amazed at the slices of fresh peaches, because she smiles at me.

“One of our traders connects us with the finest fruit trees in the Golden Valley,” she explains. She sets the tray on the dresser next to my bed and checks my bandages. I find myself admiring her robe, like the merchant’s daughter that I am. It’s made out of a shimmering satin trimmed with gold thread,
very
fine for a servant. This is not coarse cloth you buy for a handful of copper lunes. This is material worth real gold talents, imported straight from the Sunlands.

“I’ll send word that you’re awake,” she says as she carefully unwinds the bandage on my head. “You look much better after a few days’ rest.”

Everything she says confuses me. “Send word to whom? How long have I been asleep?”

The servant blushes. When she touches her face with her hands, I notice how impeccably polished her nails are, her skin pampered and shiny from scented oils. What place is this? I can’t be in an ordinary household if the servants look as impressive as she does. “I’m sorry, Mistress Amouteru,” she replies. So. She also knows my name. “I’m not sure how much I’m allowed to tell you. You’re safe, rest assured, and he should be here shortly to explain everything to you.” She pauses to reach toward the tray. “Have a bite, young mistress. You must be starving.”

Hungry as I am, I hesitate to eat her offering. The fact that she seems to be treating my injuries doesn’t explain what she’s healing me
for.
I think back to the woman who took me in after that night, how I thought she would help me. How she threw me instead to the Inquisition. Who knows what poisons might be in this food? “I’m not hungry,” I lie with a polite smile. “I’m sure I’ll feel up to it soon.”

She returns my smile, and I think I see a hint of sympathy behind it. “You don’t need to pretend,” she replies, patting my hand. “I’ll leave the tray here for when you’re ready.”

She pauses at the sound of footsteps down the hall. “That must be him. He must already know,” she says. She releases my hand and offers me a quick bow. Then she hurries toward the door. But before she can leave, a boy steps inside.

Something about him looks familiar. An instant later, I realize I recognize his eyes—dark as midnight, with thick lashes. This is my mysterious savior. Now, instead of wearing that silver mask and his hooded robes, he’s clad in finely spun linen and a black velvet doublet trimmed with gold, clothing exquisite enough to belong to the wealthiest aristocrats. He’s tall. He has the warm brown skin of northern Kenettrans, and his cheekbones are high, his face narrow and beautiful. But his hair holds my attention the most. It looks dark red in the light, so dark it’s almost black, a rich shade of blood that I’ve never seen before, tied back into a short, loose tail at the nape of his neck. It is a color not of this world.