The Forgotten City (28 page)

“Good. Now kiss me. I hate it when we argue.” Lecivion leaned down and pressed his mouth against hers. Oren allowed it and even smiled when he pulled back, but when he put his arms around her and drew her close, her smile hardened and eyes turned to fury over his shoulder. He stepped back again and Oren blanked her expression.

“I must go, but we’ll eat together tonight …” he leaned in close and whispered, “and share my bed.” He kissed her face and stepped around her, leaving the room.

For a moment Oren stood there, fused by her anger, then she grabbed a piece of cloth from the bed in the corner. She wiped it hard across her lips and face where he’d kissed her, then she knelt down beside the bed and reached under, pulling out some loosened rock and lifting a small black chest from a hiding place. She opened it and very carefully removed an object – a framed painting of flames. She looked up at the wall, directly into Silho’s eyes, and whispered, “The flames.”

Silho jolted back to her hidden room, where she lay on the ground bleeding out. Oren’s words echoed in her mind and she heard the truth inside them. She had nothing to bind the wound, but she could cauterize it. She managed to lift her head and looked around the room, spotting one of the lava globes. She tried to crawl toward it, but her legs wouldn’t move. After several attempts she slumped back down, slipping fast toward the darkness of death. She saw a flash of her mother leaving her in the desert with Hammersmith. Oren had been clutching her stomach in the same way Silho was now, with blood seeping from between her fingers. She’d uttered,
“… war has fractured my soul, it has stolen my name and purpose. I am an alien to myself and a stranger in my own skin … Don’t become me.”

Silho’s eyes flickered open – the black rock ceiling spun above her.
Don’t become me
– Oren spoke again. Silho summoned all her remaining strength and rolled onto her stomach. She dragged herself hand over hand until she reached the wall, then she fought until she was kneeling up. It took her many attempts, but she finally raised the Omarian knife high enough to stab into the globe in the wall, smashing it, the lava gushing out. She let the burning stream run over the small blade until it was glowing hot. With shaking hands, she gripped the handle and lowered it toward her wound. As white metal contacted with skin, Silho felt an agonized surge of pain and heard the sizzle of her own flesh, but she pressed the blade harder knowing that this pain was life.

When she finally lifted the knife away, the bleeding had stopped. The skin was burned badly, but she could see it was already starting to heal, sealing the wound as it did. Silho could only assume that being half-Omarian, she was immune to the bone blade poison which Lecivion had spoken about. She slumped against the wall, crouching low. Her heart was racing, cold chills shivered through her and she couldn’t remember ever feeling so thirsty, even after half a lifetime in the desert – but she was alive. She rested her head on her knees and tried to regather some strength.

Her mind strayed back to what she’d just seen in the walls and to Lecivion’s words about her mother …
she was the last one … tattooed the marks of a firelighter … princess … Draigar
. Silho had never heard of that race before. She raised her head and looked at her arms. She had noticed that after her recovery from the Skreaf, the flames of her bloodline marks, the part she had inherited from her mother, had healed fainter – but she’d assumed the fading was just a side-effect from being burned so badly. She’d never considered that maybe they were faint because they weren’t real – but if they were just surface tattoos, they wouldn’t have healed back at all, unless Oren used a different sort of tattoo – maybe even involving magics. But then why could she heal like a Pyron, unless resistance to fire was also a skill of the Draigar? Maybe that was why Oren had chosen to pretend to be a firelighter?

Silho wanted to access the walls, to find more memories of her mother and to see exactly what had happened, to maybe even find her father here – to see when they’d first met. Who had her father been to Lecivion? Just a soldier? A friend? A brother? She wanted to know everything, but already she’d lost so much time. She had to get out of here. She stretched her legs, testing them, then using the wall, dragged herself up. Her head spun, and she closed her eyes, forcing herself into focus. Through her fingertips she accessed the walls and leaped through the castle, searching for something she could use to escape. At first she was looking for a portal, but soon realized that she didn’t know the words Omarians used to make them open, so she abandoned the idea and searched instead for a doorway out of Scorn. Silho raced through thousands of images until she halted over one picture. Her pulse skipped. Disbelief spread through her.

W
hen she finally reached home, Croy found her front door standing ajar, with the locks intact. Fear spiraled through her. She drew her Firestorm and edged her way inside, pausing in the tiny space of her sitting room. Objects had been disturbed. They were out of place – or rather, rearranged. She recognized the pattern and smelled a familiar perfume wafting in the air. She holstered her weapon just as her ex-boyfriend, Roth, and ex-friend, Angeline, came walking out from her bedroom. Roth was carrying a box of his possessions. They both halted when they saw her. The moment dragged on. Croy wanted to look away from them, but didn’t. Roth’s expression tightened and his eyes demanded her not to make a scene. He moved protectively closer to Angeline, who bit her lip and looked teary. Croy shook her head. How had it come about that even though she was the one they had cheated on, this girl came out looking like the fragile victim and Croy like the menacing maniac?

“We’re here collecting the last of my things,” Roth said, all business.

Croy swallowed back a reply. She went into the corner that served as her kitchen. She opened a cupboard and threw the rest of her package inside. Keeping her back to them, she looked out the window, a cool breeze brushing over her face. She wasn’t exactly sure what she was doing – perhaps perfecting the art of looking unconcerned while her heart was ripping in two. John L had once said she was silent on the outside but inside she was a storm, and at one time she’d felt like that, but lately she just felt defeated.

Croy glanced back at them. Angeline was watching her with concerned, sad eyes while Roth threw more things into the box. His elbow swept over one of the shelves, knocking something to the floor. It was a fossilized megator egg that John L had given her, from one of his early expeditions. It hit the rock floor and split in two. Roth started to pick it up, and Croy felt her anger exploding. She rushed over and snatched it away from him with more force than was necessary.

Roth made a snorting sound and muttered something.

“If you have something to say, just say it,” Croy said, breaking her own resolve not to speak.

“It’s not worth wasting my words,” he replied.

“Then don’t,” she said. “I already know what your thoughts are anyway.”

After a moment of silence, he demanded. “How can you live like this?”

“Like what?”

“In this shrine. Every surface is filled with him. You’re obsessed with him. I know he was your carer, but this is unnatural. And the worst thing about it is that he was a bad person – a traitor – why waste your time exulting someone who doesn’t deserve it and never did?”

“Roth, maybe we should just —” Angeline tried to intervene.

“No!” he snapped at her. “I refuse to feel guilty about this when it’s clearly her fault. Admit it,” he demanded from Croy, “you can’t love anyone else because you’re in love with him – you’re obsessed! That’s why you can never make a relationship work.”

“Keep telling yourself that,” Croy said.

“I will because it’s the truth.”

“It’s your truth, not
the
truth. The truth – plain facts? You cheated. I’m not stupid – I know people fall in and out of love all the time. I never expected you to want to stay with me forever, but I did expect honesty. You should have just broken up with me, not gone sneaking around. Maybe it was exciting for you two or something, but don’t try to pin your wrongs on me. I have faults, but I never would have done this – to either of you.”

“Maybe I should go,” Angeline said.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have come,” Croy threw back at her. “You know where the door is. You came in and out enough when I wasn’t here.”

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I’ll wait outside.” She hurried to the door and left.

“You’re unbelievable!” Roth turned on Croy.

“And you’re a liar!” she yelled back, losing all control. “Get your stuff and get out – once and for all!”

“I’ll go because I can’t stand to be anywhere near you, but just so we’re clear – this is still
my
house. I’m only allowing you to stay here because Angie feels sorry for you.”

His words, each of them, cut inside her.

“I paid for half of this place.” Croy tried to keep her voice steady.

“Please.” Roth snorted. “Your wage barely covered the front gate. I had to pay for everything!”

“Because you’re a Conference assistant and you make so much more than me – yes, I remember. I could never forget, you reminded me enough times.”

“Because I fought to get where I am and I wanted you to do the same – to have some self-respect, some drive or ambition, other than your ridiculous fantasy of joining the Fleet. But no, instead all you wanted was to stay in your same bog role with that idiot DeCavisi.”

“Don’t talk about him. Don’t even say his name!” Croy warned.

“Sorry, did I step over the line and mention the love of your life, did I?” Roth fumed.

“So I’m in love with John L and I’m in love with Darius and that’s why you had to cheat with her?” Croy shook her head.

“I fell in love with Angie because you pushed me away, and now I’m going to marry her and have a real relationship. Don’t make trouble for her at the Tower or I’ll make trouble for your beloved Darius – you know I can. Stay away from her. I mean it.”

“Just get out!” Croy shouted.

“I’ll come into
my
house whenever
I
want,” he growled back.

He grabbed up the crate and left, slamming the door behind him.

Croy waited to hear their footsteps on the gridway. When they had faded to nothing, she rushed to her bathroom and sank down in one corner of the cramped space. She covered her face with her hands and fought to slow her breathing. Blades of pain cut through her leg. She tried to stretch it out, but couldn’t – the pain was swelling, erupting, a burning dagger slicing through flesh and bone. She lunged for her toilet pail and struggled, with shaking hands, to unlatch it and push it aside. She grasped her stash from underneath and dragged it out. Croy grabbed one of the pre-filled syringes and tried to inject herself, but her hands were trembling too much and her eyes were blurred with tears. She blinked them back, furious at herself for letting Roth hurt her again so much. Darius was right, she was stronger than this, but it was hard to dismiss Roth’s criticism completely when part of her wondered if it might be true – maybe she hadn’t been loving enough, maybe she had been too cold …

“Stop,” she hissed at herself. She forced her hands steady and plunged the needle into the scar tissue. Very gradually the pain dulled to numb. Croy dropped the rest of the syringes back into the hiding place with her other contraband and the stash of John L’s papers that she hadn’t turned in with the rest after they locked him up. She dragged herself to her feet and limped out into the sitting room, where she stood in the center of the space, looking around. It felt emptier, lonelier. She could feel the silence pounding in her heart. This wasn’t home. It was a prison.

Croy rushed to the door and ran out of the house. She raced to her dragger and took off, at first flying with no direction, but then she found herself heading back to the place she always went when things turned bad. Croy landed on the deck of the Dower Brothers warehouse, where over twenty annums ago the Dower Brothers had lost their minds and axe-murdered all their Gray workers. It had been abandoned ever since. Despite Nÿr-Corum’s lack of space, nobody wanted to use it. They said it was haunted. John L had thought no one would find him there – his one mistake. Controllers had shot him as he ran away, and he’d fallen over the railing into the Mother Fire below. Croy lowered to one knee beside the place where her father had fallen and rested her head on the cold metal bars. Her body relaxed and the tears came. Once they started, she couldn’t hold them back.

“John …” she whispered, “I’m not doing so well … I miss you …”

She clutched the shrapnel pendant – the last thing he’d ever given her. He’d told her, never take it off,
as long as you wear it, I’m still with you …
The thought gave her comfort.

Croy’s I-Sect buzzed in her ear. She sniffed and wiped a hand over her face, then tapped to open the line.

“Croy,” Darius’ voice came through with the sounds of cheering and chanting in the background. They’d obviously won their game. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she lied, trying to disguise the thickness of her voice. “You won?”

“Game was dirty,” he replied with disgust. Darius preferred losing a good game to winning dirty. “Where are you?”

“Nowhere.” She used the rail to help herself stand. The knee was already hurting again. Panic stirred insider her, but she kept her voice steady. “Just on my way home.”

“Do you want me to come over?”

More than anything she wanted to say
yes
, but instead she said, “No, I just want to sleep.”

A woman’s voice spoke in the background close to Darius’ ear, something about going back to her place.

“Are you sure?” Darius asked Croy, and she heard him taking a drag from his tigaro.

“Yes, I’m sure. I’ll just be sleeping anyway.”

“Right.” Darius said. “Call me when you wake up.”

Croy tapped out of the conversation and looked over the edge. When she needed her partner the most was when she pushed him away the hardest. Maybe Roth was right. Maybe it was all her fault.

*****

Croy reached home just as the high winds siren started to scream. A massive frozen-air hurricane was hammering at the Saint’s Door. She lay in bed, shivering under her blanket, watching the shadows flowing across her ceiling, the winds shaking her whole house. It was too dangerous to light a fire in these conditions, and she felt sorry for the Controllers who were out on shift this nighturn. The wild winds made people go crazy at the best of times – and these were the worst.

She closed her eyes, physically and emotionally exhausted, but she couldn’t sleep. Her mind kept dragging her back through the argument with Roth over and over again. She thought of everything she should have said but didn’t, and everything she did say that she shouldn’t have. Her knee had started pounding with pain and her stomach was cramped with hunger, but finally she managed to drift into a restless sleep of realistic nightmares. She lay there in her bed with a dead-eyed Mortician standing over her holding a scalpel. He snarled and stabbed it down into her knee. She woke screaming into another dream where she now stood over Victoria Kilner scratching symbols into her flesh, except the girl was still alive and screaming, her face becoming John L’s as he ignited into flames. He was yelling for her help, but she was lying on the floor, one of her legs severed at the knee, spilling blood. She couldn’t stand, she couldn’t get to him. She saw a flash of eyes, the darkest that she’d ever seen, and heard a whisper …
Shah … Shah-Jahan …

Croy woke, lathered in sweat, her shirt stuck to her skin. She ripped back the blankets and sat up, gulping, feeling sick to her stomach. She staggered into the bathroom and kneeled beside the toilet pail, but nothing came up. Hunger pains crunched her in on herself. Something very strange was happening to her and it crystallized in her mind at that moment that the Crematorium was at the heart of it.

She forced herself up and was dressed before she fully realized what she was doing. She slung her kit over her shoulder, pushed the Firestorm into its holster and battled her way out into the howling winds. Objects sailed past her head, smashing into houses and gridways. She made it to her dragger and had to force it to start. The ride coughed and lifted up with the greatest of reluctance, as if it knew where they were going.