When Copper Suns Fall (15 page)

Soon, the airvans arrived at our destination.
It was a ghost forest ripped apart by nuclear bombs and the tidal
waves caused by them. The volcano rumbling in the distance was a
result of the two clashing forces, hands that rocked the world.
Father said volcanoes had formed all over Corunum after the Tidal
Years ended.

Each one of us was briefed by Thoughtmaster
Oxendine. No one else said a word when he started handing out
marker bags to the first group. Then we were dropped off at quarter
mile increments.

What did I say to Father the day he brought
me? I was headed into the bowels of the beast. Now I was about to
do just what I had said.

Stepping down off the bus, I took a couple of
steps across the dry, red soil and adjusted my backpack. It
contained a tracking device, an extra pair of boots, a container
for my orb marker, and crackers to nibble on. I forced thoughts of
rumors I’d heard about kids who disappeared in the Ruins out of my
mind. If I thought about it too much, I was sure I’d run back to
the bus, crying to go home. Diranna and her crew would love to see
that.

Thoughtmaster Oxendine stepped down behind
me. “Show us what we already know about you, Miss Prizeon. Rumors
say there is a lady on the water willing to help those she finds
worthy.” Before I could say anything, he stepped back up to the
airvan, shut the doors, and drove off. I was left wondering how I
went from celebrating the Falling Lights with my friends a month
ago, to standing in a place known to be populated by outcasts and
wild animals.

I trudged across a dead land with no idea
about where to go or what I needed to do first. Charred trees,
steaming craters, and scraps of metal stood where communities and
lakes used to be. Dead tree branches twisted into wooden monsters.
Small tufts of dried grasses grew in various places. The place was
filled with death. I felt as if all the sadness people had
experienced in this site was trying to force its way under my skin,
aching for a chance to steal my last bit of courage.

Crunching over rocks scorched by the volcano
in the distance, I half expected to hear screams. Instead, squawks
echoed somewhere in the distance. Dread filled my chest. The cries
were eerily similar to the bird that carried Micah off in my
nightmare. Only this wasn’t the place I dreamed about. It couldn’t
be.

Up ahead, a group of trees filled with bright
green life formed a band in the midst of the crater-filled, dry
land. I headed toward it because I wanted to be anywhere besides
the dried out destruction of the Ruins. Thoughtmaster Oxendine had
said to look for a lake with a floating lady. If there were such a
thing, a living forest sitting among the dead lands would probably
lead a blazing path toward her.

At the forest’s edge, I arrived at the place
where the lifeless met the living. Amazed by the hard contrast
between the two places, I stepped across the natural line and
trudged through trees until I came to a pond. Sure enough, a girl
sat on a straw mat floating on the water. I laughed, wanting to
remind myself this wasn’t a dream. She had pale skin and dark hair
as if waves of chocolate melted over her white dress. Her
delicately noble facial features were familiar in some way I
couldn’t place.

Snap! I spun around to investigate the noise
behind me and stumbled over a rock. My head slammed into it, making
me see stars just before the world darkened.

In my dream, the girl’s head lifted. She was
floating in the air on something like a large lily pad.

As I sat near the edge of the pond, she
looked into my face with wise eyes, smoky and familiar, and smiled.
I inched closer, drawn to this girl holding a glowing ball the size
of a grapefruit. It was the marker I’d been assigned to find.

Lifting the hand holding it, she blew a kiss
that sent the ball gliding across the air between us. Grasping the
warm bulb in my hands, I laughed and glanced at the girl whose
expression faded from amusement to shock. She opened her mouth, a
silent warning. The dream faded. I sat up, cradling my forehead.
Blood covered my fingertips. The orb was beside me, vibrating as if
I were the one who put it there instead of a girl floating over a
pond in my dream.

Hisses, cracking twigs, and metallic clanks
came from behind me. I sucked my breath and hopped to my feet.
Whirling around, I faced three creatures that looked like two men
and a boy wearing ragged, brown outfits. Their exposed skin was
painted black and had white lines shaped like triangles drawn on
their arms. Outcasts.

“Looky look what we got here—a living,
breathing chromo kid.” The voice didn’t match his gruff looks. It
was a young voice. So the rumors were true. People who lived in
these forests wore spiked outfits and painted their bodies. I
shuddered and could only imagine why.

“How do you—you don’t know if I’m one of
those.”

He laughed hearty and deep as the spikes on
his back clicked together. His sidekicks laughed with him. “Quiet,
ignorants,” he said. They did as he said. “Look at your fancy
clothes. It’s like a screamer. All crisp and clean even while you
stand there sinking into the mud. Even when you think I don’t see
you reaching for that expensive blade.”

He was talking about my plum suit made of
spandex treated with radiation diverters and my less than
champion-like effort to reach for my saber.

“I smell your fear.” He sniffed the air.

“Yeah? I smell something pretty rotten too,”
I said.

His smile dropped in a wink. “Give me the
orb. We might let you go with only a few bruises.”

One of his sidekicks spoke next. “What about
Rabia, Sanakim? She told us not to—”

Sanakim’s back fist to the sidekick’s nose
silenced him. The squish and crack made me wince. “Give me the orb.
Now.”

“You want the pretty orb? Then you’ll have to
catch me first.” I turned and dashed into the trees, passing by the
lake where I’d seen the floating girl. She’d vanished. It was as if
she’d never even been there. The trees blurred, as if I rode in a
car. I’d never run so fast.

How was I doing this?

And then I felt the wings, bulky but light,
too.

They fluttered behind me, all feathery and
honeysuckle scented. I was a human bird. They appeared as if I’d
willed them into reality. I snorted and laughed even though this
wasn’t the time to have an insane moment. Father had told me about
angel-bloods with wings. But he always said there weren’t any more
around. Mixing with human blood diluted the celestial purity. He’d
be thrilled to see me now.

The wings gave me speed. But I wasn’t fast
enough, and didn’t know how to use them.

Something sharp struck the bone connecting
the right wing to my back. Unbelievable pain, as if I’d been
branded, surged into areas on my backside I didn’t even know
existed. I glanced behind me. Lunging into the air, the sidekick
struck me in the back. More pain as I crashed to the ground. He
clamped down on the sharp object in my back. I screamed. My new
wings stopped fluttering, easing back into wherever they’d come
from until my back was almost smooth again. The orb had shattered.
This boiled me up, giving me courage to fight even with the
pain.

Behind my captor, creatures with spiked backs
emerged from inside the woods around me. I didn’t need a lesson to
recognize the mutated dogs being led on chains. Sedwigs. Yellow
eyes surrounded by dry, crusty stuff, scanned me as spit slid down
their protruding fangs and plopped to the ground.

If I died out here, a chain of failures and
let-downs for the people I loved most would begin.

And I wasn’t going to fail Micah.

“Hold her down,” an unseen Sanakim said to
the outcast holding me.

“No!” I yelled.

Flipping over, I sent a fist into the
sidekick’s chin, a strong blow. He fell backward. Sanakim burst
into the clearing, charged at me with blazing speed, skidded to a
stop, and stared. Had my wings not gone all the way back in? I
guess seeing them was enough to shock the spiky bunch and their
mutated dogs pretty well.

“Ha. You’re afraid, aren’t you?” I said,
consumed by fear, yet somewhat confident in my self discovery. That
was until the growl came from behind me.

It was a combination of a lion’s roar and an
elephant’s trumpet. And it stood close enough for its warm breath
to heat my backside. As Sanakim and crew eased back toward the
woods, I turned around. If I had to face death, I would do so in a
brave way. It was a panther. No, that name didn’t fit. It was more
like a huge jaguar with the mane of a lion, but sleek with oily
colored fur, eyes glowering at me, and silver nails extending as I
stood there gawking.

I knew what it was…the mythical Beast.

We’d found each other.

Funny how luck always did that for me.

Before I inhaled another shaky breath, the
Beast shuffled its feet, preparing to attack. I bent down and
grabbed a few orb marker fragments before I turned and ran. Sanakim
and the other outcasts trailed close behind me. No one was a match
for the Beast. Legend claimed it could run as fast as a hurricane
because it was the one who led them in. It was somehow the carrier,
this beast of myth and Tribunal legend.

I ran until I reached the forest’s edge, a
cliff overlooking a river of lava. Just Wonderful. Spinning around
as panic hammered my chest, I turned just before the Beast leapt
into the air. I dropped to one knee, covered my face with my hands,
and then…nothing. I thought I was about to be ripped apart.
Instead, screams sounded behind me, agonizing wails. I spun around.
The Beast didn’t waste any time. It mauled the outcasts poised to
attack me and was surrounded by Sanakim’s helpers and their
sedwigs. The Beast appeared to be outnumbered. Wrong. It roared
just before it took off running after two outcasts, sedwigs close
behind.

For the longest time, I stood and scanned the
trees in front of me. I was too shocked to think, in too much pain
to run. Trees rustled in the wind. Lava spurted up behind my back,
and somewhere up ahead, the Beast growled.

Was it heading back toward me?

Inching backward, I sensed the edge of the
cliff too late, lost my balance, and slipped over the side. I fell,
grabbing hold to a ledge on the way down.

Dangling over the edge, I hung on with all my
strength. But my fingers ached, my injured right hand throbbed, and
the back pain was beyond words. Dirt driveled into my eyes. Heat
stung my feet. I screamed until my voice cracked. My fingers
slipped. I closed my eyes, prepared for death.

The reaper wouldn’t get me this time,
though.

Hands grabbed my arms and pulled me up before
I’d even fallen an inch. Losing its prize in a wink, the fire below
me raged on.

* * *

He grasped my arms and lifted me. I glanced
up at him. His eyes filled with concern were a dark gray in the
evening light, but still wonderfully hypnotic. I gasped as he
pulled me up and over the edge. Faris.

“Try to be calm. Breathing in this heat will
make your throat sore. Look at me.” He braced my shoulders and
applied pressure to the arrow stuck in my back. Hot pain waved
through me. I winced. “This is poisonous,” he said. “I have to pull
it out.”

“Will it kill me?” I said, wondering what he
thought of the wing fragment still unable to withdraw all the way
into my back. He tore the top of my suit, exposed my bra, and moved
the strap from over the wound. My cheeks burned.

“It might.” He wiped a drop of poison onto
his fingertips and smelled it. “Lucky you. It’s not laced with
glutovirus.”

“How did you know to come here?” I said.

“Be still, now,” he said, applying more
pressure. “I found your trail.”

“So, you really are a Tracker?”

“Something like that.”

“Thanks for taking your sweet time.” Sweat
beads prickled my forehead, and the sweltering heat made me
dizzy.

“You should be wary of thanking me, right
now,” he said.

I scoffed. “Why is that?”

“Because I’m about to make you angry,” he
said.

“Oh yeah? What will you do? Besides, you just
saved me. Why would I—” A scream cut my sentence off. My scream—a
reaction to the soul-wracking pain waving through me. Faris had
pulled the arrow from my back.

“You could’ve warned me, you know,” I said in
a shaky voice. The wound throbbed as Faris worked on a salve,
careful to avoid the damaged wing fragment. I couldn’t take his
silence anymore. “Can’t you see it?”

“I know what you are. You’re not remarkably
skilled at keeping secrets. Especially the ones that could get you
killed.” He dabbed the wound with his ripped fabric.

“What’s that supposed to mean? And did I see
spikes growing out of those outcasts’ backs?”

“You did,” he said. “It’s what happens when
you don’t take your ale-meds.” My heart sank. It must have shown on
my face because a faint smile played on his lips. “I’m kidding.
They make themselves up to look that way.”

“Joke around like when we’re not standing so
close to a lava pit. And when some mythical creature isn’t trying
to tear us apart. Did you see it? It was as large as a horse.”

“It wasn’t that big,” he said.

Fire flared behind us. A large lava spurt
shot up behind us, making me jump into Faris’s arms. He steadied me
with ease.

“You didn’t answer my question. Are you a
Tracker?”

“No,” he said, leading me up an embankment
away from the flames. Then he stopped, turned me around, and
continued to clean my wound. “I’m here because I might have
followed you.”

“You’re stalking me, then? That’s neat,” I
said in a drunken voice, vision blurring. The area around us faded
until blackness eased in. My knees buckled. The last thing I
remembered was Faris calling my name before he lifted me. I focused
on his troubled face, fading by the second. The Beast would get us
for sure, now, all because I got shot by outcasts. I lowered my
head into Faris’s chest, basking in his strange, sweet scent and
said, “Don’t leave me all alone here.”