When Copper Suns Fall (31 page)

“Then don’t ‘exactly’ forget our promise
about Lexa.” He raised an eyebrow and made a cross over his heart.
“You don’t know anything about crosses or goodness. All you and
your group know is murder and terror.”

“Do you mean monstrous terror like the kind
caused by the Beast you and your champion are assigned to kill? The
same creature that has been ripping throats out of people in the
Dim Cities.” He studied me as I lowered my eyes. “Did I hit a
tender spot, Lotus? I’m sure your boyfriend, the champion, will
help you. Then again, maybe he won’t after he remembers how happy
you were to leave with me.”

I pretended to be unfazed even though my
heart skipped a few beats when he mentioned the Beast. He was
teasing me, and with someone as slippery as Seth you never knew
what he was fishing around for. “There’s no boyfriend, and you
forced me to go with you. So try not to drown in self flattery,
Seth Alton.”

“You sing my name like a musical instrument,”
he said, closing his eyes as if listening to an internal song. He
ran his hand along the side of my face.

“Don’t touch me.”

“Your eyes don’t match your words,” he
said.

Craving a distraction in the worst way, I
turned to stare at the water. Mist swirled around the boat, flowing
into my nostrils. Moonlight played across the waves, making the
water seem to come alive with shapes.

Ones that almost looked…human?

I fingered the mist swirling around me.
Pieces of clear, glassy particles floated inside it. “It’s
beautiful.”

“The mist was created by the swampland
keepers, nasty little creatures, those undines are. The songs they
sing can drive someone mad.” He stared into the water. “They know a
girl who has the Memories is near, and they want to take her back
with them. Luckily, the Tainted can’t hear their water-girl
songs.”

“How terrible for you,” I said with
sarcasm.

But I heard the undines singing the way I had
many times after I awakened from nightmares about Micah. Closing my
eyes, I listened to songs that sounded like the notes of a harp.
The melody made me even more light headed than I’d already been
feeling. The world seemed less stressful than it did moments ago.
“Why did you—what made you choose the side that hurts good
people?”

He shrugged. “I’m Tainted. We like to hurt
people. Isn’t that what you said? If you must know, it’s more of a
legacy, revenge.”

I scoffed. “Revenge? Why is it always about
that?”

His smile faded. “Because sometimes revenge
is all one’s life needs to be about.”

“That sounds like a loaded excuse for being
an ass if you ask me,” I said, excited to use another forbidden
word.

“I didn’t ask you, though.” He turned
away.

I felt as if I drank about ten bottles of
Father’s and Bess’s sour ales, the kind the Tribunal handed out as
a stress tonic. They would always send Audrina and me away to do
anything we wanted after they finished drinking them. Shapes around
me blurred, and the moon light cast a strange glow through the mist
over the ARK. Now it seemed as if blobs of white hovered over me
instead of the black ones I’d seen before. I gripped the rail when
the ship dipped.

Seth had turned to stare at the vampyrati
ship again. “I’ll do anything for a taste of freedom. I’m destined
to be more than a stooge trying to catch a wink from a second-rate
mage like Camden. Then they’ll all know what I’m worth.”

“I know what you are,” I said.

“Tell me. What am I?” He turned to me, giving
me a twisted smile that would chill me to the bone if I weren’t
under a strange spell.

“Commonly stupid like Zach the bully.”

Seth grumbled, took two steps back from me,
and scowled. “Just as I figured. You know nothing about me.”

“I know you’re not who you pretend to be. I
can feel it,” I said.

“Hm. Your seeing orb is way off base.”

“And you’re a phony. Admission is the first
step,” I said in a slur. The singing pulled me further into the
ocean’s musical spell. My body was light, my mind carefree, and
teasing a Tainted actually excited me.

Seth wheeled on me and grabbed my shoulders.
He dug his fingers into the fleshy areas between my collarbones. I
cried out, thinking I probably shouldn’t be provoking a Tainted who
could barbecue me with his fingers. “I could shake the life out of
you. Better even, I’ll toss you out as a gift for the ghastly ones
sailing behind us.” But I didn’t hear his words. They’d faded into
a void.

Whatever was in the mist had me fully in its
grip now. The harp-like voices of the undines drifting in the water
alongside the boat enchanted me, too.

The melody pulled me into a place where I’d
been happiest, Batts Grave. It filled me with memories of the day I
first kissed Faris. Before I found out he caused Micah’s fall.
Before I found out Governor Winthrope ordered Lexa’s removal.
Before I almost watched Jalen suffocate as he tried to help correct
my mistakes. Before I glanced into the Beast’s eyes, only to see
the familiar soul hidden in its silver gaze…and before the life was
sucked out of a girl who’d stood by my side during one of the
hardest times in my life.

So many people had betrayed Micah and me. I
felt as if I’d never be able to trust anybody ever again. I would
create an iron wall around my heart, blocking out the poison
daggers sent by the people around me. And with a strong heart, I’d
have enough courage to seek out and punish anybody that tried to
hurt us.

In my daze, Faris faced me now, gray eyes
blazing with happiness, hair blowing across his face. It was sunny
and warm winds blew. Filled with excitement, I placed my hand on
his cheek. Part of me understood this was an illusion. But it
didn’t matter. I wanted him to forgive me for leaving him before
Seth tossed me into the water.

The ground rumbled under us. My knees
buckled. I fell into Faris’s arms, closed my eyes. He dropped to
his knees, cradling my limp body.

“The lands will collide in this place. All
will be decided here.” He cupped my neck. “It’s like a war raging
in me. I could kill you. I do want to kill you. But you’re valuable
to her, and to me.”

“I just want all the pain to go away,” I said
to Faris, feeling a bit freaked out by his last words.

At first, his lips grazed mine. Tingles
fluttered through me. I wrapped my arms around his neck and parted
mine. He pressed harder, giving in to our passion until I pulled
away, because the kiss was odd like when somebody changes an
ingredient in your favorite cookie.

“You and I, we can do this together. If you
let me show you the way, Lotus,” he said.

Lotus? That’s all wrong too. Why not
Jewel
Face
?

Suddenly tears gleamed in Faris’s narrowed
eyes. He flung me to the ground and raised his spiked staff above
his head. “You betrayed me. I don’t want to see your face, again.
Not ever. Do you hear me? Never!” He threw the words I’d used on
him at the mall back in my face, and they stung like a razor
cut.

The veil lifted. I’d left the nightmare.
Faris had told me how much he hated me. I’d rather die than hear
those words again. The silver fuzz turned into blackness that faded
into Seth’s face leaning over me. Breathing heavy, I realized I’d
blacked out. This time I had done something super stupid. I kissed
the enemy.

“You’re not Faris,” I whispered, because I
wasn’t sure what else to say. Did part of me know that?

“You were drunk on undine songs,” Seth
said.

“You were—you pushed me off the deck.”

“No, I didn’t. I only dangled you a little,”
he said with sarcasm in his voice. “Think about it. If I had pushed
you into the water, then how did you dry out so fast?”

“You’re insane.” I pulled out of his arms.
What did I do? How did I get the two of them confused? They seemed
so much alike in the dream or whatever it was I just had. He
grabbed my shoulders and helped me up anyway, even as I struggled
to push him away.

“True, I am unimaginably insane. But you’re a
little girl who needs to grow up and accept what she is,” he said.
And before I realized how undine mist must make Epiclesium feel a
bit insane, I smacked him. The whack was like a thunderclap,
whipping Seth’s head around.

“Don’t ever take advantage of me that way,
again,” I said, trembling.

A long moment passed, and then he turned and
gave me the look of death in his narrowed eyes, gold flashes
zipping across the pupils. I wouldn’t care if he tossed me
overboard, or tortured me or whatever. If I had to face a life
without Micah or Faris then what difference did it make,
anyway?

A throat cleared. “We’ve, uh, made it through
the mist.” Hagan stood on the stairway beside us, his blonde-brown
curls blowing in the wind. “We hit some rocks. Is she all
right?”

“She’s fine. Virgin in the mist blues. Are we
close enough to the banks, yet?” Seth said, rubbing his cheek.

“A few more minutes and we’ll break
land.”

“That’s so extremely good, Hagan. Now go have
yourself a get-lost moment, please,” Seth said without looking away
from me. Hagan nodded and returned to the steering room.

I focused my gaze on the Tainted fortress
sitting inside a wall of darkness, a cinder block building five
stories high, and similar in appearance to the Cradleshack. Only
this building hadn’t been painted black. The barren walls were
covered in vines and thick algae. It was hard to see what was
beside the building, even though moonlight lit the waterfalls
around us. The light did show how difficult it will be to find me.
But neither Seth nor the Tainted fort rattled my fears the way the
clinks and clanks of metal opening and snapping shut did. Something
was in the water on the left side of the fort shrouded in
darkness.

I started walking toward the exit platform.
Seth moved into my path. He held his head down close to mine, and
spoke without looking at me. “You jump started my fall into the
purgatorial pits.”

“Then you’d better get Bell Girl to catch you
before you hit the bottom.” Stepping around him, I headed across
the plank Hagan had lowered, shuddering as I prepared to face the
night’s endless possibilities, and whatever thing was snapping in
the waters surrounding the fort.

Chapter Twenty Five – Water of Iron
Teeth

“Finally, I get to have my candid moment with
the Girl-Who-Faced-the-Beast. I wonder if you’ll do what your
mother couldn’t do for us in her confusion,” Camden said.

The Minder’s Camp Thoughtmaster circled me.
Only he wasn’t just a teacher from a camp full of rowdy kids.
Instead, he was the leader of a group I felt was responsible for my
brother’s coma. I’d sat inside my prison area the rest of the night
and all day with nothing to keep me company but my racing thoughts.
Now the moment I feared, facing these Tainteds who wanted to break
me, was here. I held my breath, holding in the last ounce of
courage as long as possible.

“A majestic beauty as Helena was. No doubt
you’ve inherited her talent for trickery since you’ve escaped the
sons of Gabriel with minimal effort,” Camden said.

The way he kept talking about Mother ignited
that flame in me. What did he know? She was a mystery to Father, to
his kids. So I knew this man, a stranger with a madman’s funny
colored eyes, couldn’t be trusted. Besides, it didn’t take a genius
to put two and two together. Especially after what I’d learned
about Faris’s role in Micah’s accident. Each one of us in this room
was connected in some way.

“I was told you’d release my friend,” I
said.

“And I will. But we need something from you,
first. A tiny thing.” Camden circled me as if he were following an
invisible line drawn on the floor. “We need a memory, the way to
reach the sacred path. That’s it. Not so terrible, right?”

He was talking about the secret behind the
Light of the Grace. Something I couldn’t give him because the
memory was blocked in my mind, sealed off by something like a
mental block I’d somehow formed. “Forget it.”

“Hold on before you decide to hand your
friends over to the iron seas. We want to help the mirrorlanders
create a new race. You’ve already seen part of our work, my
handsome revenants. They don’t speak a word of protest, ever.
Blending in with the Tribunal’s ridiculously un-terrifying SOCS
comes easily for them,” Camden said.

Faris was right. The Tainteds was taking kids
and turning them into mindless creatures. He stepped over to Ashli
and lifted her chin. “Thanks to the succubus power given by my
dearest here, we’ve almost developed the perfect soldier. Very
young flesh means easy minds, controllable souls. The Tainted shall
rise again. But without someone who possesses the Grace, we have
our limits as to what we can do,” Camden said.

I was silent. They’d have to torture and toss
my body across the Atlantic before I would consider betraying
Faris. I might be angry with him, but in the end, I knew he’d done
what he probably thought was the right thing by keeping his part in
Micah’s accident a secret. What bothers me most is the “why” part
he claimed Seth had left out. I was sure it tied in to Hawk Face
and his crew.

But how?—Those little question demons
again.

“Your defiant face says you don’t agree. A
shame. Why should you care about these mirrorlanders? They pay no
mind to their gifts. They destroy everything they touch. Control is
what they need. I’m only here to show them,” he said.

“I want to see Lexa first,” I said.

“Her stubbornness is rather annoying,” Camden
said.

“I warned you about that,” Seth said.

“That you did,” Camden said, tapping his nose
with his index finger.

“I say go ahead and show her the teeth.”
Ashli lounged on a sofa bed covered in metallic gold fabric. She
lay on her side, fanning her face as if a river of pearls flowed
outside the fortress.