When Copper Suns Fall (9 page)

“Then tell me what he said isn’t true. You
didn’t agree to it, right?” My voice rose and cracked. The stupid
knot in my throat was back again.

“I know what your brother means to you.
That’s why I’ve held on to him for so long. But the money for his
treatment is gone. The glutovirus in his body has not diminished.
My colleagues only have a limited number of strings left to pull
for us.”

“Grandfather’s vesselism went badly. Don’t
you remember?” I said. He flinched.

“Your human bull’s-eye of a father can only
handle so many darts in one round.” He grasped my face between his
palms, but harder this time. “We are part of the Tribunal, Chela.
We live in the Capital Borough. Like it or not, we are the rule
makers. We are the ones assigned to keep order, and enforce the
peace. We
must
do everything the right way. If not, then…
The time for you and I both to accept reality has come. I hope all
I’ve said is clear?”

I nodded, even though I didn’t understand.
The bond between twins was strong. The angel-blood in Micah and me
heightened that link. Father’s humanity made things like that hard
for him to see.

He lowered his eyes, released my face, and
sighed. “I’m sorry. I do worry. I may not always show how much I
fret by your standards, but if you only knew how badly this hurts
inside. You were wearing Helena’s necklace?”

“Yes, I never take it off. Just like you told
me not to do.” I craved alone time and would agree to anything. I
hoped he didn’t ask me about the ale-meds because I didn’t trust
myself to tell him the truth, right then. I was still stuck
somewhere back at the double punishment part. The one Father had
agreed to for me while I slept in post-nausea land; and at the
place where he never denied Dr. Van Meter’s accusation.

“CC, we can use this to our advantage. Please
do not think this old man is a blind fool without a heart. I see
things, too. But I am under the Tribunal’s red eye. They watch
everything I do.” His eyes pleaded with me, showing a part I didn’t
expect to see, a missing part of Father I craved like a newborn
puppy, the smallest one fighting for its first drink of milk.
“Think of how much you could see, what you could learn in a camp
run by Thoughtmasters. You could become the eyes the Tribunal won’t
allow me to be.”

“Father, what are you asking me to do?”

“It would satisfy the governor’s assistant if
you agree to watch for odd behavior among the Thoughtmasters. She
needs our help. We need hers.”

“I see. At least, I think I do, anyway,” I
said.

He fingered the stone resting at my throat. A
silver claw held the fingertip-size seraphinite covered with an
intriguing blend of white lines zipping across a jade colored body.
Mother’s necklace represented her rank among the seraphim. She was
related to the Seraphim of The First Order, meaning she was as
close to having pure angel-blood as anyone could ever be. Father
was an apprentice Historian of the Essential Archives, records of a
past long gone, and Mother had been his new assistant. That was how
they met one another. He never told me much else other than she
died of a mysterious illness similar to the glutovirus, after Micah
and I was born.

“I’ll patch the window again,” I said, still
stunned by the sadness in Father’s eyes, still reeling from his
suggestion that I go into camp as a spy.

“I’ll return later to help you. Don’t forget
to take your medicine,” he said without looking me in the face. A
sure sign he edited something. I considered asking him if he heard
anything bad about the ale-meds, and decided against it. This
wasn’t the time to test drive another one of my seven-life buttons.
He sat for a moment, stood, sighed as if the world sat on his
shoulders, and left the room.

I turned to my task.

Glad to be alone with my racing thoughts, I
swept the glass, taped plastic across the pane, fingered my
necklace. The fuzziness of the last twenty-four hours bothered me.
Nothing made sense, and something about last night and this whole
day was off tilted. Now I’d been tossed into the lottery of chaos
without even getting a chance to defend myself before the
Judges.

Staring at the ale-med vial sitting on my
desk, I remembered how Micah fought Father when it was time to take
his. Micah always thought terrible things were in the sweet and
sour drink. But what could those bad things be? And how did he
know? The Tribunal required everyone eighteen and under to drink
one dose in the morning and one at night.

As far as I knew, no one had ever defied that
rule.

No one had lived to tell if they did.

What made me think I could be different? I
guess I was about to find out.

I’d already missed two doses, and quite
honestly, my body felt lighter and energized as if electricity
surged inside me. I hesitated. Sighed. Stood and took baby steps to
where the glass vial sparkled when the sun burst through the haze,
shining into the broken window.

And then…oops! I tipped the glass.

“Well, such a clumsy me,” I said to Peanut.
The liquid rolled down the drawers of my desk and to the floor,
puddles of guilt about to be cleared away like the window
fragments. I took one of my shirts and wiped the evidence away.
Then I picked the vial up and sat it back on Bess’s tray. How would
they know? We didn’t sign a sheet every time we drank the ale-meds.
Father never stuck around to watch me swallow it the way Jalen and
Lexa said their parents did. The boy from the tour had been right
to question me. Why did the Tribunal have to control everything?
But this was the same government that would order their soldiers to
shoot me if they ever discovered my secret.

Looking a lot like the food he was named for,
Peanut was a light brown mixed breed. He trotted over to me, licked
my toes. His warm little body made me think of the robots in the
gardens around the medicine factories. He barked a high pitched,
squeaky yap. I gathered him in my arms and breathed in his earthy
smell, feeling the blood flowing through his fragile bones. For the
first time in my life, I felt guilty about being a privileged girl,
the kind with a double-cursed punishment and a fuzzy head. The
tour, the amusement park, even the place where Micah had fallen
stood out in my memory of the previous night. But everything after
the card incident blurred in my mind.

Nothing about the Cradleshack was clear,
though.

Thinking about it all made me giddy. I’d
fallen asleep on the way home. I wasn’t sure how Jalen and Lex had
managed to get me upstairs and into bed. The dark-haired boy
chasing me in my dream last night added to the oddness, showering
me with bizarre déjà vu.

A few marbles sat near the edge of the bed. I
bent down to shine my flashlight under it, hoping to find the rest.
Dust filled my nostrils, making me sneeze. Peanut nibbled at my
toes. When I reached for the last marble far underneath the bed,
something sharp on the frame scraped my arm. I felt along the edge
and found a compartment. What secrets did my bed hold in the
niche?

I reached up and pulled down on the knob.
After some effort, the flap gave way with a thunk. The lid clacked
against the bed, and a purple box decorated with silver jewels
chunked to the floor.

Historian’s daughter to the core, I pulled
the box out and studied the cover. A seraphinite was molded into
the middle. The stone was identical to mine. Excitement waved
through me. A roll of coppery toned paper lay inside the box. I
unrolled the hyacinth-scented letter and glanced over the
calligraphic words, only these letters were rounder.

I read the one line on the page. “Our world
is dying. Present yourself right away. A kobold darkly lights the
day.”

Outside, thunder rolled across the sky.

Chapter Eight – Darkest Lovely

Monday evening arrived in a wink. I read the
mystery note a thousand times. A kobold darkly. What did the word
kobold remind me of? Quite honestly, it sounded like a name for bad
bowel movements.

Time for mulling over words written on odd
paper wound down. Soon enough, the evaluation arrived in
nerve-bashing glory. I was numb and woozy as Father drove to the
arena. Lexa sat beside me and made small talk. Jalen promised to
meet us after finishing his shift.

Soon, the Thalian Hall’s brightly lit
exterior appeared. The vaudeville theatre rebuilt to resemble the
original 1858 version was a plantation house restored with white
brick. No algae grew on Castle Hayne’s most prideful attraction.
The bars anchoring the building into the ground were painted white
and blended into the siding. Only now an arena-sized stadium stood
in back, a place that held the fate of my family.

Father’s silver unicar inched to a stop in
one of the few remaining parking spots. The building was crowded
with people and chat. Humidity flattened Lexa’s efforts to make my
upswept hairdo look less big than usual. Add to that queen of
awkward buns, a sheer black dress tickling my ankles, and you have
Chela on diva steroids.

Hundreds of boys and girls from both the Hill
Boroughs and Dim Cities stood inside the building. Lights lit the
lobby, musty with its 300-year-old aromas, casting a glow on the
attendees’ faces. Chatter and metal clicking against metal filled
the air. A girl debating with two men was standing beside the
velvet ropes blocking the doors leading to the arena. She met my
gaze with a tear-stained face. Her expression was a copy of the way
I felt inside.

I walked across the lobby with Father and
Lexa who snapped pictures each time I stumbled, sneezed, or picked
my nose.

“Chill for a bit, okay? It’s bad enough I’m
trying to walk in this oversized bandage.” Lexa’s face fell. The
dress was her creation. One she’d put a lot of effort into making
for me, the most ungrateful friend alive. “I’m sorry, Lexa.”

“You’re forgiven this one time, today,” she
said, smiling even though I could tell she didn’t want to.

Father walked ahead of us, stopping to greet
every other person. Some people offered congratulations on having a
daughter who could volunteer to challenge the champion without
worry. I kept thinking: “What? I was drafted just like the rest of
the troublemakers.” Others appeared to be genuinely stressed about
a government girl participating in such a common thing. I hoped to
have a personality like his one day. I’d already been stung by the
love of history passed down through the family, and couldn’t wait
to get back to the note I’d found, my little secret. But I’d
attracted the wrong attention, and made the Tribunal think I was
trying to outsmart them.

Lexa lifted her camera and snapped another
picture of me. The flash left blobs of light swimming in my
eyes.

“Lex, we get the point.” I was snappy because
of nerves and my bladder filling up by the second, and a lot of
mixed emotions about everything. “Wonder when we get our numbers?”
I glanced around the lobby at the ten or twelve tables set up along
the walls.

“Ah, Chela Prizeon. No numbers for you
tonight,” a woman said behind me. The governor’s assistant, Yolanda
Fuquay, strolled over to Father, embracing him. She wore a burnt
orange dress pooled around her ankles, complimenting her hair, the
color of fire. What stood out most to me were her eyes, catty
blue-green ones that said, “Don’t mess with me, or I might impale
you.”

“Yolanda Fuquay. Beautiful reborn.” Father
kissed her hand.

“Your daughter is gorgeous, James.” She
studied me with the cat eyes, looking me over from head to foot,
making me feel frumpy and unpretty. “I do hope all that girlishness
is a camouflage technique for the warrior behind the sword.”

I wanted to say: “Yeah, it sure is. I slice
up Swordfest champs every day. I even hid the bones in my
cemetery.” Instead, I squeezed my left fist, scoping the lobby for
a bathroom. Still basking in afterthoughts from Friday night’s
ventures, I didn’t need extra pressure.

Ms. Fuquay turned her gaze to Lexa standing
behind me. “Alexandra Walsh? It has been a long time since I last
saw you. I think you were nothing but a wee thing that kicked my
ankles when I tried to pick you up.”

Lexa blushed. “I-I’m really sorry about
that.”

“It’s quite all right. Our beloved Cherice
was always prepared to massage them. Such a shame. I’m sure she
would’ve been a marvelous Healer. I see you’ve brought your
camera,” Ms. Fuquay said. Lexa nodded and shot me a nervous glance.
“Good then. I expect you to capture plenty of Chela’s moves. We’d
like to enhance them for the city’s newsfeed. If they’re good
enough, I can forward your recommendation letter to the Head
Illusionist’s house.”

“Not a problem. It’s all covered,” Lexa said
a bit too fast.

Father and Ms. Fuquay walked away, giving me
time to question Lexa about her fidgeting. “What does she mean by
enhance the images? Are you thinking of joining the Illusionist’s
photographers?” At once, I thought of the boy in the trees.

She shrugged and gave me the strangest look.
Before I could ask any more questions, she changed the subject.
“Oh, wow. Check him out.” She nodded toward a man in a strange plum
colored suit with a silky shirt underneath that matched the gold in
his ponytail. “I wonder who is under him. He’s cute, even if he
does have raccoon eyes. I wonder if he’d like to sponsor me?” Lexa
said.

The man nodded at me, smiled, held my gaze a
moment. He was young, handsome, too perfect. His eyes were hidden
behind dark makeup. Goose bumps prickled my arms. “Okay, I’m
getting the Creeping Willies.”

“The creeping what?” Lexa said.

“Creeping Willies.”

“Truthfully, where did you get that?”

I really didn’t know, and couldn’t ever
remember using the term before. I glanced back to where the man had
been standing. He was gone.