Outlier: Rebellion (14 page)

“The leader is Yellow’s childhood friend, actually.” Rone kicks back on the floor and reties his boots. “They run this together, pretty much. I’ve seen her shape, a silhouette through window blinds … though I gotta admit, never her face. He calls her Gandra.” He pulls the lace tight with arms flexed and teeth bared for half a second, looking almost a little wolf. Wick steals a glance at the taut biceps of his friend—admiring them with stolen breath a moment—then quickly looks away, annoyed that he’s distracted so easily. Rone doesn’t seem to notice, going on and on, tying and pulling and tying, his toned arms flexing. “If anyone came to know her, our group would be exposed. Even Arrow and Prat haven’t caught a peek. Could you imagine if
Adamant
found out who she is? We’re only as strong as the shadow we keep, even to each other.” Rone winks. “That’s why we work in the night.”

“But I still haven’t seen the actual work,” argues Wick. “You train me to fight, but this group employs no violence. So what do we do other than glare at the sky and shake our fists? I don’t see any kings trembling at the knees yet.”

Rone moves on to his other boot, forcing Wick to consider once again how toned his friend’s arms are. It’s almost annoying, but Wick doesn’t complain. He’s seen him naked, anyway. “You can’t hug a city into peace. Sweet words only go so far, until even the right to speak them are robbed by a knife at your throat. Hey, that’s an idea.” Rone hops off, returns after fetching something from the table. “Get up. I’ve picked you a better weapon. I don’t think the big-hitter was your friend.”

Wick clumsily gets to his feet, sees the dagger in Rone’s hand and finds himself smiling. “I always could appreciate the lightness of knives.”

“Able to change hands so easily,” agrees Rone. “So versatile, as shifty in technique and style as the rain, which is fitting.” Wick gives him a questioning look, not following the reference. “We’re called Rain. It’s what we call ourselves.”

“Rain …” Wick lets that marinate. “Why Rain?”

“Because it’s a reminder, not everything stays in the sky,” says Rone, all the humor gone from his face. “Not the clouds, not the storms, not the Lifted City. And someday, I swear this to you, that Lifted City will fall—its King and people and promises too.”

A door opens and Yellow softly crosses the room. His hollow eyes hover on Wick as he makes his way, like a breeze passing through, a specter. Then he’s down the steps and gone.

“He’s got a little side business,” Rone explains, as if answering the curiosity pasted over Wick’s face. “He makes money by erasing people’s memories. People all over the quarter and in neighboring wards … and even as far as the Mechanoid Mines will hire him. People are very strange about their secrets, paying big coin to have their lovers’ heads wiped, or parents’, or children …” Rone’s bright eyes flash sadly. “Sanctum may find out. He should be more careful. They abduct people right off the streets, never to be heard of again. Men in shadows who work for the King, or the Marshal of Madness. And who knows what’s done to them? I’ve heard all the worst rumors. Not to scare you, but … I heard they do experiments. Like, what if some Sanctum scientist could alter your Legacy?—or steal it? Imagine that …”

Wick imagines exactly that. Changing his own Legacy. A life without dreaming. A life without sleep … just like everyone else.

“Who am I kidding? If they caught Yellow,” quips Rone, “he’d just make them forget their own names.”

They both find that funny for a while. Rone claps him on the shoulder, chuckling manically, and Wick wonders for an uneasy moment if his friend’s still affected by the sip of chemical he had before they started training.

“Ready?” Then too quickly, Rone is pressing the dagger into Wick’s hand. “This is yours now. Protect it.” Wick stares, gaping.
My own dagger?
“Every left needs a right.” Rone wraps Wick’s hand with his own, closing it, bright eyes insisting. Wick can’t admit how much he enjoys their hands clasping together. “It was always yours. Not the swords, not the axes, not the whips or knuckles or bats … You’re a
dagger
boy.”

“But Rone—”

“Consider that dagger to be your life I’m handing you.” Rone turns severe, his tone as sharp as the blade, his icy irises ordering Wick to heed. “If you ever hand it back to me, I’ll kill you with it.”

Wick only stares, stunned speechless.

Rone’s face relaxes at once. “There, doesn’t that feel nice?” He lets on a broad, handsome smile. “You hold your life in your own hands now. No one can take it unless you hand it to them.”

00
15
 
Athan

The young tutor tilts her head as she corrects the grammatical error he’d made, all her straggly hair going to the one side. He misses the male tutor from last week, to be honest; he had a cute, small voice and a soft way of typing that Athan liked. But with boy-distractions aside, it is neither word placement nor spelling that currently fills his thoughts like a cool, tasty drink …

“What’s your life like down there?” he asks, bored of the lesson. “Is it true you make your own food?”

She looks scared out of her wits. Just the question alone seems to cut ice into her chest, judging from her sudden change in breathing. This sweet girl’s had good grades in the slums and her father holds such a solid Legacy that she’s been privileged with the task of tutoring Sanctum youth. Athan suddenly finds himself hoping that his mother doesn’t underpay the girl for lessons.

“I’d even pay you for a story,” he says, unable to resist. Already, he pictures the server he’d given coin to … and what awful joy came of that. “I already know about the phases of the moon and the full moon’s a day away and, listen, I don’t need to write more papers. Please, I … I … don’t know your name.”

She lifts the pen, nods to the screen of the tiny computer and, voice detached and airy, says, “This one is waxing. This, waning.”

And Athan is drawn back into studies, whether he likes it or not. He really, really wants the male tutor back. Dreams have their time, and moons have theirs.

When the girl’s left for the day, Athan’s mother finds him reading in the glass atrium and demands to know how his lesson could already be over, instantly blaming it on the tutor’s laziness. “No, no,” Athan insists with an innocent smile. “Turns out, I’ve actually exceeded the lesson. High marks on all my writing assignments, in fact. You know how I hate writing, but she’s a really great tutor and expanded my vocabulary. I know what a waxing gibbous is. Do you?”

It was an easy foolery; Athan’s mother gives the first smile he’d seen from her in days. He doesn’t mean to deceive her, not exactly; he simply has a weird instinct to protect the lowborn. His mother was so quick to dismiss the help, but really, it isn’t because she’s a cruel person. It’s simply that she expects the best of people, and that’s a quality to admire. Because of it, Athan always aspires to be better, to be quicker and smarter and stronger.

“I’m going to the gym, if that’s alright.” Athan smiles, searching for the gleam of approval in her eye. She gives it—
a good day it will be, then
—and says, “But take one of the servants with you. I won’t have my child a walking slab of sweat across the Eastly. And remember the gathering tonight. Home before the sun’s out, child.”

So it is with an excited quickness that Athan changes into his gear and, in company of a paid servant, makes his way to the gym to lift, to pull, to push and flex and see stars of exhaustion circle his eyes. It’s two hours later when the sun’s setting that he gathers his things for home, but not before stopping at the balcony to let drop a single gold coin. He smiles into the evening breeze, watches as the flickering thing vanishes. Whose yard or house or hand will it find tonight? Ever since his father said that men of the slums work weeks to earn the value of a single gold coin, Athan was determined to give them away as often as possible, his love for the slums deepening with every let-go.

That night, he is bathed inch by careful inch and dressed proper: a fitted black suit jacket that hugs his form like a lover, matching pants to grip him all over. He turns a hip to the mirror, admiring the work a couple hours at the gym today did on his thighs. He pokes at a spot on his face until the other dressers surround him to make do to his short, messy hair. Mists of scent and oil dissipate at last, but he’s still not free, never free. Stretching his arms out, the jacket and starched white shirt beneath pull on his frame; so suitably dressed, fit to his every contour … feeling not unlike a pretty linen prison.

Joining the guests in the great hall, Athan finds that in addition to his tight suit and polished slippers, he must also wear the smile. Mingling about the crowds of his parents’ many guests and their children, he’s brought around and introduced over and over to people he swears he’s met before, Lords of This, Ladies of That … they’re all the same.

“And here is Lady Kael,” his mother says, and Athan has to search his memory before realizing that he’s in the presence of the heir to the throne of Atlas. Lady Kael Mirand-Thrin stands tall, nearly seven feet in fact, and her eyes are like two tiny pearls. There is nothing kind about her at all, but she’s always smiling. “This is my son, Athan.”

Lady Kael makes no effort to even out the comical height difference. Remaining tall, she merely extends a hand, and Athan does his duty of leaning forward to kiss her silver ring, upon which is clutched one single, perfect pearl.

Standing next to Lady Kael is her regal daughter—or no, wait—her
niece
, if Athan remembers correctly. An eccentric girl, but just as rigid in demeanor as her Aunt Kael. The girl has silver-grey eyes and endless white-blonde hair. There’s a small patch missing above her ear where a nasty scar traces down to her chin. She’s isn’t the friendliest, but in truth, Athan can’t think of a single reason to call her unkind. Even being the niece of the heir of Atlas and quite important, Athan cannot remember her name.

“Go on,” prompts his mother, and Athan remembers that he must still play his part.

He clears his throat, then smiles his broadest. “It is a pleasure, Lady Kael. I wonder how … or … what an honor it must be, to know that you are the next Queen of Atlas.”

“Honor, you say.” Lady Kael Mirand-Thrin’s voice is dry and hard, her words drawn out long and brittle as ancient tree limbs. “After the
last
Queen perverted the title for us
decent
women to follow? I guarantee you, I’ll be leagues smarter than that slum rat.” She sips from the garish glass in her skeletal fingers, swallows loud. “But thank you for your sentiment. I still see you as a babe in your mother’s arm, you sweet thing.” Her pearl eyes flick up to Athan’s mother, piercing and cold. “He’s such a
sweet
thing.”

With that, Lady Kael makes no further words, turning on her needle-sharp heels and slowly moving toward other guests. The niece, her grey eyes gently lingering on Athan a touch too long, soon follows her aunt, vanishing into the party.

“Sweet thing,” echoes Athan’s mother, unimpressed, and she too disappears to another room. The noise of snooty chatter and glasses clinking dances up to the high, high ceilings, dances down every mountain-high corridor that leads into every enormous den, library, sitting room, standing room, veranda, gallery, dining hall, breakfast hall and kitchen of Broadmore Manor.

It isn’t long before Athan’s grown agonizingly bored of the stuffy talk of men and their estates, the bragging and boasting among girls of their studies and futures, boys showing off their own … it’s always like this. Athan makes sure to keep wearing his smile; it’s the most important part of his outfit, he’s learned as much from mother and father. He finds his sister Janna by the sweets, bothering herself to an entire plate of twelve of them. She tastes half of one, makes a muted comment on how she expected them to taste sweeter, then discards the rest into a trash receptacle.

Not giving up, his mother comes around again, pulling Athan through the room to talk up his education and his curricula and how impressed he’s left the many tutors he’s had over the years. He knows these speeches so well, he could recite them for her and save mother the effort of moving tongue and teeth.

Despite the micromanagement of his attention, his eyes keep finding a boy on the other side of the hall whom, he is certain, he’s never met.
Why won’t she introduce me to
that
one?
The boy’s shape is firm, tall and lean, and his stance among his peers portrays one of strength and pride. He’s such a sight, just his existence distracts Athan enough to lose half a conversation he’s supposed to be having with some other Lord or Lady.

Half an hour later, the party moves to the sprawling veranda that overlooks the mirror-calm pool. It glows gorgeously by blue-silver moonlight, and so does the handsome boy to whom Athan has paid such agonizing attention. He never manages to catch his eye, but he’s hoping maybe soon the boy will quit talking to his friends and take mind to the rest of the party—namely,
him
.

At that moment, a naughty breeze carries the big feathered hat off an unsuspecting Lady Oalia’s head, gently guiding it like a bird until it lands gracefully on the surface of the water. Her hand goes to her yellow hair, mouth opened in shock. The hat of bows and frill and pomp, now floating leisurely in the pool.

This
is his opening … Athan must
make
the boy pay mind.

Abandoning the crystal of water he was nursing, with a rush of bravery he imagines only the lowborn and true might know, Athan sprints to the poolside and, with complete and utter dignity cast to the unminding wind, bounds into the water, fine suit and all, to retrieve the runaway hat.