From Light to Dark (8 page)

“Oh, oh, oh, oh,” Caer stammered, her voice a horrified whisper.

Vul landed on the ground with a soft thud. For a moment, there was silence. Eref didn’t dare breathe. Then came a rustling of grass below, and Vul’s shaky voice whimpered, “Hey! Soldiers! Over here!”

“No. Vul,” Caer cried under her breath. But it was too late.

The injured Vul limped off. It sounded as if she was dragging something. Maybe a leg.

In a matter of seconds, the soldiers caught up with her.

“Who is this?”

“A friend of Caer’s! Her picture was in the report, too.”

“Where’s Caer?”

“Where are the Light People?”

Vul made the very definite sound of a spit wad below them.

“Little brat!”

“Cover her damn mouth.”

“Give me your handkerchief.”

“Is there anyone else here?”

“Must have gotten away. She’s the decoy.”

“Look at those injuries,” another soldier said. “Caer and the Light Person left her here to die.”

Vul groaned in pain. “Get that off me!”

“Some decoy. Feisty.”

“How old is she?”

“Eighteen tomorrow, Lieutenant. According to the report.”

The men laughed.

“We’ll see how you feel tomorrow, brat. Bring her to the Shade.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And tie her arms a little tighter for good measure. Don’t want this one getting away.”

“That all you got?” Vul’s shaky whimper had become a courageous roar. “Tie it as tight as you want! You’d better, because I’m going to tear your eyes out the second I get near you!”

“Yeah, yeah,” the men said, laughing. “Come on.”

Slumped next to Eref, Caer sobbed quietly. She didn’t hold onto him. She didn’t say a word. He sat still and felt her hot tears as they trickled onto his shoulder.

Then they listened to the soldiers stomp off together, with Vul’s one good leg kicking behind them.

Legend

Caer hadn’t spoken for about two hours. She’d sat in the tree for a quarter of that time, rocking slowly back and forth and moaning unintelligible sounds from deep within her throat. Every time Eref tried to talk to her, ask her what had happened, or come up with a plan to rescue Vul, Caer had only uttered that frightened, tragic sound.

Eventually, she’d guided Eref wordlessly downward to the grass. From there, they walked in silence. He was too unsure of things to touch her, so he just walked by her side, hoping she’d stay near enough for him to follow.

Did Caer hold him responsible for Vul’s capture? He wouldn’t blame her if she did, but….

Surely she knew he wouldn’t have brought any of this on them if he had had any choice. Why wouldn’t she talk to him?

The sound of Vul’s body crashing through the branches filled his ears. If only he could have seen. He would have been able to stop her from falling.

For the hundredth time, Eref cursed his blindness. He’d become useless to everyone. He’d only brought these people trouble.

If he were really brave, he would have run off on his own and not added to Caer’s problems. Vul would have come back for her. They might have gotten away.

His fists tightened. He was a coward. And not just because of the blindness. Eref had been a coward his entire life.

Only once had Eref ever felt brave and truly worthy of living. That one time, he had felt like he could save the world. When Caer had gripped his hand, something in his body had come to life. It felt like waking up from a lifelong coma. He had known the secrets of the universe and the way to live in peace. Together, they’d become the embodiment of joy.

Now, that feeling dwindled to a vague memory, overshadowed by the horrible crack of Vul’s body breaking over tree limbs.

Lost in his thoughts, Eref failed to notice the sounds around him changing. Not until he smelled something different, the fresh scent of cool, running water, did he come back to reality.

Caer had brought him to a river. The busy sound of it rushing over the rocks and sand cleared his mind just a little.

“Sit,” Caer said.

“Caer, I wish I could have done someth—”

“Sit down. I need to rest.”

Eref sat next to Caer. They leaned against a large tree trunk, nestled between its massive roots.

For several more minutes, the two of them sat without speaking. The water hurried by, occasionally splashing Eref’s legs with tiny droplets. He tried to imagine what a river in Dark World looked like. This one sounded much larger than rivers in Light World. At home, bodies of water didn’t splash or rush like this. There, rivers were tiny openings in the land where water meandered by, crystal clear, carrying just enough hydration for a person to drink his fair share.

This river sounded like it was the size of an entire world. Its music played all around them. Insects burped and whistled nearby, and a chilly breeze blew through the grass where they sat.

In Light World, trees also grew near rivers, but they didn’t provide comfortable seats in their enormous roots. Instead, they grew straight up, with few branches and only a patch of spiky leaves at the top.

Eref realized that a tree like the one he now rested against would be destroyed in Light World. Its bent shape and curvy roots would cast shadows in all directions. He nestled down into the grass and leaned his head back. It felt safe to hide here by the river.

“It’s my fault,” Caer said.

“What?” Eref turned toward her.

“I knocked her down.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Eref. You didn’t see. I knocked her over. She fell because of me.”

“Even if you did, you didn’t mean to.”

“That doesn’t make any difference now, does it?” Eref realized she’d continued crying silently this whole walk. Her voice held so much tension.

“Of course it makes a difference.”

“I should have let her do what she wanted. She is fast. She could have gotten away. And she knows how to hide, so they could have chased her, and she would have been fine. This is all my fault.”

“How can you say that? You didn’t want her to take the risk,” Eref said. But he knew what it was like to carry guilt. She would always blame herself, whether she deserved it or not.

“I didn’t want her to leave! It was selfish. I thought—” Caer caught a sob in her throat. Eref tried to reach out to her, but she brushed his hand away. “I thought, what if this is the last time I see her? What if they catch her? What if something goes wrong?”

“You were protecting her, Caer. It was the right thing to do.”

“Is that so? Well, then, why is she with them now? Tell me that!” Caer’s voice shook, this time with anger. “I know you can’t see a single thing. You’re staring at a knot in the tree right now, not at me. You’re completely blind, but you aren’t deaf. Tell me, Eref. What did you hear?”

Eref’s jaw tightened, and his throat constricted. He turned away and faced the sound of the river. “I heard her fall.”

“Right. She fell. And what kind of fall would you say it sounded like, Eref?”

He couldn’t believe her tone. It was something he hadn’t imagined could come out of a creature like Caer. She was cold and furious. Her words came at him like little shards of glass.

“She hit some branches.”

“Oh, she did?
Really?
”

“Caer, why are you angry with m—”

“She hit some branches? Oh, well, you should know what that’s like. How did you feel after your fall?”

“It was…. My bones were broken.”

“That’s right. Your bones were broken. Now, let me fill you in on this part since you were too busy being blind.”

His heart pounded with embarrassment and anger. He hadn’t meant to bring this on them. She had to know that. Why was she treating him this way?

“Vul’s right arm and left leg were both bent completely backward when she hit the ground. She tried to hop away on one foot, holding her twisted arm with her other hand. Blood was pouring from her forehead. That’s what you didn’t see, Eref. That’s what I did to my friend.” She broke down again, and this time her tears fell into the river at their feet.

This picture of Vul filled the darkness in Eref’s eyes and froze his heart with a new horror. Vul was brave to have done what she did.

He should have been the one to fall. He should have been caught.

Caer sat next to him, crying. Of course she was angry with him. She hated him because he’d had the power to save Vul, and he hadn’t thought of it in time.

It wasn’t Caer’s fault. It was
his
. She’d accidentally knocked Vul to the ground when she should have shoved him off instead. Maybe Caer had expected him to jump all along. Maybe they had both been waiting for him to do it.

He couldn’t believe he had sat there and let it happen.

But every time he opened his mouth to say this, he stopped. Now was too late. Taking the blame now would only sound like a plea for sympathy. And that would only make her despise him more.

He hadn’t jumped because he didn’t think quickly enough.

He couldn’t take the blame because he didn’t have the guts.

“Caer,” he said.

“Eref, I’m so sorry for what I said just now. I’m angry with myself. I don’t know if you know how it feels to hurt a friend, but it’s—” She broke off to clear her throat. “Anyway, I’m sorry.”

Eref hesitated and finally said, “I do know how it feels.”

“What?”

“I let somebody down back home. I broke a promise.”

“Yeah?” She didn’t sound impressed. “What happened when you broke your promise?”

Eref listened to the splashing of the water for a moment. He thought back to that day, years ago, when he’d sworn to save Balor from the Eighteener Entrance. There was no Balor anymore now. Not the real Balor. “He died.”

Caer made a soft sound as she drew in a breath. Then she spoke, a little more gently. “Who was he?”

“My best friend.”

Caer fell into another thoughtful silence. She didn’t cry this time, but her tension remained. Eref’s heart sank lower than ever now that he’d spoken about Balor. He knew exactly what Caer must be feeling.

Before them, the river ran excitedly down its path, tickling their legs with water, oblivious to their suffering.

Eref felt like an open wound. All his troubles lay at the front of his mind, stretched out like a body on an examining table. The dirtiest, scariest parts of his own soul were there for him to see.

Coward. Liar. Deserter.

Insensitive. Selfish. Cursed
.

Someone had shouted “Devil” at him the day of the stoning. Tonight, he felt he was even worse.

“I wish we could leave this place,” Eref said. “I wish there were somewhere we could feel really safe. We could rescue Vul and just head out of here. No stonings, no burnings, no Eighteener Entrance.” He kicked at the root by his feet and listened to the hollow sound.

For a few seconds, Eref had the distinct feeling that Caer was staring at him. It made him uncomfortable, so he pretended to still be lost in thought.

“Vul and I were in the Gestator together,” Caer said suddenly. “Do you have one in Light World?”

“What’s the Gestator?”

“The place where you’re born. They create children there and bring them up in groups with special nannies. Did you have something like that?”

“The Raising. Balor and I were in a group together, too. We were born in the same year. Did they group you that way?”

“Yes, by the year you were created. Vul was made about two days before me, but it was the same year, so we were together.”

“Yeah. It’s the same in my world.”

Caer sat quietly for a second, as if thinking through her next comment, and then blurted out, “One day our nanny disappeared.”

“Disappeared?”

“They replaced her. Did anyone ever have to replace your nanny?”

“No,” he said. “We had the same shepherd at the Raising until we were ten. Then they released us for personal development at the Learning.”

“It’s the same for us,” she said. “But when we were eight, our nanny stopped coming.”

“Why?”

Caer sat in silence another few seconds before she answered. Eref waited, his own thoughts fixed on a simpler time when he and Balor had been friends and there had been no trials, no stonings, no angry mobs for them to worry about.

“I’m not sure,” Caer finally answered. “I think she knew something.”

“Knew something?”

“About our world. Maybe about both of our worlds. Didn’t you hear strange stories from the other kids when your nanny was away?”

“Yeah. Stuff about Dark World being a land of evil, bloodthirsty monsters.”

Caer gave a half-hearted laugh before her tone went back to its sad gravity. “Well, in the Gestator we told each other stories about people who could escape Dark World.”

“Escape? They came to Light World?”

“Not to Light World,” she said. “They went somewhere else. We didn’t really know. It was an old legend the kids passed down. Some said it was where you went when you died. Others thought it was probably a cave off in the far corner of Dark World.” Caer paused. “Nobody told stories like that in your nursery?”

Eref thought back. “I remember something one of the kids said at the Learning one day. After we had left the Raising. Balor and I were about eleven.”

“What was it?”

“It was during Lessons of the Past. The instructor was going over Light World history—telling us how our light has always shone and kept the people safe—and one of the kids in class….” Eref rubbed his forehead. “What was his name? I think it was Rinelest. He said something really strange.”

“What did he say?”

“I remember it because of what happened to him later. After that, everyone wanted to analyze what he’d been doing, so we talked about it for days and days. Right when the instructor mentioned keeping the people safe, Rinelest raised his hand and said, ‘Safe, instructor? Safe in Light World, or safe in the Safety?’”

Caer stiffened next to him. “He said the Safety?”

“Yeah, and when the teacher ignored him, Rinelest said, ‘I’ve heard about the Safety, instructor. Why won’t you teach us that? Why can’t we know how to escape Light World?’”

“He knew about the Safety!”