Shieldwolf Dawning (34 page)

Merganser and Croak shuffled around on stage. Irik was right behind them. They welcomed their guests, all dressed in their finest clothes. Croak and Irik addressed the swains next. When everyone else sat down, the swains remained standing — they were on display for the afternoon. Croak waited for the crowd to settle before he launched into one of his boring speeches.

Samarra was quick to tune him out as usual. She focused instead on a chittering bird call coming from beyond the biodome. Another bird gave a sharp shrill, and then a third and a fourth. Moments later there came a low-pitched response. "Don't let the Flux catch you," Samarra whispered, shivering at the thought.

The audience applauded when Shieldwolf Longmane walked onstage. Still stiff and aching from past events, he relied on his staff for support on his way to Irik. After a touching speech, Irik presented him with a Ribbon of Bravery. The Elders moved to the back of the stage. Shieldwolf Longmane cleared his throat.

"Shieldwolf Greyfeather," was the first name he called out.

Brin growled when Whistler strutted to the stage to accept his Badge of Initiation. Samarra rolled her eyes and laughed. Whistler flaunted his silver-blue ribbon to everyone in the front row as if he was the only swain graduating. In reality, there were more than three hundred at Samarra's last count. A Shieldwolf led Whistler back to his seat, otherwise he would have never stopped performing for the crowd. Tavani was next, followed by Ryeno, who had fully recovered from his time with the golems. He had told Samarra so many versions of the story that she could never figure out exactly what had happened in the vault, but none of that mattered. She was relieved that Ryeno was okay.

When Brin's name was announced, Samarra clapped the loudest. He accepted his ribbon and returned to his place without creating a fuss. Tavani giggled when he fell into position next to her. More names were called and the service dragged on and on. Samarra snapped to attention when she heard her name. Brin nudged her and she stumbled into the aisle.

Shieldwolves cheered her on to the stage and called out well wishes. Some of them whistled and others tapped their tails and hissed in delight. The Elders contained themselves with smiles. Shieldwolf Longmane took a badge from Merganser and pinned it to Samarra's lapel. Samarra faced the crowd and bowed before she headed back to her place in the group. She clapped enthusiastically as the remaining names were called out.

Hours later the pomp was over. The guests had eaten and drunk their fill. The Elders were huddled in a corner, having what appeared to be a serious conversation. The crowd buzzed as everyone filed out of the area slowly. Samarra rested her staff against the wall and watched them leave. They all seemed happy on the outside, but she knew on the inside they were worried about the Ikajarri revolution. Samarra knew these thoughts well. She had watched them rise and fall in her mind for weeks. Some of them were fleeting, while others lingered for the longest time.

Her stomach rumbled. Samarra eyed the leftover food on the refreshment table and made a beeline for the pinkest apple. She bit into it and chewed slowly as she watched Shieldwolf Longmane mingle with the guests. When she was done, she grabbed her staff — a wolf cut from obsidian was now bound to the tip, marking her transition from swain to auxiliary. Samarra traced the outline of the wolf until the gem came alive with energy. She remembered her brother.

Once the commotion over Cassian had died down, the Elders had moved to a period of increased contemplation. They had lost their hero to the Flux and were forced to rethink their plans. Basic training was shortened and the swains were rushed through everything they needed to know to fight the Ikajarri. They would learn the rest on the field.

As Eshgranna had predicted, the Shieldwolves had resumed their search for another male swain to lead them in the name of tradition. Elders from every territory sent out their most trusted scouts to find the Son, but their searches ended to no avail. Stubbornly refusing to question Aletheia's Vision, Irik had put all male swains in the biodome under a microscope for scrutiny.

Every morning at meditation, Samarra had to remind herself why she had chosen the Shieldwolves over her brother. And every morning, she had given herself the same answer: Their laws were unbending and their traditions went unquestioned, but their intentions were ultimately good. She had taken an oath with them. More importantly, now that her brother was gone, the Shieldwolves were the closest thing Samarra had to kin. The biodome was her home.

"I'm glad you're feeling better," she said on Shieldwolf Longmane's approach.

"I am grateful to be walking again." A thin ribbon of grey now streaked the side of his hair, a remnant from the shock of his most recent battle.

Samarra wanted to stop staring at him, but his gentle eyes were captivating. Her cheeks burned red. "Thank you," she said after a while. "Thank you for saving my life."

"It is my duty." He gripped his staff to steady himself. "I am always at your service, Shieldwolf Dawning." He bowed down as far as his body would allow.

Samarra giggled like a fool. "Blazes," she mumbled under her breath and blushed again.

"Pardon me?" His look seemed perplexed.

"It's nothing." There was an awkward pause before she found the courage to ask a question she had wanted to ask him for a while. "Shieldwolf Longmane, why didn't you tell me the truth about my mother?"

She searched his face for answers. Samarra had been unwilling to probe the Elders about Eshgranna. Even though she had chosen to stay with them, she could not bring herself to forgive them for what they had done, so she kept out of their way. But Shieldwolf Longmane was different… He was more approachable. "I trusted you. Why did you let me find out like I did?"

He looked away in shame. "We thought it would be too complicated. We knew you would not understand our ways."

"You took away my kin and now I feel so alone." Samarra was too exhausted to put up a fight.

Shieldwolf Longmane watched her intently. "I am deeply sorry for my actions, for hurting you, but what I did was in line with my duty to Kairuhan. Sometimes the pursuit of equilibrium might require aggressive actions to preserve equilibrium in the long term." He looked like he wanted to say more, but changed his mind at the last moment. There was an awkward pause. "Please forgive me, I must rest." He bowed, turned on his heel, and left.

Samarra watched him walk away. She knew she would get nothing more from him, or the Elders for that matter. She could pester them and whine from morning to night, but she knew none of it would make a difference. Samarra tucked away her questions in a corner of her mind. The answers would come one day when she least expected, they usually did.

She lingered on the sidelines and watched her friends mucking around with each other before she headed for the sleeping quarters. The room was empty — her unit was either in the main hall or celebrating in the courtyard. Samarra charged her staff and changed into her armour before she went back out. It was almost time to begin her afternoon patrol. She walked with a purposeful stride to the entrance of the biodome and braced herself for an argument when Obsidian's face appeared in the doorway. Samarra snarled. Obsidian didn't look impressed either.

"Let me out." She put on her visor. To her surprise the doors parted without question. "This is a first," she grumbled.

When Samarra stepped into the world beyond the biodome, she looked around for anything suspicious before heading west. The area was calm and light snow was now falling — the first signs of winter were appearing on the lower slopes. Everything else was almost the same as it had been the day before.

Enjoying her time alone, Samarra made her way down the path, humming a slow tune. It wasn't long before she reached her lookout spot. She hung her staff in the air and dusted off the surface of a smooth rock before she sat down. On her prompt, goggles appeared in her visor and stretched over her eyes one pixel at a time. Samarra surveyed the perimeter with care. There was nothing visibly out of order. Nothing to report just yet.

On first impression, Kairuhan looked like a happy place. Thickly forested hills rolled off into the distance. Snowcapped mountains reached out to a picture perfect sky. The lakes and rivers were filled with fish, and the fields were still lush and green. Even the chilling air was easy to breathe. But Samarra knew all too well that underneath the beautiful illusion lurked something unsettling.

She switched her goggles to flux vision. What she saw next came as no surprise. Samarra took out her tablet, set its input type to thought, and recorded her log entry for the day:

Begin Datastream 21

Day 28/ Lunar Cycle:
Mesha
/Retrograde 1

Planet: Kairuhan

Territory: Gudrun Wade

Local Time: 1732 hours

The Elders are scared. I can feel their fear deep in my bones. They always warned that if we learned how to use flux magic, we'd be tempted to abuse it. Others would follow our lead and, before long, balance would tip and we would have destabilized the planet's natural environment. The Elders are desperate to stop the end of life as we know it from happening. They're doing everything in their power to restore equilibrium as time and space rip inside out.

The number of Shieldwolves out on patrol has doubled and the biodome has been on lockdown for weeks. With each passing day, the space-between-space gets more entangled. The world is turning into flux faster than anyone had predicted. That's thanks to the Ikajarri. With their army of Watchers as brute force, the Ikajarri defeat almost every Shieldwolf battlegroup they meet. There are now only four territories left standing in equilibrium: Seton Desert to the west, Admetusland and the islands of Pythia in the east, and Zuriel in the southern pole. I think we all know that we're losing control, but we still have hope
.

I try my hardest not to get scared when I look around. Flux is spreading out on all fronts like a plague. Its trail of destruction is punctured with dark, twisting places that leave shivering scars on the landscape. Although Gudrun Wade was the first territory to destabilize, the bulk of
f
lux
is only moving south and seems to be staying far away from the mountain ranges around Blackrock Peak. I can trace its path clearly now that I have the proper vision turned on. The Shieldwolves of Hokken Sol have been warned about what to expect. Our most direct route to their biodome has been destroyed. Cass has scrambled the Reflection so that all forms of phasing are blocked. We can't
reach them with help in time for it to matter. We don't expect to hear from them again.

Cass…
I can still feel
him
in my heart. There's not a day that goes by
whe
n
I don't think about him. It's been tough without him. I don't really know who I am anymore now that he's not around. I wish I could see him again. I wish I could to talk to him, but he stays hidden from me.
Not once have the Ikajarri gotten close enough to engage us.
It's probably for the best, I suppose. Do I really want to talk to him, anyway? I'm scared of what might happen. I'm not ready to die. I've still got a lot of stuff I want to do and places I want to see. Cass can wait too. So I have to let him go, but I don't know how.

End Datastream 21

Sig: Dawning

Samarra scouted the area for hours. Guests waved at her on their way home. Some even stopped to chat. She watched them head down the mountain until they disappeared from sight. When the sun hit the horizon, she turned off her goggles for the day. They retracted into her visor just as they had appeared, pixel by pixel. She took up her staff and began her slow journey back up the mountain to Shieldwolf Proper.

White smoke traced loose spirals in the air. The Shieldwolves in the biodome had lit a bonfire and the cleansing scent of burning sage wound its way down to Samarra. A rapid and repetitive series of strikes drummed out ever-shifting overtones. The drone of pipes and flutes played in the courtyard and spilled over the wall. By the time Samarra reached the edges of the biodome, the singers had begun the Song of Aletheia, which told of Aletheia Hibou-Ra's journey from the Shadow Fields of Admetusland, through the islands of Pythia, until at last, in the furthest reaches of the Blue Expanse, she came upon Imeron Wolfrunner as he battled the deadly sirens of Naraka.

Beyond the music and laughter in the biodome, there weren't too many other sounds of life. Birds and beasts had mostly gone and the insects had all but disappeared. Everyone and everything was terrified. The Flux was tightening its hold and the unworld lingered closer every day. Life was changing.

Samarra grabbed her tablet and took a picture of her surroundings. She frowned at what she saw in the sky. Both moons were turning blue and rotating counterclockwise for reasons no one could fathom. The planets were changing also, crashing around space in haphazard bursts as spatial dimensions collided into each other. In relief, bright stars uplifted the darkness with glittering lights. Samarra sighed bleakly. It was at that moment that she fully grasped what retrograde-1 signified. She stayed there for a while to watch the sky and eventually ordered Obsidian to let her into the biodome.

"I have a present for you, Obsidian," Samarra promised, full of cheek as she scanned the area carefully. When she was sure they were alone, she snapped her fingers. At once, blue fire erupted from her index finger. She giggled sweetly, moved closer to the wall, and burnt her tag into the smoothest brick.
S.D. was here
, she signed with a flare. Obsidian yowled in pain, but Samarra showed no hint of remorse for her wicked actions.