The Boys of Fire and Ash (28 page)

He was miserable, tired, and in a bad mood. The last few days had been a lot for Av. He'd survived a vicious head injury and poison, and he was now dealing with the fact that he had a sister. And Goobs. He had to be missing his Little Brother, worrying about him alone in the Ikkuma Pit.

I accepted the blade and my hand trembled a bit when I pointed it at Farka. She chuckled bitterly to herself. Av sat down beside Fiver to get in as much sleep as he could for the moment.

“Is it because of me?” asked Lussit. She'd caught up and was standing awkwardly, as though waiting for an invitation to join us.

“What?”

“Did we stop because of me?” She looked so worried, so disappointed in herself.

I shrugged. “I think we're all pretty tired.”

I yawned—it started off as just for show, but once I thought about yawning, I was yawning for real, my lack of sleep suddenly catching up with me. I leaned against the trunk of a nearby tree and slid to the ground, careful not to take the blade off Farka, who was watching me like a hungry Tunrar.

Lussit came and sat down in front of me, fiddling with a twig between her fingers. I waited for her to say something, but she didn't.

“You should try to sleep,” I told her.

She nodded and then crawled up to the tree trunk and sat next to me.

“Did that hurt?” she asked, pointing to my right leg.

I lifted my leg into my lap and traced the bubbly scar on my ankle with my finger. “I was a baby, I don't remember.”

She stared at it a moment, her brow crinkled as she tried to understand. When I looked at it through her eyes, I could see how it would seem like a weird thing to do. But that's how it had always been in the Pit, how it always would be. And my mark, I kind of liked it. It reminded me of home.

“Did it hurt Cubby?” she asked.

I shrugged, not wanting to talk about it. The memory was too painful. I remembered his little body squirming in my skinny, tiny arms the night he was welcomed into the A-Frame. When I burned his leg he screamed so loud I was worried his bright red face would explode, but he calmed down quickly while the rest of our Brothers laughed and cheered and congratulated me on having a new Little Brother. I remembered looking at him, so quiet and calm nuzzling my chest, and I felt my eyes getting wet.

My silence didn't bother Lussit. She accepted my shrug as a satisfactory answer and leaned her head against my shoulder. She was asleep in seconds, her arm linked in mine.

“You've bewitched her,” hissed Farka. “Somehow, you little boys have fiddled with her brain, that's why she trusts you.”

I checked Lussit but she didn't seem to have heard Farka. She stayed resting on my arm, her perfect round cheeks wearing a sleepy grin.

“You'd better know what you're doing, Ikkuma boy.”

I glared at Farka, trying to return the same hate and disdain she'd been giving me since we'd met. It didn't affect her and her lips crept into a satisfied smirk. I didn't know what I was doing and she knew it.

“Shh. Can you listen?” She looked up to the treetops and
I listened. Far away, I could hear the faint sound of Tunrar screaming and howling as the new day dawned. “Many hungry Tunrar wait for you, little boy. Tell me, when the time comes, how will you protect our Sacred Innocent?”

I kept quiet, hoping my grim expression would shut her up. I looked at Lussit, still happily asleep on my arm, and all at once I felt sick. I didn't know how to protect her from Krepin, or the Tunrar, and I wondered if Av was right. Maybe we shouldn't have let her come. But without her, I'd have nothing to offer the waiting Aju Krepin.

“Or will you cast her aside when you have what you want?”

The words struck a nerve inside me, and before I could stop myself I said, “You're one to talk about casting things aside—monster.”

“Monster?” she hissed.

She was offended and I'd done it. My chest swelled with a new confidence and anger. I wanted to hurt her, infuriate her. So I would.

“You're the stuff of nightmares,” I spat. “Boys wake in the night screaming because they've seen one of you when they close their eyes.”

At that, the piercing sting of her glare was gone, replaced by confusion, and I felt the power of our little discussion shift.

“You tell me, Farka. How many baby boys have you thrown away and forgotten?”

Her face softened suddenly; her hard eyes were round and wet and she looked away from me, her sagging shoulders reminding me of all the Potentials. She held it in a different way than Tanuk, but still, it was there, like a stink
she tried to cover with all her anger and hardness. I swallowed hard. It was the Guilt.

“That's what you think we do,” she said quietly, “just…throw you away.”

I shifted in my seat—this was not the reaction I had been going for. I nodded, trying not to seem surprised by her sadness.

“Can't you see?” She leaned forward, her eyes boring into me. “It is to save you.”

I sat there, stunned and confused, and she shook her head.

“From Ardigund.”

The first Aju.

“What about him?” I asked, careful not to sound too interested.

“Ever since the Beginning rose to power, it has hunted the sons of Belphoebe.”

“Ardigund never found her baby,” I snapped, remembering Lussit's story. Fiver asked about the baby and she—I watched Lussit sleeping quietly—she never answered him.

“He couldn't,” she said. “We hid you much too well.”

My entire body felt strained, like a pressure was about to take me over and crush all my bones to pulp. “Hid who?”

“You,” she said. “All of you. The Ikkuma Pit is a dangerous place. Barren, hot, no man can survive in its belly. What Aju could believe a baby would survive down there? But the fires of the Ikkuma Pit kept you, all of you.”

Nothing can survive down here but us
.

“Since the time of Belphoebe, when she laid her son down on its ashen floor and prayed its fires burn only for him.”

I felt dizzy. Belphoebe's baby. The First Brother. “Rawley,” I breathed.

Everything went silent—the Baublenotts froze at the mention of his name. All that was left was a ringing, a deafening alarm resonating in my own ears.

“Can't you see?” said Farka. “The Beginning wants you for its own.”

“Why?” My arm began to tremble and I hoped it wouldn't wake Lussit. “Why would they want us?”

“Because with you”—her body was leaning forward, her right shoulder dropped as her eyes became wet—“Ardigund believed his powers would be restored.”

“We don't have any powers.”

Farka's head tilted as she looked at me. “Rawley was Ardigund's blood,” she breathed. “The blood of the Belphebans, yes. But also, the blood of the Beginning.”

My heart stopped dead and every hair on my skin stood on end as my own veins suddenly felt like they were pumping tar.

“It is Ikkuma blood,” she told me. “Your blood.”

I tried to think, tried to make my brain refuse to believe it, tried to think of anything but opening up my own skin and letting any trace of the Beginning flow out of my body.

Blaze's son. Krepin lost him to the falls.

Oh, Cubby
.

I closed my eyes tight, digging my knuckles into them, my nose burning and my throat caught on a violent scream. My Cubby. He couldn't do what Krepin wanted him to do. He was just Cubby. My Cubby. Could Krepin really believe he'd restore Ardigund's powers?

The other boys in the Temple, they were in white, but Krepin had Cubby dressed in blue. He was different, singled out, it was right there in front of my face. I'd seen Krepin's eyes, the way they lit up when I said Cubby's name. I
thought of the new one he'd given my Little Brother, Linerk, the way he looked at the little boy from the Ikkuma Pit—not with menace. There had been pride.

No. Please. Not Cubby
.

I opened my eyes, and the world was blurry; I had to steady myself on my hands and knees to make the spinning stop. My throat burned with bile.

Krepin was never going to give Cubby back. He was going to use his blood to make himself more powerful.

Lussit was awake now, all my movement disturbing her slumber. She placed a warm hand on my back. “Urgle?”

“I have to go for him,” I said.

“What?”

I forced myself to my feet, nearly throwing up.

It was just like Blaze's baby.

Krepin would keep Cubby.

I had to stop him.

I took off into the trees, stumbling as best I could in the direction of the thundering falls.

Lussit's voice called after me. “Urgle!”

But I kept going. Krepin didn't want her. Krepin didn't want Serin. He wanted Cubby. He'd always wanted Cubby.

I crashed through the thick brush and mud, not caring about how loud I was being, not caring about the thorns and switches cutting my arms and legs and face. Every moment wasted was another moment Krepin was with Cubby.

“Urgle, please!” Lussit's voice wasn't far behind me, twigs and sticks crunching under her feet. “Please stop!”

But I didn't stop. I only went faster. He'd lied to me. And I'd let him! Blaze was right, I shouldn't have left Cubby there. But I did! And I'd run around the mountains on this—

I let out a scream, so loud and bloody I thought my throat might rip.

The mission! Why send me? Because I was useless! I should have died! I would have died if it hadn't been for
Lussit. And then who would come for Cubby? No one. There'd be no one to save him.

Krepin sent me to get rid of me!

And then another scream. But this one wasn't mine.

Lussit.

I stopped and listened. She was grunting and struggling somewhere not far behind me. “Urgle, please!”

I would have died if it hadn't been for Lussit.

I made my way back through the brush and there she was, waste deep in the mud. I stood at the edge of the sinkhole.

Her face lit up when she saw me.

“Why didn't you tell me?” I growled. Her head tilted to the side and she said nothing. “About the baby! About Rawley!”

Her eyes dropped and she shook her head. “I didn't think it mattered.”

“It does matter! Krepin thinks he can use Cubby!”

Her mouth hung open, and her wide eyes watched me as her skin went pale. “What?”

“He thinks Cubby is like Belphoebe's baby! He thinks Cubby can complete his powers!” I broke a branch off a nearby tree and thrust it out towards her. She just stayed there, staring at me, her open mouth quivering.

“Take it!” I snapped.

She jumped at the force in my voice and carefully took hold of the stick.

With a violent yank I pulled her towards me until her waist was free.

“He doesn't want you,” I told her as she lay there at my feet. “I'm going for Cubby on my own.”

And with that, I stormed away back into the Baublenotts.

“Urgle, wait!” she called. She got to her feet, her beautiful robes stained a hideous Baublenott black, and followed. “I'll go with you.”

“Go back to Av,” I said, moving forward. “Let them know what's happening.”

I felt bad for just leaving him, for not telling him what I was doing. But there wasn't any time. Cubby needed me now, and Krepin wasn't going to let him go. How could Av help? No, this was up to me.

“You can't just go to Krepin on your own,” she said. “They won't even let you into the Temple. You need me!”

“I don't!” I shouted, and stepped up to her face. She stopped suddenly, gasping as I towered over her. She took a step back and I felt a sudden wave of shame. I'd come at her like she was Fiver making me angry. What was I going to do? Hit her? I wasn't mad at her. I was mad at myself. I should never have left that Temple without Cubby. I sighed and turned away, making my way towards the sound of the falls. “Just go back, Lussit. Av will be worried.”

But she didn't go back.

She let me get a good distance ahead of her, and then she followed. She made no secret of being behind me, just gave me a lot of space and tried as hard as she could to keep up.

I should have told her to go back. I should have been mad that she didn't listen. But to tell the truth, I felt better knowing she was there.

The screams of the Tunrar were louder by the afternoon, and the rush of the water was a droning, ear-numbing thunder that told me we were near the falls. We'd made it back to the Temple.

I crouched on the banks of the river, hidden by the
undergrowth, while Lussit sat farther back, pretending she wasn't there at all. “Might as well come out,” I called to her. “No sense hiding.”

I didn't need to tell her twice, and she hurried out from her spot to join me on the bank.

Lussit lost her breath when she finally laid eyes on the giant colorful building standing tall in the middle of the violent current. She drank it in as though she'd been starving all her life for a sight like this. “It's so beautiful.”

I didn't say anything. It had overwhelmed me too, the last time I was here. But now, it was just like the ugly, stagnant pools of the Baublenotts: dark and evil, full of nothing but filth and rot.

“How do we get to it?” she asked.

I shook my head. “
We
don't get to anything. I told you, Krepin won't want you.”

“Yes, he will,” she said. “I'm the leader of the Belpheban faith; he would love nothing more than to get his hands on me, I promise you.”

“He just wants Cubby,” I insisted.

“Fine!” she snapped. It was the first time I'd ever seen her react with anything but patience, kindness, and understanding. I was surprised. “So he wants Cubby. Do you really think he's going to be happy to let you in, just you by yourself? I'm telling you, he'll want me too. I'm your only way in those doors.” She grabbed my hand and I suddenly found it hard to swallow. “So, how do
we
get to it?”