The Dark Light (23 page)

“We have school,” he replied. “It’s different.”

“No algebra or Spanish?”

“We learn languages from the Other Side. And then there’s history and culture. Weaponry. And some magic, though not as much since the Purge.”

This was wild. Sol a student in Brakaland. It was a whole new side of him. “I feel like I know you,” I said, wanting him to continue, “but I don’t. What about your parents?”

“My mother died when I was eight. My father’s in the West. I have a younger sister, two younger brothers.”

“You must miss them. Doesn’t your father mind you being out here?”

“He knows it’s important that we keep close to the Ridge. What happens there is crucial to understanding the Suzerain’s plans.”

“But it’s so dangerous. You’re pretty much in the lion’s mouth.”

“Things are different here,” said Sol. “The path to adulthood starts earlier, at eleven for boys. That’s the age when you travel, you train to fight, you learn to survive, so that you can earn yourself the right to be called a man.”

Jay was almost eleven, just a kid. If he’d stayed in Brakaland, he’d soon begin his journey into adulthood. And me? My senior year started in the fall, and then college, my ticket out of
Crownsville. But what if my father had kept me here? What on earth would my life have been like?

“What about women and girls?” I asked. “Do they fight?”

“They fight,” said Sol. “If that’s their path.”

I’d never seen him so relaxed. Any more laid back and he’d give Andy a run for his money. Wrapping my skirt around my legs, I shifted to face him. “So have you earned the right to be called a man?”

“Not yet.”

“Is that why you joined the Sons of the West?”

It was the wrong question. A stern look entered his eyes. “I joined the Sons of the West because this is part of our home,” he said, his chin raised. “It belongs to the people; it can’t be given up to the Suzerain.”

Hastily backtracking, I tried to lighten the mood. “Puts my problems in context. What college to go to. What to wear to prom.”

“The dance?” asked Sol.

“I have a hot date,” I replied, hoping he’d catch the flippancy in my tone. It didn’t feel like a balanced exchange of information. Sol talks about fighting for his country, and all I could come up with was prom. I wasn’t even sure why I’d mentioned it. Maybe just to remind myself that my life in Crownsville was real. “Andy,” I said. “He’s a really nice guy.”

Sol’s gaze again fixed on me. “And lucky, too,” he said, quietly.

There’s that moment when a guy says something random, like Andy offering to take Jay to the cages, that drives you to spend hours analyzing every word—
Did he say it like this, or did he say it like that? Did he mean this, or did he mean that?
Then somehow you break the code and you think maybe,
maybe
, that guy you’d been dreaming about might actually like you, too. That was how I felt right then.

“I want to show you something,” said Sol. He got to his feet and offered me his hand.

Still dissecting his previous comment, I took his hand, and together we wandered to the edge of the paddock where the river flowed beyond the pond.

“The river’s called the Ritter,” he said, pointing to the babbling water. “It comes from the mountains, feeds the valley, or used to. All of this, from the Ridge to the western ocean, is Brakaland, the greatest of this world’s kingdoms. To the north, Hillsvale. In the east, Roul. To the south, Valaray. Then over the ocean lies Balia, the island where the Barrier was created and where the Solenetta was made. The Balians are keepers of magic and legend who nurture the energy from which they say all magic flows. The people there won’t join this fight. They fought in the Great War against Elias and it didn’t go well for them. So they remain isolated, knowing that if the Suzerain opens the Barrier and Brakaland falls, the other kingdoms will
topple one by one and they could be all that remains of this world.”

I stared into the distance, imagining kingdoms and countries, worlds continuing on forever. “And beyond Balia?” I uttered.

“Beyond Balia are places few of us have ever seen,” said Sol. “There are more kingdoms out there, but what they suffer, I do not know.”

“And then there are worlds within worlds,” I said. “Like the demons breaking through the Warnon Mines?”

“There are no limits.”

“It’s like learning history all over again,” I said, almost mesmerized by his words. “It could take a lifetime to know everything about this place.”

“Several. Ten days’ walk from here lies the Falls of Verderay where the water flows true green into a lake of the same color, and when it rains, the droplets break on the lake’s surface like emeralds that have fallen from the sky.”

Sol’s energy rose as he spoke, his love for this world clear in every word. A tiny part of me swooned as his rich voice carried me along for the ride. I imagined us together, swimming in green water with emerald rain falling all around us.

“To the north is Byron’s Garden,” he continued. “Byron’s a Flora Demon who’s been here since the beginning of the world. He never leaves his garden, and no other demon can set foot
there. It’s supposed to be amazing. You see creatures and plants that can be found nowhere else.” He paused, his gaze fixed on the horizon. Sadness returned to his face. “Word from your world is that a power plant is planned where Byron’s Garden grows. The Barrier can’t absorb something like that. It’ll give up on the garden to save what it can around it. It’ll be gone.”

The magical tale he’d spun vanished like smoke in the breeze. All of it—Byron’s Garden, the Falls of Verderay—gone.

“Then the Treaty of Roi has to work,” I said.

“Yes.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

He paused, then playfully elbowed my side as he lowered his lips to my ear. “Then we’ll have to wipe you off the face of the planet,” he whispered.

“Funny,” I said, as he pulled away grinning. “So we’re back to square one. What do you believe?”

“I believe that the treaty will work,” he said, once again serious. “We must do everything in our power to make it work. It’s time for the lines between the worlds to be drawn once and for all, and for the Barrier to be sealed forever. Mia, it’s better if the worlds remain strangers to each other. We’re too different to mix.”

After everything I’d seen, I kind of agreed. “It’s like a poem we read in school,” I said. “Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.” I was surprised that I’d said it—me
reciting poetry to Sol. But I knew what I was trying to say. Sol was from here, I was from Crownsville, and there was nothing could be done about it. “Kipling, or someone,” I added, and shrugged off my intensity with a smile. “I can never remember.”

“Maybe he knew this world too,” said Sol.

“Maybe he did.”

I took a final look around, then noticed Delane on the porch. I didn’t know how long he’d been there; but he watched us with that same strange look he’d had last night. Standing so close to Sol, I wondered if Delane had seen us hand in hand, and wished I didn’t feel like I’d been caught doing something I shouldn’t.

“Delane’s up,” I announced, and Sol turned to see.

“At last,” he said, and without a second’s hesitation, he was striding for the house.

I lingered a second longer, watching as he headed for Delane, wondering if the time we’d just spent together meant as much to Sol as it had to me. I doubted it.

“Mia, come on,” he called back, energized to be leaving. “It’s time to move.”

* * *

From the back of our horse, I took a final look at the house. The damage the demons had wrought to the roof was clear from a distance. A huge hole spanned several of the boards. We were lucky to be alive.

In our hurry to get to Orion, we were kind of leaving a mess. My blanket remained where I’d left it on the step, the kitchen table still sat on the grass outside. My gaze scanned the upper floor, then paused at the cobweb-filled window. I couldn’t help but think that behind it, spider eyes stared back.

Not yet mounted, Delane strung our packs to our horse’s side. “What, in the name of the stars, do you have in here?”

“In what?” I asked.

“In this pack!”

Oh, that. I’d made a quick sweep of the ground floor before we’d left the house. There was plenty of stuff we could use: a couple of blankets, some rags from the kitchen (for bathroom breaks), a switchblade I’d found in a cupboard . . .

“We got caught off guard a couple of times yesterday,” I replied, casually. “It’s just in case.”

Delane muttered something I didn’t catch, maybe about defense mechanisms and garbage. After securing the bulging pack, he jumped aboard.

Not long after leaving the house, we entered the town of Narlow. Delane told me it had long been a trading post between Orion and the valley.

“We can’t stop,” said Sol. “Not if we’re to cut off Malone’s gang.”

The horses’ steps echoed off the cobbled streets. As in Bordertown, there were scars from battle. But unlike my first
view of Brakaland, there was something light and wholesome about Narlow. Flowers grew in the overgrown yards, pretty drapes hung at windows. More a village than a town, it was easy to imagine the place filled with workers and families. I pictured kids, excited to be off the farms, running like crazy through the streets, just like the kids did on Saturday mornings in Crownsville.

“That’s the Gathering Hall,” said Delane. He pointed to a stone building to our right. Wide steps led to heavy double doors, which had fallen from their hinges. “It’s where the villagers made their last stand against the demons and where most of those who died were killed.”

I gazed into the blackness beyond those doors and wondered if their bodies were still inside. Who would retrieve them? They didn’t have the UN or the Red Cross or anyone who swept into war zones to clean up other folks’ messes. I guessed the bodies stayed where they lay until only bones remained, like the bones we’d seen on entering the valley.

“The survivors finally evacuated,” said Delane. “They headed into the forest to Maslian’s Caves where they waited three weeks to be rescued.”

Three weeks!
Had my father not abandoned me, how easily I could have been with them. “There must be something that can be done to bring this place back.”

“There is,” replied Sol. “Cast out the Suzerain and send him to hell with the demons.”

It was a touch ambitious for my watch. Rescuing Jay and the Solenetta would have to suffice.

A couple of hours later, a tall stone obelisk, like something from Rome or Ancient Egypt, appeared on the side of the road.

“That’s it,” said Delane. “We’ve made it out of the valley.”

The trees and brush soon cleared. Wider roads joined ours. And then people appeared. A woman, like Willie’s double from Bordertown with spines on her arms, sat on a boulder at the edge of the road and watched as we passed. It was both strange and reassuring to see other people again. It was easy in the valley to feel like the only three alive.

“We’re close to Orion,” said Sol, pointing to a gang of Runners recognizable by their jeans and jackets. Some had the look just right. Others? Not so much. Like the guy in sweat pants and a suit jacket. I wasn’t sure he’d ever seen a copy of
Vogue
. But the Runners had one thing in common: They all looked human. I guess the Brakaland folk knew enough about the Other Side to know that green scales were definitely last season.

Sol stopped on the peak of a rise in the road. We drew up alongside and looked down into a gap between the hills. And there it was, like the magical city Sol had spoken of earlier. Orion.

I
don’t know what I’d expected, but this wasn’t it. Orion was a city surrounded by a great white wall. From the high peak on which we stood, thousands of rooftops were visible with smoke rising from chimneys. The infamous Gates of Orion were beneath us, barred, wrought iron barricades, the height of the wall. Guards blocked the entrance. But the guards weren’t sentinels and that, I supposed, was a good thing.

At the far edge of the city stood a spectacular structure as white as the city walls, and as wide as the whole of Orion. It was built on several terraces, its upper levels higher than the rooftops of the houses below. Eight or nine towers soared above the terraces. No windows adorned the towers but, from a distance,
I could clearly make out the steps that spiraled the towers’ outer walls from base to tip. I wasn’t sure what purpose the stairs served. Security? If nothing else, they offered anyone fool enough to climb them a view right across the Brakaland Plains.

It was Orion’s palace, I guessed. I guessed something else, too. “That’s where they’ve got Jay.”

“It’s the Velanhall,” said Sol, catching my comment. “It once housed the Alderman Council of the Plains. The Suzerain has taken it over. He has no right to be there.”

And neither did we. Yet somehow we had to find a way in.

“So what do we do?” I asked. “The gates look heavily guarded.”

“I’ll go see if there’s any trace of Malone’s men,” replied Sol. “Wait here. This shouldn’t take long.”

I dismounted, glad to give both our horse and my butt a well-earned break. Sol disappeared from view and there was nothing else to do but watch the Velanhall’s ominous towers. Jay was so close, yet he might as well have been on the opposite end of the earth.

Delane had dismounted. He adjusted the packs on our horse. “You’re wasting your time, you know,” he said.

Certain I’d heard him right, but having no clue what he meant, I shrugged. “Sorry, what?”

“Solandun,” he said. He continued to fiddle with the packs as if to avoid my gaze. “The two of you together wouldn’t work out.”

I didn’t need a mirror to know I looked stunned. I immediately turned my back to him. Call it ego preservation. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I muttered.

“I’m pretty sure you do.”

He came to my side, close—too close when all I wanted was to hide my face and pretend this conversation wasn’t happening.

“You’re really nice, Mia,” he said. “I’d hate to see you disappointed.”