The Lotus Effect (Rise Of The Ardent) (45 page)

Anger.

Anger blossomed in my stomach and spread quickly throughout my body. I could feel its hot and vibrant power, searing a path through my chest. So hot that it felt cold.

Despite his hands squeezing the air around my throat, I screamed.

I screamed not out of fear, but from rage. Screamed for the citizens. Screamed for Mrs. Fawnsworth. Screamed for my mother.

Dropping my hands from his wrists, my fingers clawed into the earth as my body spasmed upwards in my hatred.

Briggin’s eyes flared wide in confusion and yet his grip tightened. No longer toying with me, he was now killing me.

Clenching my teeth, I clutched at the dirt, remembering the moment I bowed my grief into this very soil at the news of my mother’s death. With no thought, I ran my mind along the web of gathered energy I had left there. Finding what I needed, I harnessed the potent emotions of both anguish and anger and stared straight back at Briggins. I could feel his grip begin to slacken.

His eyes widened and his brow furrowed as a hard brown substance—thick as tree bark—began to spread across the surface of my neck, becoming a barrier between his hands.

“What is this you witch?” he cried, involuntarily bringing his face away from mine.

My mother loved me. He murdered her. He watched her die.

The ground beneath my hands began to shake, but I didn’t care.
He was a murderer. He killed my mother. Tortured Mrs. Fawnsworth.

“Lily! Stop!” I thought I heard Xander’s voice break through from beyond the fury, but I didn’t care. There was a murderer before me. A disease I had to eradicate before it spread.

“
I shall have my retribution!
”
A voice not of my own sounded deep from within me, scalding my throat as it escaped, healing my crushed windpipe as it crossed the threshold of my lips.

With a look of sheer horror, Briggins released my throat.

Sitting up, I dug my fingers further into the earth, and smiled. Absorbing the power. The earth’s sweet embrace.

Suddenly and with unnatural speed, I seized the neck of Briggin’s armor in his retreat, bringing his face close to mine. “I will watch the life
flee
from
your
eyes.
”
My voice this time. But still not my own, something older. Something powerful.

“Lily!” distant warnings call to me, but I cannot hear them over the blinding, vibrating energy.

As I held the diseased one close, the skin of my wrists darkened, becoming hard as had my neck.

I did not care.

The ground beneath me rippled; fissures opened at my sides. My hair swirled around me in the bitter storm of energy and malevolence, my eyes perceiving the surrounding area as a dark kaleidoscope of iridescent light. The stench of his rot permeated the air around me, causing my nostrils to flare. And like a whip, my eyes locked upon the man in my grasp. A silhouette, black as coal, radiated outwards from his frame, outlining him for judgment.

Diseased.

I wrapped my fingers around his wrists as he pulled back in fear, holding him in place. I smiled as he screamed, my hardened fingers scorching the flesh of his skin, and even so, I squeezed tighter, taking pleasure in the way it bubbled beneath me.

I will extinguish this life. I will sever this scourge from its meager existence.

My duty. My burden.

I shall not fail.

Releasing the sloughed skin of his wrists, I quickly captured the sides of his head, twisting my fingers deep into his hair until my nails bit into his scalp. I could feel the power within, the furnace of energy that blinded me in my rage. I dove into its welcoming arms and tunneled it from my chest, directing it towards the bloated creature that was Briggins in my hate.

“Lily! Hear my voice. Come back to me. You must stop!”

Afflicted. Tainted.

Verdict?

Eliminate.

The tips of my fingers dove through his skin like butter, reaching centimeters from his skull.
Eliminate.
Thinking of the injustices, I growled and dug deeper, my fingers piercing the bone with a deafening
crack
. The diseased made a pitiful gurgling noise as I reached through the small gap, gripping both edges of the cranium in each hand.
Eliminate.
The power seared me in its rage, demanding attention—with one savage yank the bone broke away, shearing into halves.

As if time had slowed, Briggin’s lifeless body fell at my feet, first to his knees, then to his belly, disposing the volatile remains of his head into the earth. Soiling it, tainting it—with murder.

“
Mercy . . .
”
the airy voice, one made of many voices, brushed itself like a cooling salve across the bitter hatred in my mind.

“
Mercy, Lily
.”
My mother’s voice?

Just one word spoken and suddenly—I was
ashamed
.

—I gasped as my vision was returned to me, the terrible scene transforming to only moments before, Briggins still alive, my fingers hovering, nails piercing his skin.

Preparing to rip the root of the pestilence from its source.

Eyes wide, I froze.
What is this? Did I . . . ?

“Let him go!
Please
!”

Scottie?

If I didn’t stop . . . I
would
kill Briggins.

I am no better than he.

My eyes blurred with tears. Blinking rapidly, I gasped a horrible sound, feeling as though someone had just stomped on my heart, reviving me from the edge of death. My lungs thudded painfully against my burning chest in realization: This was no nightmarish terror I could wake up from. This was real. Happening now.

The power within me was my own, but its origin didn’t feel right. Its source was being fueled by hate. It was unnatural.

Panicking, I tried to redirect the power, turn it away from its origin and sever the links to its source. Crying out in denial, I let go of Briggins, watching as he scrambled away from me. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t control it. Could not coax the power back within me. The hard web encasing it was unraveling . . . shattering to pieces.

Suddenly and without a will of my own, a force so powerful slammed from my chest in its release, a rupture of uncontrolled energy. My arms flung uselessly to the sides as I was knocked backwards from the torrent, my armored body a mere rag doll in comparison to its might. I closed my eyes against the release of my body as I was propelled through the air.

I felt numb. An empty shell.

I casually braced myself for the impact.

The impact that would never come.

For I was falling now.

Falling weightlessly over the Edge.

Chapter 47

The Ardent Ascends

I was not unfamiliar with the feeling of flying or falling even, but
this,
this was different. This feeling would never stop. The constant unraveling uncertainty that gathered into the pit of my stomach never leveled out, only increased as the seconds ticked by.

I tumbled endlessly into the depths of the unknown. The sky was blue now but a dark chasm awaited me at its end. That was all that existed beyond the Edge. All that I’d ever been told.

Grandmother and the Akkadians? How had they survived on the outside?

No.
I refused to give in to hope. I was to die. I would accept my death with honor and with peace.

My mind returned to me after the onslaught of power was released. There was nothing left inside. No hatred. No grief. Just the feeling of falling.

And shame. I tried to kill Briggins, maybe succeeded even.

Maybe, I deserved this.

At my side I heard a noise, a piercing sound that grew louder and louder.

Ignoring the buzzing, I lay my head back against the force of the wind, turning to the side to watch as my fingers made beautiful vertical stripes in the clouds as I passed, the same patterns I made when Xander had first flown me to the Outlands.

The noise became louder, distracting me, urging me to look above. With tearing eyes I watched as a golden body quickly and like a bullet pierced through the endless sky, gathering speed as it neared me.

He had jumped.

That
idiot
.

 
Xander sacrificed himself to save me?
Or perhaps, to not allow me to die alone. Now
that
angered me.

Like a brick hitting me in the face, I awoke from my apathetic daze.
What am I thinking? I’m the idiot.

Xander has wings
.
Xander can fly.

There was so much I had yet to accomplish. So many people had died in the hope that I should succeed. I wanted to live. Deserved to live. Refocusing my mind back to survival, I knew I needed to slow myself. I tensed my body—which was a mistake. I started tumbling end over end in my panic.

I looked up mid-spin. We were much too far apart. He’d never make it.

In an attempt to stop the spinning, I spread my body out, which worked, stabilizing me again. Trying my best to ignore the awful feeling in my stomach, I concentrated on holding my heavy limbs at my side, belly exposed to the rising white clouds beneath me. If I was to die, I’d be damned if I was going to let his sacrifice to try and save me be in vain.

Catching sight of Xander from the corner of my eye, I noticed he had arrowed himself even more, even when he had already rocketed his speed to its max potential. A trail of the clouds’ mist whipped out behind him as he shot towards me, the air visibly vibrating.

A glimmer of gold twinkled beyond the cloud I passed through, disrupting my attention.

I refocused my watering eyes, looking harder.

Was that a
gear
?

Whatever it was, I saw another, and then another. And when I reached a gap in the thick clouds, I almost lost my balance and tumbled again at the sight.

Gears larger than warehouses were turning and rotating themselves upon one another. All of which were connected to the sides of a colossal mass of brown dirt, large roots hanging heavily beneath them.

—And then I felt it. Xander slamming into me. His impact from above knocked the breath from my lungs, snapping me back to reality.

Or was
this
my reality?

Xander grabbed me around the hips then secured his arms across my chest, wrapping his legs over and in-between mine, his chest anchored firmly to my back. Every muscle in my body hurt as he suddenly tried to engage his jets and extend his wings to slow us.

The jets turned on briefly and intermittently. We were traveling far too fast and the weight of the both of us was too much for his suit to accommodate for.
 

Xander cursed as he reached around, slamming his fist onto the side of the jetpack. The clouds funneled around us, creating more spiraled patterns. Spiraled patterns that wove together erratically now, a chaotic mess.

“We’re too heavy! You have to let me go!” I yelled up at him.

Before Xander could respond, we both soared below the final forest of vapor—our decent no longer blinded by the veil of dense clouds. We both couldn’t ignore what we saw beneath us: an immense rippling gray mass.

“Don’t let go of me, Lily!”

Xander slammed his fist onto the pack a final time before spinning me to face him, wrapping one arm around my back and one around my head—preparing us for what may be our final embrace. He extended his wings as far as they could reach, the air catching beneath them.

“I’ll find you. In this lifetime or the next. I
will
find you,” he called out.

I closed my eyes and let myself go, sinking all that I was, all that I would ever be, into our embrace.

I expected a sharp pain and then nothing, a blank void of unconsciousness.

Neither of those happened.

~

Water surrounded me.

It enveloped every nook and crevice of my body, my armor, enfolding me in its quiet clutches.

Xander and I had been forced apart by the sudden impact, so I alone sank further and further into the calm depths, my arms outstretched to the rippling sunlight above me—memories of a dream of long ago resurfacing in my mind.

My armor was weighing me down. I blinked, coming to full alert. I didn’t see Xander anywhere. Even if I successfully learned how to swim, I was too weak and too tired to try and remove the metal shell from my body. Whatever happened when I attacked Briggins had made sure of that. An angry, frustrated resentment prickled at my nerves then, thinking of all I had left to fight for.

I can’t die. Not now.
I kicked my heavy feet as I wrestled with the straps attaching the metal to my legs. My fingers fumbled with the clasps, but my hands were trembling so terribly I couldn’t get either of them to budge.

A pressure rose in my chest, my lungs started to ignite. I clutched at my throat as I continued down.

Down. And then, even further into the graying abyss below me.

I would soon pass out.
Better to be unconscious than drown while awake.

Where was I?

It didn’t matter.

Spotting my satchel floating up in front of me, I grasped it tightly to my chest, my only comfort in death. The flesh of my lungs was aflame now; the ember had caught, burning brightly. Dots swam across my vision suddenly and I squalled, choking in a mouthful of water, my face contorting into an ugly grimace.

Death by drowning would not be a glorious death
.

But then I felt something—
saw
something from the corner of my failing vision, a latticed rope-like design.

Water surged beneath me, the force pushing me upwards and into a ball. A fetal position. In a flash, I was captured and gathered against the rough texture.
A net?
After wrapping itself around me, it suddenly swooped up, clinging at my feet and crumpled armor.

I fought against the pressure in my chest as I watched the sunlight approach closer.
Or was it I who approached it?
I couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe.

The sunlight blinded me fully as I broke forth from the surface, the warm breathable air rushing at my face like a long lost friend.

I heaved in great gulps, sputtering water from my aching lungs. My trembling fingers involuntarily clasped to the sides of the net while being dragged through the water. Eventually, I was hauled upon a gritty surface.

Sand
? My fingers dug into the warm broken earth through the mesh of the net.

“Xander?” I managed to yell despite my nauseated delirium. My stomach heaved. Hot water burned its way back out of me, making me choke and retch into the sand. The water tasted of salt and like nothing I had ever experienced.

Where is he? Drowning?

“Xander!” I shouted once more, which started another fit of wet coughs, dislodging the last bit of water that remained in my lungs.

“Lily,” Xander spoke close behind me. “Stay calm. I’m here.” The sound of his voice, reassuring me, nearly brought tears to my already stinging eyes.

I looked to my right, to the direction of his voice as I lay breathing against the damp sand. He too was trapped inside a large net near the water’s line, but was now standing, removing it from his body in a flourish.

Shifting on my arms, I spun myself to rest on my back, my armor sinking into the sand. Through my bleary-eyed disorientation, I gazed to the sky where we’d fallen.

A large island floated high above us.

City Prosper: An island propelled in place by the enormous geared assemblage I observed on the way down.

On the way down?

Is this all a dream? Am I dead?

City Prosper? My home, the only place I’ve ever known to exist—an island floating in the sky . . . ?

“Where are we?” I managed to ask, my voice just as gritty as the sand I lay on. Feeling a wave of dizziness hit me, I looked to my hands. They trembled uncontrollably as I lifted them: I was consumed by shock.

“I have an idea, but I’m sure
they
’ll be able to tell us,” Xander said cautiously, nodding towards the sound of movement behind. Slipping a dagger from his belt, he finally dragged his armored legs from the shallow water. “You alive?” he asked without looking, stepping into place at my side.

“I think so.”

“Good,” he said shortly. Just like the situation with the Sa’Vas creature—he was too preoccupied reading energies to give anything more than a one syllabled answer.

The footsteps slowed as they approached my head. Someone grabbed the net above me, slicing through it with the metallic blade of a curved knife.
Xander must trust their energy; otherwise he wouldn’t have allowed them to approach.
The sunlight reflected from the knife, blinding me momentarily before the silhouette of a man’s head blocked out the golden luminance. A halo crowning itself behind the shadow.

I blinked rapidly as a man with an oddly-shaven beard came into focus.

He stood above me, grinning knowingly.

“Welcome to the Amerika, Mistress Emerson. It appears you have finally arrived,” his rough and brittle voice scraped against my sensitive ears. The stubbly bearded man looked to another who stood close behind. “Inform Sojinn. The Ardent has descended.”

The man looked relieved:
He’s waited to say this for a very long time now.

“
Ardent?
” I asked, my own voice sounding rough and broken.

The man chuckled. “Who do you think had enough power to raise an entire civilization to the safety of the sky if it wasn’t for one of you? I think the old bugger still lives up there too. Sojinn says he can still feel him.”

“Teizel . . .” Xander breathed out in a rush.

I looked to Xander in confusion, but he’d holstered his knife and had fallen to his knees in the sand. He looked at me with such an awed reverence, a secret and hidden knowledge he knew of all along, rekindling itself in his mind. The idea that this secret was within
me
—came as a surprise even to him. Xander, the impossible shadow, he who reads the energies of others, he who loves me the most . . . could not detect this.

The man turned back and met me with serious eyes. “The time of living in the sky has reached its end. You are Ardent and what’s left of humanity needs you and your kind.”

“No.” Another man stepped into view. He held himself in an almost regal posture, but one that had been weighed down by much sadness. “No, I’m afraid an explanation must delve much deeper than that. You are not simply one petal of a blossom—you are the flower itself. You, are what binds us. The stem, the power, the light in which all others derive from.” His voice rose. “
Ardency
: An evolution of humanity. Nature’s answer to the call for help—a rebalancing to the threat that sent entire nations to the skies.” He turned his head away, reading meaning within his vacant stare. “The Law was established to not only persecute those who are different. The Council, Lily, was trying to find
you.
”