The Lotus Effect (Rise Of The Ardent) (8 page)

Grabbing my hand, Xander reached down and informally pulled me up and over the lip of the opening. It didn’t seem so much like a door to me, but rather like we were climbing into a bleak painting. After closing the rusted and green-patinated door behind us, Xander began walking, offering no explanation of where we were, leading me down a narrow hallway with doorless rooms spaced evenly along the walls.

I stood, letting my eyes adjust. It wasn’t very bright in the hallway after all, only a thin sliver of moonlight lit up the unadorned passage turning everything into grayscale.

Blinking rapidly, I gasped when my brain finally processed what my eyes were actually seeing in the room next to us.

A man’s leg hung from the side of a cot, his boot still laced though hanging awkwardly from his foot.

Xander was leading us down the guards’ sleeping quarters.

And this way was our safest option?
My mind hissed.

Xander turned and gestured for me to keep up. Frantically I kept pace behind him as I looked to the floor.
It was concrete though varnished with a shiny, protective finish. If my boots had gotten soaked—I could only imagine what a nuisance that would’ve been.

Xander’s been here before
, I thought. Again, how
odd
.

~

Rounding the corner, we came face to face with a large spiraling staircase. It was made of stone and to my relief, enclosed. I hurried into it and lay prone against the wall, waiting for Xander’s next move. Luckily all the rooms of the guard’s hall had remained silent and we found no trouble as made our way down the perilous corridor. Xander nodded to me and went first, pulling me along as he quickly maneuvered up the stone steps, spanning two, sometimes three at a time. I couldn’t help but look up, craning my neck towards the ink-filled nighttime sky that loomed above and beyond the passage of circular stone steps
: a spiraled telescope with its cap still on
, I thought absently. Finally we reached the open exit and a wall of frigid air slammed into me. Xander, unaffected by the wind, motioned for me to stay crouched behind the slab of concrete that protected the stairwell while he surveyed the area beyond.

We’d reached the top
. Stay calm. Stay calm.

I resisted the urge to retrieve my hood, fearing it would impair my peripheral vision. My breath blew out in great plumes, looking much like the phantoms of those who had perished along the Walls, encouraging me to keep going, keep moving. My brain was in a tizzy and I was frantic wanting to go after him, wanting to find Mrs. Fawnsworth already.

Luckily Xander soon returned and reached for my hand. “It’s clear,” he said stiffly as he pulled me up onto the chilly expanse of the Wall. My cheeks stung painfully from the icy rush of air that charged me again, causing my hair to swirl haphazardly in the wind.

This
is almost too easy
, I thought warily.

We kept our pace swift, but silent, as we moved further along the length of the massive fortification. I couldn’t help but glance over the ledge and take in the enormity of how high we actually were. Though clouds obscured any hope of seeing what lay beyond, into the Outlands.
             
Right now however was not the time to be dawdling about. I had to focus. Not only did Mrs. Fawnsworth’s life depend on it, but now, so too did ours.

Not far from us, I spotted movement from a rope that was slung over the ledge. My heart clenched.
Please don’t let it be her
. Pulling away from Xander, I quickly sprinted towards it.

Nearly tripping over my own feet, I registered movement from the side—a door opened from the stairwell passage closest to me and a large, gruff man stepped out with a pleasantly shocked look upon his face.

“Whatta we got ‘ere?” he said roughly, smiling grotesquely. He produced a large dirty knife from his back and held it in one hand as he approached me, turning it this way and that as if to impress me. My eyes darted to his face. It was scarred with three jagged slashes: scratches produced from fingernails.

“You ain’t sposed to be ‘ere. Lucky for me yer a purdy thing . . .”

I blinked rapidly in my surprise and felt my body freeze in its hesitation. My instincts told me to reach for my own knife and yet I couldn’t get my mind and body to cooperate with the urge. I was frozen, an animal taken utterly by surprise.

The guard smirked and slashed his knife through the air, trying to entice a reaction from me.

A shadowed form appeared behind him then, and suddenly, I remembered.

I was not alone.

Xander’s hooded profile materialized behind the brutish man. I heard the noticeable zing of metal just before I saw two very ominous looking daggers shoot out from under his sleeves and lock into place on top of his forearms.

My eyes widen at the swiftness of his next move. The guard was on the ground with lifeless eyes before he even had time to react.

Before
I
even had time to react.

Standing motionless, I watched the blood seep in a slow arch from the wound in the guard’s neck. It crept closer towards my boot like a violent beacon drawn near to the person responsible.

Never before had I witnessed something like this.

Without warning: a similar image of a crimson puddle which lay beneath a haze of billowing smoke—pushed itself to the forefront of my mind.
A white laced skirt. A fire. Falling stones. A boy
. Just as I tried to frantically grasp at the images to piece together the broken memory, they leaked through my fingers like an unrecalled dream.

My vision refocused to the lifeless mass in front of me, the smell was putrid, his blood sharp and metallic.

“Leave him,” I heard Xander urge from somewhere beside me. I didn’t move—Couldn’t. Just stared.

Xander turned my face sharply so I was forced to look at him. His eyes were severe when he spoke.

“He deserves none of your pity.”

I nodded slowly, blinking away my shock. I believed him, for now. I had to focus. We had to keep moving.

We reached the grime-covered ledge of the Wall, and I nearly cried out when I saw Mrs. Fawnsworth’s limp body tied haphazardly at the rope’s end. She had been gagged and was now hanging at an odd angle with her legs dangling helplessly above her head.

“Help me!” I hissed in a horrified whisper as I grabbed the coarse rope and began to pull, ignoring how it bit sharply into my palms. Hot, angry tears burned their way down my cheek from the sight, and unlike before, this time I didn’t care.

“Back away,” Xander urged as he reached down, beside the Wall’s ledge, grabbing the handle of a lever of a weatherized crank on the ground. In my frenzied emotional state I had failed to even notice it.

Xander’s jaw clenched as he turned the handle, having to use both hands and putting his entire body into it. The lever knocked at every rotation and I shuttered, fearing the noise would give us away. Finally, after three more cycles, Xander reached the end, and Mrs. Fawnsworth’s battered feet appeared over the ledge. I rushed to try and pull her over, but Xander held me back, quickly stepping in front of me to gently maneuver her broken body to the stone. I tittered from foot to foot, trying to find an opening to help ease her to the ground.

I couldn’t stop the flow of tears that cascaded down my cheeks as I took in her abused body. Her face almost unrecognizable.

My fault . . . .

Xander carefully removed the bindings that had dug their way into her skin and I reached to gently remove the gag from her mouth. Mrs. Fawnsworth moaned and slowly opened her eyes. She looked frightened at first, but then smiled weakly once she recognized my face. Her own face and lips were a horrible shade of blue.

“Lily?” she managed to ask even though it pained her to do so.

“Please, don’t speak . . .” I whispered, knowing I had to remain calm even though it was the most difficult thing I ever had to do. I rose up on my heels so I could remove my jacket. Disregarding the sharp sting of the wind, I placed it across her body.

Xander lifted her head so she could sip water from a canteen that he had removed from inside his coat. She glanced at him curiously, then refocused her bleary eyes on me.

“I’m
so . . . so
sorry
they did this to you. This is all my fault.” I cried softly as I laid my chin on her chest and reached for her hand.

She shook her head like she always did when she meant to scold me for my thoughts. “This was never your fault child,” she said so faintly that I almost missed it.

Realizing we were running out of time, my mind sprung to action. “We’re going to get you out of here,” I said, squeezing her hand softly to reassure her. “Come on Xander, help me . . .” I pleaded as I got to my feet, my voice trailing off when I finally looked at his face.

Xander leaned over her with dark hood bowed and tenderly swiped his thumb across her forehead. The look of remorse he held within his shadowed eyes infuriated me as he continued to crouch before her.

“Help me!” I growled at him through clenched teeth. I could not understand why he still sat there, unmoving. “
Please.”

But he had already realized something I refused to admit.

Mrs. Fawnsworth reached up and grabbed my hand with a strength I didn’t know she possessed. “
No
. Child, I am too far gone to be saved. I can already feel the peace of death coming to take me away,” she said weakly.

I shook my head in denial; the tears that clung to the end of my lashes became suddenly too heavy to support.

She gestured for me to come closer. Feeling my lips begin to tremble, I complied slowly, hesitant to hear her next words. She grasped both sides of my face before continuing, “I always cared for you like my own,” she said, swallowing with some difficulty, “and I want you to know that I am proud of you for what you did. Just remember that when the time does come. You fight, and you
live
. This was
not
—”

I felt the strength from her fingers ease as her hands fell away from my face.

Catching one hand before it would’ve hit the stone, I looked away as an angry numbness began to fill my body. Rushing my veins, surging through me like hot venom.

Placing her hand gently across her chest, I reached for the knife at my hip and stood, turning my attention towards the door the gruff-looking guard had come from.

Pulling the knife from my belt, I started walking, faster now, my steps determined to enact my revenge. My hands and face no longer affected by the chill of the wind for my skin was brimming, boiling.

I reached for the door’s handle—just before I felt Xander grab me from behind, making me drop the knife from my white-knuckled grip. He snatched the hilt of the knife right out of the air before it too would’ve hit stone, and flung it angrily over the Wall, into cloud-filled abyss that lay beyond.

“Don’t.” He shook his head in warning.

I shoved him away.

I wanted to hurt him; I would hurt anybody that stood in my path now that I was scorching with an uncontrollable fury. Uncaring I now had no weapon; I reached for the door again.

He grabbed at my batting arms and turned me to face him, gripping me so tightly I had no other option but to stand there and breathe. I inhaled a gasp from within me, as though I had just broken the water’s surface. “Lily, listen, you need to calm down,” he said evenly, though I could tell he was finding it difficult to take his own advice.

But then it started to happen again: my vision turning white around the edges. Dots darted erratically like fruit flies across Xander’s chest. I tried to blink them away, but still they danced even behind my closed lids. My ears chimed a high pitch ringing, my palms turned clammy . . . my skin was hot, and now cold. I’ve felt this feeling before as a child—I was going to pass out.

Xander grabbed my shoulders, realization marking across his face. “No, no, no . . . this wasn’t what I meant. Don’t do this. Not now.”

I laughed. An odd sound. “You sound like my mother.” I put my fingers to my eyes. “Can’t quite help it, Xander. My body does what it wants. Just leave me. It’s no more than I deserve.”

I chuckled madly again, but then my face pulled sharply back to where it should’ve been when I eyed Mrs. Fawnsworth’s graying body, lying just beyond Xander’s blocking shoulder.