World Warden, page 37
Samantha looked up at the sky and then back down at him. “Well, when you first came here, you were… shall I say… weak.”
“Weak?”
“Yes. Pale, stringy. As if you had never known physical labor in all your life.”
“Thank you?”
Samantha shook her head. “It is different now. You have adapted well, and you help me quite a lot. You also look stronger.”
Oscar’s heart fluttered at the praise. He pretended he was fiddling with something from his pack to surreptitiously check out his reflection in the water and realized Samantha’s words made him feel all warm inside.
Maybe she thinks I’m shredded and hot!
He examined himself. It was true that he was stronger now than he had been when he first arrived. He could feel it. For instance, working all day in the sun did not bother him anymore. His body had changed and adapted. He was still lean, but now it wasn’t due to the chronic food shortages in Portree. He was eating well, much better than at home, in fact, and Oscar thought he had put on at least a little bit of muscle. He wondered whether he had a tan, and he supposed he did, but the changes had been so gradual that he could not tell the difference when he looked at himself in the mirror, or at his own reflection in the water like he was doing. Only his hair was longer than he usually wore it, but he thought the wavy jet-black locks falling partially over his forehead made him look mysterious.
“Ready to go?” Samantha asked, startling him.
“Sure! We heading back home?”
Samantha whistled loudly, calling for Doran, who was out of sight somewhere. “Not yet. I would like to show you something.”
“What is it?”
“I think you will like it.”
Doran came less than a minute later, and they climbed onto his back. Samantha leaned forward right as he was taking off and whispered something to the wurl. Intrigued, Oscar held on like he usually did and wondered what she had said, and also how deep the bond between Samantha and Doran really was. He had no idea whether Doran could understand human speech, but sometimes it certainly seemed like it.
“Uh, Samantha?”
“Yes?”
“Doran is taking us the wrong way. We’re still going north.”
“I know.”
With that cryptic remark, Oscar was left to wonder where they were going. Doran flew low to the ground, going north for what Oscar estimated to be around ten kilometers while still following the coastline. As they went, fjords gave way to cliffs that grew taller and taller until they rivaled those near the house. These cliffs, however, were almost preternaturally smooth and made of beautiful white stone that looked like chalk from a distance. The cliffs were crowned with greenery, a collection of small plants that covered every available surface as the land spread out to the east.
Doran flew out over the ocean and then returned to the rock wall, going relatively fast. It seemed like he was on a collision course with a particularly tall cliff that rose above them, but a few seconds later Oscar realized there was a ledge about a third of the way from the top, a highly irregular platform jutting out from the otherwise perfectly uniform cliff face.
“Samantha?” Oscar yelled against the wind in his face.
“Yes?” she called back.
“I think we’re going to crash!”
The cliff was much closer now, and Doran still hadn’t slowed down.
“Hold on!” Oscar shouted, shutting his eyes tight.
Instead they came to a rough but even stop with much flapping, and that was followed by silence punctuated only by the distant sound of breaking waves.
Oscar opened his eyes cautiously.
“Here we are,” Samantha announced, jumping off Doran.
Oscar followed, being particularly careful because Doran had landed on the platform he had seen earlier, a long and narrow outcrop of white rock a little bit over the size of the body of a male Flyer wurl. In fact, now that Oscar looked at the cliff more closely, it was evident that the back of the platform had been hewn out of the rock by powerful claws that had scraped the rock away to create an alcove in the cliff itself.
“What is this place?” Oscar asked, setting down his pack with care near the back of the space. Tall cliff walls rose up on either side of him, creating a rather cozy, cavelike feeling. Ahead of him, the outcrop extended into a ledge that looked like a diving board into nothing.
Samantha put her pack down next to his and then stepped forward, fearless, to the very edge of the ledge. She ran her hands through her hair and breathed deeply once, sighing with what appeared to be contentment.
“This is my special place. My shelter.”
Behind them, Doran settled down on the back portion of the ledge. He folded his wings to his body and curled up in the space, which was perfectly sized for him.
Oscar took a few very slow steps toward Samantha while telling himself not to look down. The ledge was wide enough for maybe four people to stand side by side, but there was no railing, and he was keenly aware of the fact that if he fell he would be screaming for a long time.
He fought against his lingering fear until it was squashed enough for him to feel wonder.
“It’s… it’s amazing,” Oscar said.
He meant it. From where they stood, it felt as if they were at the edge of the world. The ocean spread out, immense, and appeared to fill the entire bottom half of Oscar’s field of vision. The sun was setting across the water, creating red and golden reflections on the waves. The indigo sky overhead appeared to be screened off by a latticework of long clouds, intertwined in a pattern tinged in orange and vermilion. The sound of the surf far below was like a gentle backdrop to the entire scene, and the cool breeze brought with it a mineral scent that was oddly refreshing. A flock of marine birds flew close to the water, their white plumage reflecting the light of the sun as they corkscrewed through the air.
Samantha sat down with her legs dangling over the lip of the ledge. Oscar hesitated, then copied her. It was exhilarating to be sitting like that, and it felt like the three of them were the only living creatures in the entire world.
“I come here when I want to be alone,” Samantha said quietly. Oscar admired the beautiful color of her eyes in the light of dusk, like emeralds with a burning core of flame, which he always found breathtaking. “Here, not even Dresde can hear me, and I can speak freely.”
“How did you find his place?” Oscar replied, speaking just as quietly. It seemed unnecessary to raise his voice above a gentle murmur.
“Doran showed me,” she replied, glancing back briefly with a fond smile that was answered by a brief huff from Doran’s powerful lungs. “I must have been around nine years old then, and he and I had only just begun to truly bond. I was sad often at the time, and I suppose Doran felt it. He brought me here. I was scared, but he stayed with me, and I cried for a long time that first day, holding on to him. We even spent the night here, and I was not cold because Doran is always so warm. The next day I felt so much better. Ever since then we have come here to escape from the world.”
“Did Doran carve this?” Oscar asked, pointing at the claw marks still visible on parts of the rock.
“Yes, over time. I believe this was his own refuge, a place where he could come to be away from Dresde and the other males.”
Oscar nodded. He could easily imagine Doran feeling concern for Samantha as a little girl, and bringing her to the place he thought was safest.
“How did you two meet?” Oscar asked her. “I mean, no one else in your family seems to be friends with him.”
“By accident. I was out foraging one day, but I was a silly child. I disturbed a nest of ghost scorpions near the house while looking for wildflowers.”
“Ghost scorpions?”
“Yes. You are lucky you have never seen one. They are about as big as your hand, very pale, which is why they have their name. They are blind but are very sensitive to vibrations. They also have a long stinger that comes out of their abdomen, and they like to hunt at night. It is said that even a scratch from that stinger is enough to kill a grown woman.”
Oscar shuddered a little bit, remembering his very first night in the prison and the horrible creature that had come into his cell. He was almost certain he had already seen one.
“Anyway,” Samantha continued, “it was dark that day, and when I saw dozens of ghost scorpions crawl out of the ground, I panicked and screamed. Doran came down from the sky and snatched me up. I thought he was going to kill me, but he set me down gently near the graveyard, and I felt… I do not know. Something from him. I had grown up hearing that all the scourge—the wurl—were bloodthirsty monsters, but I saw something different then.”
“I know,” Oscar replied. “It was the same with me.”
“From then on Doran began to follow me around. At first Oma was terrified. She attacked Doran once to shoo him away, even knowing full well that Dresde would be furious, but the following weeks he still came to visit me when no one was watching, and over time they all came to accept him when they saw he was not a threat. He became my friend.”
“He’s very nice,” Oscar said. “I think he didn’t like me at first, but now he sort of tolerates me. Maybe it’s because I bribe him with treats all the time.”
“You have proven yourself, and he is fond of you now,” Samantha told him. There was a little pause. “As am I, Oscar.”
Oscar gasped. “Did you just…?”
Samantha glanced down, allowing some of her hair to obscure her features. She was silent for a few seconds. Then she looked at Oscar, moving her hair out of her face and fixing him with a defiant frown.
“We do not do that awful dehumanizing thing of referring to boys and men as ‘males’ because we want to. She makes us do it.”
“Dresde?”
“Yes,” Samantha hissed. Her scowl deepened. “To her, only females are worthy of being considered sentient creatures. Of her own brood, only Doran still has a name, and that is because he remembers it from when she named him a long time ago, when Dresde hatched. As time has gone by, she has forgotten the names of all other males except him. She considers them little more than slaves and does not care for them at all. Surely you have seen how there are no other males left around the eyrie.”
“I wondered about that, yeah,” Oscar said.
“I believe she sent them all on suicide missions to try and find your brother. She does not care about the fact that flying for thousands of kilometers over water is a brutal endeavor or about how it weakens them. She also does not care about the fact that there are things in the oceans, creatures that shine in the night. I have seen them only a couple of times, but I fear them. Those creatures have voices.”
“That doesn’t seem so bad.”
“They ensnare you with their song. If you do not fly far away as fast as you can, you will simply plummet to the ocean, never to be seen again. I have witnessed it before. Doran is strong, so he has not been taken. But every time Dresde sends out males in pursuit of your brother, many die in this way. I know because they never come back. Now I am all but certain that only Doran remains.”
“Wow. Why is she like that, do you think?”
“I do not know, and I do not care!” Samantha shouted. She pounded the rock with her fists.
Oscar flinched at the sudden outburst. “Hey, it’s okay,” Oscar said, terrified of the fact that he could see the beginnings of tears in Samantha’s eyes. He was not used to seeing her so vulnerable.
“It is not okay, Oscar. It is not okay,” she said, her voice thick with suppressed emotion. When she next spoke, she whispered. “You do not know. You have not seen the horrors. You have not met…. I was born into slavery, as was my mother and her mother before her. Dresde keeps us alive, the females, the only ones she deems worthy of existing. She terrorizes us. She fills our days with dread, and now I am her soldier against my will.
“To her, we are toys,” she went on, her volume rising with every word. “She allows us to eke out our meager existence because we amuse her. She gives us just enough freedom to think we can maybe build happiness for ourselves, and then she snatches it away! It brings her a twisted kind of joy to see our pain. She is a horrible creature. I have wanted to end her life from the moment I could hold a spear, and one day I will.”
Oscar shrunk away slightly at the ferocity in Samantha’s voice. She had always appeared so stoic, so unfazed by events around her, that Oscar had not once suspected the depths of her rage. He realized he was in the presence of true hatred for another creature.
He was also reminded of his own anger. After Elias had left, Oscar had been angry at the entire world. He had been hurt by heartless bullies so much that he had begun to lose himself in his own boiling wrath. Wounded, he had tried to hurt others in turn. He had begun to change into a violent person, and had it not been for therapy, he was scared to think of what he might have turned into.
“Anger is heavy,” he heard himself whisper.
“What did you say?” Samantha snapped.
Oscar met her blazing eyes with his own sad expression. The sun had set by then, and the wind had a slight chill to it.
“You should try to let go of the hate, if you can.”
She drew away from him. “How dare you! You have no idea what you are talking about. You have no idea what I have been through, what my family has been through!”
“I have been angry too. I have gone through some tough times.”
“Oh, tough times,” she mocked him. “What tough times could you have faced, Oscar? You were born in a city of peace. You never had to fear for your life each single day of your existence. You never had to huddle in the dark every time she flew by, you never had to see your—your—”
She started crying. Oscar edged closer to her but did not dare touch her.
“I can never understand what you’ve gone through,” he said gently. “Of course not. And yeah, compared to you I’ve been a pampered kid all my life. You fight for your survival every day out here. All I had to worry about was school.
“But,” he continued, “I do know about anger, and I know how it feels. My counselor told me once that anger is like an addiction. You hate how it makes you feel, but you keep going back to it again and again. It feeds on you to keep going, like a fire that doesn’t go out. It’s best to let go, if you can.”
“I cannot,” Samantha declared, wiping tears from her cheeks. “I will never forget, and I will never forgive. Dresde will die one day, and it will be by my hand.”
Oscar nodded slowly. He was sad, but the ironclad determination in Samantha’s eyes was unmistakable. “I don’t understand, but I’m with you, every step of the way,” he told her. This time he did reach for her hand, and she took his. “I only hope you won’t have to do it.”
Samantha looked out over the ocean, where the twin moons were like pearls reflected on the waves. She let go of his hand after a moment and stood up.
“It is time, I think,” she told him. “Maybe this will help you understand.”
“Time? For what?”
“For you to meet my father.”
Chapter 23. Atoll
ELIAS SPENT the entirety of the morning after talking about his nightmares with Tristan in a state of alert, stopping frequently to listen for something he couldn’t quite hear. He knew they would arrive at whatever place the Behemoth was taking them sooner rather than later, and he wanted to be prepared.
Around noon Elias walked all the way to the front end of the gigantic creature and sat down at the edge of its leathery shell. He could not quite get used to the size of the being he was now riding, and he spent more than a couple of hours watching the Behemoth swim, looking at the way it would lift its massive head above the surface of the water every now and then to breathe. Elias wondered whether the creature had any sense that he was carrying intelligent beings on his back or whether the creature simply moved because of something similar to instinct.
Guided by whatever is controlling him, he thought grimly.
The more time passed, the more pernicious the vague sensation of disquiet and hunger became. Elias imagined they would arrive at their destination very soon, and he tried to understand what was happening based on what he had observed. Why were they being transported to the middle of the ocean?
Tristan was right. The Singers had had plentiful opportunities to get rid of them but had not done so.
What do they want from us? Why are they taking us here?
Elias wrestled with the feeling of not being in control of where he was going or why he was being taken there. He knew that both Tristan and he would be dead already if they hadn’t found the Behemoth, but that did not make his current situation any more agreeable. He felt as though powerful forces in the largely alien world around him had seized control of his destiny without him realizing it had happened. All he wanted was to save his brother and keep his promise to Sizzra. He had no quarrel with the denizens of the ocean and hoped that, whatever happened next, he would be able to find a way to reach Dresde’s lair.
“Brought you lunch,” Tristan said, coming to sit nearby. He handed Elias a large leaf on which he had arranged a selection of the fruits, tubers, and nut analogs they had discovered were good for eating.
“Thank you,” Elias told him, realizing that the hunger was not only in his mind, but in his stomach. He had not eaten much since he had woken up, preoccupied as he had been.
“Is it getting worse? That feeling you said you got during the night?”
Elias popped a crunchy nut with a bright green shell in his mouth. “Yeah. It’s more distinct.”
“What do you think it is?”
Elias shrugged. “I think we will find out soon enough. According to my link, we will be at the island, or whatever it is, very soon.”
Loud rustling and stomping behind them betrayed the fact that large creatures were approaching, and a few seconds later Narev, Vanor, and Siv appeared and sat down next to them.
“Even they know something’s going on,” Tristan observed.
Elias listened with his mind and perceived, very clearly, the state of heightened alertness of all three wurl. “Yes, they do. I wonder if they know what it is.”
“Weak?”
“Yes. Pale, stringy. As if you had never known physical labor in all your life.”
“Thank you?”
Samantha shook her head. “It is different now. You have adapted well, and you help me quite a lot. You also look stronger.”
Oscar’s heart fluttered at the praise. He pretended he was fiddling with something from his pack to surreptitiously check out his reflection in the water and realized Samantha’s words made him feel all warm inside.
Maybe she thinks I’m shredded and hot!
He examined himself. It was true that he was stronger now than he had been when he first arrived. He could feel it. For instance, working all day in the sun did not bother him anymore. His body had changed and adapted. He was still lean, but now it wasn’t due to the chronic food shortages in Portree. He was eating well, much better than at home, in fact, and Oscar thought he had put on at least a little bit of muscle. He wondered whether he had a tan, and he supposed he did, but the changes had been so gradual that he could not tell the difference when he looked at himself in the mirror, or at his own reflection in the water like he was doing. Only his hair was longer than he usually wore it, but he thought the wavy jet-black locks falling partially over his forehead made him look mysterious.
“Ready to go?” Samantha asked, startling him.
“Sure! We heading back home?”
Samantha whistled loudly, calling for Doran, who was out of sight somewhere. “Not yet. I would like to show you something.”
“What is it?”
“I think you will like it.”
Doran came less than a minute later, and they climbed onto his back. Samantha leaned forward right as he was taking off and whispered something to the wurl. Intrigued, Oscar held on like he usually did and wondered what she had said, and also how deep the bond between Samantha and Doran really was. He had no idea whether Doran could understand human speech, but sometimes it certainly seemed like it.
“Uh, Samantha?”
“Yes?”
“Doran is taking us the wrong way. We’re still going north.”
“I know.”
With that cryptic remark, Oscar was left to wonder where they were going. Doran flew low to the ground, going north for what Oscar estimated to be around ten kilometers while still following the coastline. As they went, fjords gave way to cliffs that grew taller and taller until they rivaled those near the house. These cliffs, however, were almost preternaturally smooth and made of beautiful white stone that looked like chalk from a distance. The cliffs were crowned with greenery, a collection of small plants that covered every available surface as the land spread out to the east.
Doran flew out over the ocean and then returned to the rock wall, going relatively fast. It seemed like he was on a collision course with a particularly tall cliff that rose above them, but a few seconds later Oscar realized there was a ledge about a third of the way from the top, a highly irregular platform jutting out from the otherwise perfectly uniform cliff face.
“Samantha?” Oscar yelled against the wind in his face.
“Yes?” she called back.
“I think we’re going to crash!”
The cliff was much closer now, and Doran still hadn’t slowed down.
“Hold on!” Oscar shouted, shutting his eyes tight.
Instead they came to a rough but even stop with much flapping, and that was followed by silence punctuated only by the distant sound of breaking waves.
Oscar opened his eyes cautiously.
“Here we are,” Samantha announced, jumping off Doran.
Oscar followed, being particularly careful because Doran had landed on the platform he had seen earlier, a long and narrow outcrop of white rock a little bit over the size of the body of a male Flyer wurl. In fact, now that Oscar looked at the cliff more closely, it was evident that the back of the platform had been hewn out of the rock by powerful claws that had scraped the rock away to create an alcove in the cliff itself.
“What is this place?” Oscar asked, setting down his pack with care near the back of the space. Tall cliff walls rose up on either side of him, creating a rather cozy, cavelike feeling. Ahead of him, the outcrop extended into a ledge that looked like a diving board into nothing.
Samantha put her pack down next to his and then stepped forward, fearless, to the very edge of the ledge. She ran her hands through her hair and breathed deeply once, sighing with what appeared to be contentment.
“This is my special place. My shelter.”
Behind them, Doran settled down on the back portion of the ledge. He folded his wings to his body and curled up in the space, which was perfectly sized for him.
Oscar took a few very slow steps toward Samantha while telling himself not to look down. The ledge was wide enough for maybe four people to stand side by side, but there was no railing, and he was keenly aware of the fact that if he fell he would be screaming for a long time.
He fought against his lingering fear until it was squashed enough for him to feel wonder.
“It’s… it’s amazing,” Oscar said.
He meant it. From where they stood, it felt as if they were at the edge of the world. The ocean spread out, immense, and appeared to fill the entire bottom half of Oscar’s field of vision. The sun was setting across the water, creating red and golden reflections on the waves. The indigo sky overhead appeared to be screened off by a latticework of long clouds, intertwined in a pattern tinged in orange and vermilion. The sound of the surf far below was like a gentle backdrop to the entire scene, and the cool breeze brought with it a mineral scent that was oddly refreshing. A flock of marine birds flew close to the water, their white plumage reflecting the light of the sun as they corkscrewed through the air.
Samantha sat down with her legs dangling over the lip of the ledge. Oscar hesitated, then copied her. It was exhilarating to be sitting like that, and it felt like the three of them were the only living creatures in the entire world.
“I come here when I want to be alone,” Samantha said quietly. Oscar admired the beautiful color of her eyes in the light of dusk, like emeralds with a burning core of flame, which he always found breathtaking. “Here, not even Dresde can hear me, and I can speak freely.”
“How did you find his place?” Oscar replied, speaking just as quietly. It seemed unnecessary to raise his voice above a gentle murmur.
“Doran showed me,” she replied, glancing back briefly with a fond smile that was answered by a brief huff from Doran’s powerful lungs. “I must have been around nine years old then, and he and I had only just begun to truly bond. I was sad often at the time, and I suppose Doran felt it. He brought me here. I was scared, but he stayed with me, and I cried for a long time that first day, holding on to him. We even spent the night here, and I was not cold because Doran is always so warm. The next day I felt so much better. Ever since then we have come here to escape from the world.”
“Did Doran carve this?” Oscar asked, pointing at the claw marks still visible on parts of the rock.
“Yes, over time. I believe this was his own refuge, a place where he could come to be away from Dresde and the other males.”
Oscar nodded. He could easily imagine Doran feeling concern for Samantha as a little girl, and bringing her to the place he thought was safest.
“How did you two meet?” Oscar asked her. “I mean, no one else in your family seems to be friends with him.”
“By accident. I was out foraging one day, but I was a silly child. I disturbed a nest of ghost scorpions near the house while looking for wildflowers.”
“Ghost scorpions?”
“Yes. You are lucky you have never seen one. They are about as big as your hand, very pale, which is why they have their name. They are blind but are very sensitive to vibrations. They also have a long stinger that comes out of their abdomen, and they like to hunt at night. It is said that even a scratch from that stinger is enough to kill a grown woman.”
Oscar shuddered a little bit, remembering his very first night in the prison and the horrible creature that had come into his cell. He was almost certain he had already seen one.
“Anyway,” Samantha continued, “it was dark that day, and when I saw dozens of ghost scorpions crawl out of the ground, I panicked and screamed. Doran came down from the sky and snatched me up. I thought he was going to kill me, but he set me down gently near the graveyard, and I felt… I do not know. Something from him. I had grown up hearing that all the scourge—the wurl—were bloodthirsty monsters, but I saw something different then.”
“I know,” Oscar replied. “It was the same with me.”
“From then on Doran began to follow me around. At first Oma was terrified. She attacked Doran once to shoo him away, even knowing full well that Dresde would be furious, but the following weeks he still came to visit me when no one was watching, and over time they all came to accept him when they saw he was not a threat. He became my friend.”
“He’s very nice,” Oscar said. “I think he didn’t like me at first, but now he sort of tolerates me. Maybe it’s because I bribe him with treats all the time.”
“You have proven yourself, and he is fond of you now,” Samantha told him. There was a little pause. “As am I, Oscar.”
Oscar gasped. “Did you just…?”
Samantha glanced down, allowing some of her hair to obscure her features. She was silent for a few seconds. Then she looked at Oscar, moving her hair out of her face and fixing him with a defiant frown.
“We do not do that awful dehumanizing thing of referring to boys and men as ‘males’ because we want to. She makes us do it.”
“Dresde?”
“Yes,” Samantha hissed. Her scowl deepened. “To her, only females are worthy of being considered sentient creatures. Of her own brood, only Doran still has a name, and that is because he remembers it from when she named him a long time ago, when Dresde hatched. As time has gone by, she has forgotten the names of all other males except him. She considers them little more than slaves and does not care for them at all. Surely you have seen how there are no other males left around the eyrie.”
“I wondered about that, yeah,” Oscar said.
“I believe she sent them all on suicide missions to try and find your brother. She does not care about the fact that flying for thousands of kilometers over water is a brutal endeavor or about how it weakens them. She also does not care about the fact that there are things in the oceans, creatures that shine in the night. I have seen them only a couple of times, but I fear them. Those creatures have voices.”
“That doesn’t seem so bad.”
“They ensnare you with their song. If you do not fly far away as fast as you can, you will simply plummet to the ocean, never to be seen again. I have witnessed it before. Doran is strong, so he has not been taken. But every time Dresde sends out males in pursuit of your brother, many die in this way. I know because they never come back. Now I am all but certain that only Doran remains.”
“Wow. Why is she like that, do you think?”
“I do not know, and I do not care!” Samantha shouted. She pounded the rock with her fists.
Oscar flinched at the sudden outburst. “Hey, it’s okay,” Oscar said, terrified of the fact that he could see the beginnings of tears in Samantha’s eyes. He was not used to seeing her so vulnerable.
“It is not okay, Oscar. It is not okay,” she said, her voice thick with suppressed emotion. When she next spoke, she whispered. “You do not know. You have not seen the horrors. You have not met…. I was born into slavery, as was my mother and her mother before her. Dresde keeps us alive, the females, the only ones she deems worthy of existing. She terrorizes us. She fills our days with dread, and now I am her soldier against my will.
“To her, we are toys,” she went on, her volume rising with every word. “She allows us to eke out our meager existence because we amuse her. She gives us just enough freedom to think we can maybe build happiness for ourselves, and then she snatches it away! It brings her a twisted kind of joy to see our pain. She is a horrible creature. I have wanted to end her life from the moment I could hold a spear, and one day I will.”
Oscar shrunk away slightly at the ferocity in Samantha’s voice. She had always appeared so stoic, so unfazed by events around her, that Oscar had not once suspected the depths of her rage. He realized he was in the presence of true hatred for another creature.
He was also reminded of his own anger. After Elias had left, Oscar had been angry at the entire world. He had been hurt by heartless bullies so much that he had begun to lose himself in his own boiling wrath. Wounded, he had tried to hurt others in turn. He had begun to change into a violent person, and had it not been for therapy, he was scared to think of what he might have turned into.
“Anger is heavy,” he heard himself whisper.
“What did you say?” Samantha snapped.
Oscar met her blazing eyes with his own sad expression. The sun had set by then, and the wind had a slight chill to it.
“You should try to let go of the hate, if you can.”
She drew away from him. “How dare you! You have no idea what you are talking about. You have no idea what I have been through, what my family has been through!”
“I have been angry too. I have gone through some tough times.”
“Oh, tough times,” she mocked him. “What tough times could you have faced, Oscar? You were born in a city of peace. You never had to fear for your life each single day of your existence. You never had to huddle in the dark every time she flew by, you never had to see your—your—”
She started crying. Oscar edged closer to her but did not dare touch her.
“I can never understand what you’ve gone through,” he said gently. “Of course not. And yeah, compared to you I’ve been a pampered kid all my life. You fight for your survival every day out here. All I had to worry about was school.
“But,” he continued, “I do know about anger, and I know how it feels. My counselor told me once that anger is like an addiction. You hate how it makes you feel, but you keep going back to it again and again. It feeds on you to keep going, like a fire that doesn’t go out. It’s best to let go, if you can.”
“I cannot,” Samantha declared, wiping tears from her cheeks. “I will never forget, and I will never forgive. Dresde will die one day, and it will be by my hand.”
Oscar nodded slowly. He was sad, but the ironclad determination in Samantha’s eyes was unmistakable. “I don’t understand, but I’m with you, every step of the way,” he told her. This time he did reach for her hand, and she took his. “I only hope you won’t have to do it.”
Samantha looked out over the ocean, where the twin moons were like pearls reflected on the waves. She let go of his hand after a moment and stood up.
“It is time, I think,” she told him. “Maybe this will help you understand.”
“Time? For what?”
“For you to meet my father.”
Chapter 23. Atoll
ELIAS SPENT the entirety of the morning after talking about his nightmares with Tristan in a state of alert, stopping frequently to listen for something he couldn’t quite hear. He knew they would arrive at whatever place the Behemoth was taking them sooner rather than later, and he wanted to be prepared.
Around noon Elias walked all the way to the front end of the gigantic creature and sat down at the edge of its leathery shell. He could not quite get used to the size of the being he was now riding, and he spent more than a couple of hours watching the Behemoth swim, looking at the way it would lift its massive head above the surface of the water every now and then to breathe. Elias wondered whether the creature had any sense that he was carrying intelligent beings on his back or whether the creature simply moved because of something similar to instinct.
Guided by whatever is controlling him, he thought grimly.
The more time passed, the more pernicious the vague sensation of disquiet and hunger became. Elias imagined they would arrive at their destination very soon, and he tried to understand what was happening based on what he had observed. Why were they being transported to the middle of the ocean?
Tristan was right. The Singers had had plentiful opportunities to get rid of them but had not done so.
What do they want from us? Why are they taking us here?
Elias wrestled with the feeling of not being in control of where he was going or why he was being taken there. He knew that both Tristan and he would be dead already if they hadn’t found the Behemoth, but that did not make his current situation any more agreeable. He felt as though powerful forces in the largely alien world around him had seized control of his destiny without him realizing it had happened. All he wanted was to save his brother and keep his promise to Sizzra. He had no quarrel with the denizens of the ocean and hoped that, whatever happened next, he would be able to find a way to reach Dresde’s lair.
“Brought you lunch,” Tristan said, coming to sit nearby. He handed Elias a large leaf on which he had arranged a selection of the fruits, tubers, and nut analogs they had discovered were good for eating.
“Thank you,” Elias told him, realizing that the hunger was not only in his mind, but in his stomach. He had not eaten much since he had woken up, preoccupied as he had been.
“Is it getting worse? That feeling you said you got during the night?”
Elias popped a crunchy nut with a bright green shell in his mouth. “Yeah. It’s more distinct.”
“What do you think it is?”
Elias shrugged. “I think we will find out soon enough. According to my link, we will be at the island, or whatever it is, very soon.”
Loud rustling and stomping behind them betrayed the fact that large creatures were approaching, and a few seconds later Narev, Vanor, and Siv appeared and sat down next to them.
“Even they know something’s going on,” Tristan observed.
Elias listened with his mind and perceived, very clearly, the state of heightened alertness of all three wurl. “Yes, they do. I wonder if they know what it is.”
