Beware the Night, page 14
Dorian takes my hand this time. His touch sends a tingling warmth that travels up my wrist and back. He leads me to the orange glow of a torch that seems to burn with endless flame.
Just above it is the name Amalie Adeline, the words literally taking my breath away. It’s so beautiful it could be a poem. Two simple words, when put together, would illuminate the page. But it’s not a poem. It’s my mother’s name.
“What is this?” I barely manage to breathe.
“Moon help me, I didn’t know.” He turns to face me. “Please believe me, V. I’ve seen this memorial countless times, but didn’t put your last names together until just now when you said it.” He shakes his head. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine … I believe you…” But I’m barely thinking on that. All I focus on is what scenario under the Sun could have ended with my mother’s name being carved into this wall.
“The woman, Amalie Adeline—your mother, apparently—her death was the catalyst to the first war. She and a team of Night soldiers were on a secret mission to get intelligence on the Imperi, but were ambushed. She was caught, pressed for information that she never gave up, and executed by the Imperi. Like my parents, her remains, unfortunately, weren’t recovered.”
My stomach churns, sending warm bile up into my throat. “Where did this happen?” I choke the words out.
“We believe she was taken to the holding cells under the Coliseum. Secluded. With no one around to witness any of it. The Imperi couldn’t risk Basso hearing word a revolution was brewing.” He shakes his head, taking a long breath in. “She was the first of many, but the one who sparked our initial uprising, hence the special memorial.” He glances at the flame illuminating my mother’s name. “She was a warrior. A hero. Your mother sacrificed herself so the other Night soldiers on her team could safely get away.” He lowers his voice. “Maybe your father was one of them?”
“Maybe…” I run my fingers over the ornate letters carved into the stone wall. “Dorian?”
“Yes?”
“Why lie? Why not just tell me the truth when I was old enough to understand? Swear me to secrecy like my grandfather? Why the seventeen years of complete horseshit?” The back of my throat burns with anger.
He gives a stern, yet sympathetic nod. “I’d be thinking the exact same thing.”
“I mean, it’s not like I’d go and tell anyone, because I’d be putting myself and Poppy in danger.”
Brow furrowed as if in deep thought, Dorian sets his jaw like he’s worked something out. “I guess, this whole thing”—he glances around the room, then stares right at me—“you being brought down here now, when you’ve just turned seventeen, is exactly that. Finally giving you the truth and trusting you with it.”
“Well, they sure did take their time.”
“I know … I agree … But I can only assume it wasn’t meant out of deception or mistrust but out of protection.”
And it hits me, and I hate how much sense it makes, because I really want to be angry at all the lies. “The less I knew, the less that could get me into trouble.” It doesn’t absolve the deception, but it definitely puts it into perspective.
He nods. “I’d say so, wouldn’t you?”
I lift an eyebrow. “I just did.”
Dorian gives a slight grin.
But I’m unable to smile back. Instead I face my mother’s memorial, run my fingertips across her name, a knot forming in my throat. “Thank you for showing this to me.” It’s like everything I thought was real has been pulled apart and I’m slowly puzzling the pieces back together in a new image.
He nods slowly, eyes heavy. “I wish I had more information to share with you. Something to ease the weight of it all.” Taking a deep breath, I glance at Dorian from the corner of my eyes as something I hadn’t considered nags at me. “Actually … I do have a question you can answer.” His eyes flash to mine. “Why didn’t you confide in me earlier? Up on Bellona? Why lie about who you were?”
Dorian sucks in a deep breath, runs his hands through his hair. “Technically, I didn’t lie.” I furrow my forehead but let him explain further. “I am Dorian Winters, nephew and apprentice to the glassmaker. I grew up on Bellona. I’m Basso and I can’t fish to save my life.”
“Oh, I see…” I snort. “So you just didn’t tell me everything.”
He shoves his hands in his pockets, shaking his head. “I wasn’t sure I could trust you. And, honestly, what if I had been completely truthful with you? Told you everything?”
“I’d have punched you in the nose and then turned you in.”
He laughs. “Exactly. Sure, trust has to be given to be received. But … it also has to be earned. Even with your closest allies. Though I have a feeling you get that.”
I open my mouth to argue, but stop myself to really dissect his words. He must be referring to Nico. And even though Nico is my closest friend, I do keep secrets from him and, I’m sure, he keeps them from me. And what is trust anyway? Is it being able to expose all your fears and disappointments and desires to someone else? Or is it in trusting those things will be kept safe with that person if you do? And maybe it’s not so much about the secrets. Maybe it’s all about knowing you can tell another person anything. Knowing that you can be vulnerable and safe. Trusting—without doubt or fear.
I glance across the space at Dorian and he stares back. It’s going to take a lot more than him letting me through secret doors to earn my trust. But it’s a good start.
Finally, I answer. “I do get it, but trust goes both ways.”
Dorian steps closer, gingerly takes my hand in his. After all we’ve shared here, so many layers beneath Bellona, the warmth of his skin against mine is everything. It’s grounding and calming and exciting all at once.
It’s as if we’re suddenly realizing we’ve known each other all along. The way we relate, how closely we understand each other, it’s like we’ve been reunited.
Like I didn’t know I’d been missing him until now.
I place my other hand on top of Dorian’s, lace my fingers between his, which sends my stomach reeling.
He takes a quick breath in as if he feels it too. “I promise you I will do all I can to earn your trust. Because, Veda, if you don’t trust me … trust us”—he searches the room as if referring to the Night past and present—“this will all have been for nothing.”
* * *
“THANKS FOR TONIGHT,” I say when we reach my cave, stop outside the arched doorway.
“I’m glad I ran into you,” he says.
“You were following me!”
“Details…” He flashes a crooked grin, waving my comment off with a flourish of his hand.
I’m about to enter the cave, but pause, one question plaguing me since my meeting with the Sindaco. “Dorian?”
“Yes, Veda?”
“If it’s not the Night who’s abducting the Basso and it’s really the Imperi…” I pause, collecting my thoughts, unsure if I really want to hear the answer. “What are the Imperi doing with all of them?”
Dorian’s face falls and he only shakes his head. “You don’t want to know.”
I don’t want to know, but I must. “Please tell me.” My voice strains around the words. I’m worried it’s what I’m thinking. What I’ve feared.
He gives a slight nod, eyes somber. “We’ve found evidence they were Offered. Privately.”
Heat turns my gut, warmth rises up my throat. Even though I assumed it, hearing the words sends me into a panic. I don’t want to know what specific evidence they’ve found, but I can’t help asking, “Even the children?”
Dorian shakes his head. “There’s no way of knowing. Our hope is that some are being kept alive somewhere. But many”—he pauses to swallow—“have been killed.”
“Sacrificed, the High Regent would say.”
“Exactly. Somehow, he’s justifying it, if even to his soldiers.”
I think of all those names, photos of the missing. A flame lights deep in my chest thinking of my sweet Poppy still stuck up on that island. “How could they?” My voice shakes with emotion. Sadness and pure, seething rage. “It’s not right.”
Dorian steps closer, takes my hands in his. “If there are any alive, we will free them.”
I nod, but I’m not confident. I’ve seen what the Imperi are capable of and, now, what the Night truly is. I can’t begin to imagine a world where the Night can win this fight. It’s a death wish.
“I know that look.” Dorian breaks into my thoughts, and I’m instantly aware my face is tight with worry, my shoulders slumped. “It’s a long shot. We’re outnumbered and outweaponed. But with you”—he gazes over my shoulder and into the cave at the mural—“the hope you bring coupled with the fire we all have to defeat the Imperi … It won’t be easy, but I know we’ll defeat them.”
* * *
THAT NIGHT I lie on my mat, images of the memorial room—my mother’s name written in stone above the orange flicker of a flame—swimming around my mind, and I try with all I have to tap into some memory of my parents. I don’t have any photos to reflect on; Poppy always said the few he had were long destroyed. Was that a lie too? All I ever had of my parents was a maybe-map and a pink crystal.
There’s no telling if even those are authentic. Had Poppy just picked some scraps off the ground and placed them on my altar to give me a sense of real memories? That my parents had left these mementos behind for me when really they were someone else’s trash?
Everything I thought I’d known, each memory I’d imagined based on Poppy’s stories or that map and stone, I’d wholeheartedly believed.
And maybe some of it was true. The few things Poppy told me about my mother must have been; she was his daughter.
But the rest?
Or maybe he only lied about their deaths.
I close my eyes and conjure an image of my mother. Her hair is a few shades lighter than mine, but the same fiery amber. She wears a black Night uniform and wields an atlatl, busting into one of the Imperi’s secondary army training facilities and freeing the Basso who then join the fight.
I breathe deeply, sinking more heavily into my pillow. It might not be steeped in truth, this story I’ve spun, but I’ll hold the image of my mother dear. As hope. Motivation. Sun help me, I can’t even believe I’m thinking it …
Yet, there it is. A tiny light, a flicker of the notion that maybe, possibly, I’m going to do this.
Follow in my mother’s footsteps as a member of the Night.
What better way to honor her, to honor the life that was taken from us? The bond we’ll never know. I’ll never know.
What better way to honor her sacrifice than to fight the very people who took it from her?
And what better way to honor my future, the future of all Basso, than to stand up for what we deserve? For what’s right?
I glance at the mural, the jagged pointed star that’s supposed to symbolize me, and with the weight of a hundred boulders my chest grows heavy, doubt crushing all that hope I’d just built up.
How quickly possibility can be reduced to dust.
The truth is louder than the daydream: I’m not my mother.
I’m not so sure I’ve got it in me to be a member of the Night, much less their sacred Lunalette. Their symbol. Whatever that means.
Fighting, I get.
Freeing any Basso held captive? That I understand.
But being nothing more than a symbol? A good luck charm? Someone meant to motivate and inspire and do it all from belowground?
I don’t think so.
The mere thought of such a responsibility throws me into an internal cyclone of pure doubt, icy fear.
Because I don’t know what the hell being Lunalette looks like.
But it’s definitely not me.
CHAPTER 15
What seems like mere minutes later, I’m shaken out of a deep, dreamless sleep by a panicked Bronwyn. “Veda, get up! We have to go!”
When I snap awake, she’s pulling me up by the arms and I sit bolt upright. “What’s happening?”
“Flooding … In the main cavern and moving fast. We have to get to higher ground now.”
“Where’s Dorian?” I ask, and the minute the words leave my mouth, the way Bronwyn pauses a fraction of a second, I realize it was probably the strangest question for me to ask. “I mean…”
“He’s fine. With the Sindaco and the other officers.”
I nod. Really, Veda? Instead of, How can I help? Or, Is everyone safe? Or, Is there damage? for some Sun-forsaken reason, I ask about Dorian.
Bronwyn and I sprint through the tunnels, the trickling of water growing closer and closer.
“Shouldn’t we be running away from the flooding?” I ask.
“This is the closest way to higher ground.”
Higher ground? “We’re going up to the island?”
“No … It’s not that bad yet. Just to the Crag.”
The rock floor is slippery, at least half an inch of standing water turning the already smooth surface into slick stone, our boots sliding with each quick step. We run into several others along the same route and the narrow tunnel grows tighter and tighter, the air thinner and thinner.
Shoulder to shoulder, our boots collectively slosh through the low flood. There’s a constant low chatter full of “What if the water rises?” and “What if we have to go up to the island?” and “We’re not ready for battle!” Hell, I don’t even know my way to the Crag.
I feel a tug on the sleeve of my shirt. “Will we have to go to the Upper?” one boy asks, looking up at me over the flicker of his lantern as we stumble through the damp darkness. “Is our army ready to fight the Imperi?”
And despite not having the faintest idea how to fight anything other than a fish on the end of a hook, I stop dead, lean down to his level, and lie. “Whenever our army has to go up, whether it’s in five minutes or in five years, we’ll be ready.” I’m literally lying through my teeth because I have no idea.
Doe-eyed, slowly, he nods his head up and down, and I decide the lie was worth it.
Then I realize everyone’s stopped.
All eyes are on me. A few appear near tears. Several smile. Most wear an expression of hardened strength. One I know well. It tells the story of someone who’s fought in one way or another all their lives. I suppose you don’t have to have physically fought to be ready for battle.
We’re all warriors here.
The Sindaco’s words about how I’ve been a part of the Night, their history, their family for years edges to the surface. I’m seeing it firsthand and it terrifies me.
While their belief in their Lunalette is heartwarming, it stirs the nausea already building in my belly, sending signals to my brain that shout, “Impostor!” and “Liar!” and “You can’t do this!”
But before I shrink too small, we’re back en route. Our feet are soaked and our breathing is labored and sharp, but eventually we reach the Crag and an enormous cavern full of what must be the majority of the Night.
It’s cramped, but there’s still room to breathe.
The space—nearly as tall as the volcano is wide—echoes and buzzes with organized chaos. Several officers are calling out orders, rounding people up in groups, assigning them tasks and rotating them out while others sleep.
Bronwyn and I are shuffled into a line with several of those around us. An officer assigns the kids in our group trash duty; the adults are tasked with gathering any and all dry bedding they can find, while Bronwyn, me, and the rest of our group are to refill canteens with fresh drinking water from a nearby spring and check on anyone who’s missing or injured. All of us are told to get a few hours’ rest after we’ve finished.
Only a handful of people were hurt slipping on the wet cave floors or scraped in the dark, but nothing life threatening. No one’s missing, though one little girl claims she’s forgotten her favorite blanket back in her cave. Bronwyn gives her one of Dorian’s tiny glass animals—a cat. Apparently, she grabbed a handful on her way out of her cave where she has an entire menagerie stashed away, which only further endears me to Dorian.
Once we’ve made our rounds through our assigned section of the upper caverns and at least three trips to the spring and back, we’re to rest until the lower tunnels and caves—where most of the living quarters are—are out of danger of flooding further.
There’s one pillow and one mat for Bronwyn and me to share. We end up giving it to a woman with three young children and use our jackets for pillows, lying on the cold stone floor, which, honestly, is welcome after all the back-and-forth we’ve been doing.
Instantly, I drift off, but awaken to a loud crash. I sit up to find the noise was only the rumbling of thunder outside the not-so-thick walls of the volcano and that Bronwyn, who was right beside me when I fell asleep, is now gone.
Worried I must have slept through our next shift, I set out to find her. Why the Sun would she let me sleep?
Only a few days ago, anywhere I went, I caught straying eyes—questioning looks of speculation and longing gazes of admiration, both. Now? Here amid organized chaos? I’m just another member of the Night. But at the moment, no one’s paying me any mind. And it’s nice.
I weave in and out of sleeping bodies on the floor, members handing out food, smaller groups of two and three rushing here and there, carrying buckets of flood water and sand inside burlap bags.
When I return to the officer who initially assigned our tasks, some other soldier’s taken his place. I ask a few people about Bronwyn, but no one knows where anyone is, much less someone not in their group. Though she can’t be that far.
I leave through the same tunnel we used to get water and then head toward the spring.
But when I’m sure I’ll see the small hole of fresh water around the next corner, I hit a dead end.
I retrace my steps, and somehow end up at a fork I know I didn’t encounter before. I flip a mental coin and go right, snake back and forth down a long, narrow cave. This tunnel opens up, then descends down some rocky stairs where I trudge through a knee-deep puddle no one’s cleared yet, making a mental note to tell someone about it once I find my way back.
