Dusker Dark, page 1
part #3 of Bisecter Series
DUSKER DARK
Copyright 2019 Stephanie Fazio
Published 2019 by Stephanie Fazio
This book is available in print at most online retailers.
Cover design: Teodora Chinde
Dusker Dark is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events, places, incidents, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
Edition License Notes
Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.
Visit https://stephaniefazio.com/
ISBN 978-1-7335929-5-6 (print)
ISBN 978-1-7335929-6-3 (e-book)
Epub Edition copyright July 2019 eISBN 9781733592963
First edition
Stephanie Fazio’s e-Newsletter
Sign up for Stephanie Fazio’s e-Newsletter to learn about upcoming books.
Sign up now!
To my readers, for taking this journey with me.
PROLOGUE
FOUR HOURS EARLIER
I count twelve Duskers.
They’re moving through the trees without any attempt at stealth. Their boots tramp through the brush. Their conversation, muffled from behind the masks that are part of the Dusker uniform, sends a flock of birds squawking away in protest.
If I knew of any other way to reach my destination, I would try to slip away now before I’m seen. But Liglette, the Banished leader of the West, gave me specific directions for finding the Crystal Caves. I’m not willing to risk getting turned around and losing time, and so I stay pressed against the trunk of a script tree, willing the Duskers not to notice me.
That’s right. Keep going, I think as the Duskers continue on their way.
Their voices are receding. My iron-tight grip on my sling loosens. I breathe again.
And then, a capy pig rooting around in the dirt nearby decides to raise its snout and make a noise that is somewhere between a snort and a roar. The Duskers stop.
I curse the capy pig under my breath. The animal has gone back to rooting, oblivious to the disaster it has just caused.
Should I try to run? Or would it be better to fight my way through the Duskers?
I wish I had my Zeroes with me. I wish I had Dayne, or Wade, or Ekil. But I don’t have any of them. I’m alone.
I reach for the gold Solguard pendant Wade gave me, wanting to feel the familiar warm weight of it in my hand. Instead, my fingers find the more delicate chain of my mother’s necklace and the small key dangling from it. I wrap my hand around it, letting the memory of my mother infuse me with strength.
I let go of my necklace. I take a stone out of the leather pouch on my belt and place it in my sling.
“Behind that tree!” I hear a voice call.
An arrow bites into the tree trunk just inches from my shoulder.
I dart out from my hiding place—no sense in blocking off my view when they know where I am.
I wind my sling, taking careful aim, and then release the ropes. My stone hits one of the Duskers. He falls without a sound. Before I can release my sling again, another arrow flies past me. This time, there’s a tearing sound as it cuts through the sleeve of my cloak. If I don’t do something, they’ll keep firing. I can’t avoid their shots forever.
Move, Hemera!
I run forward, avoiding another crossbow bolt that was aimed at my skull. I tackle the closest Dusker, knocking him off balance. His crossbow flies out of his hands.
The next one swings a sword at me. I just manage to avoid the blow. Grabbing his blade with my bare hands, I wrench the weapon from my enemy’s grasp. I hurl the sword at another Dusker. The man falls with a loud groan, the sword embedded in his ribcage.
Eight more to go.
My fear and hesitation have fallen away. All that’s left is a strength greater than any I’ve never known.
It wasn’t long ago when even the idea of this fight would have left me paralyzed with terror. But since I created the army of Zeroes, there’s been a bottomless reserve of power inside me…power that’s gone mostly unused. I feel the Zeroes’ strength in my veins like water boiling in a pot. If left too long, the boiling water overflows. That’s how I’ve been feeling…like a boiling kettle about to spill over.
Now, finally, I have a release.
Two more Duskers fall as the jagged stone flies from my sling, piercing straight through one and embedding in another.
“It’s the Bisecter!” a Dusker screams.
I feel their terror like a living thing, and it makes me smile. The Duskers fear nothing and no one. But they’re afraid of me.
“Hold your ground,” a voice commands. “Converge.”
The Duskers who have been stalking toward me do something unexpected. In a perfectly-coordinated move, they throw the entire weight of their bodies on top of me.
I’m pinned to the ground beneath six grown men.
“Get her arms,” someone commands, the echo of his voice vibrating beside my ear.
“Got you now, you monster,” one of them pants.
I don’t think so.
I inhale what little air I can manage with so much weight bearing down on me. Then, I explode to my feet.
Duskers go flying in every direction. One of them sails so high he gets tangled in the branches of a tree. He flails like an insect caught in a spider’s web. Two more lay unmoving where they’ve fallen, at least ten paces away. The few others who are still alive get up and run.
In a different time, I would have let them escape. But everything is different now. The Duskers are the reason why I lost first my army at Tanguro, and then my Aunt Jadem. I whip the sling in my hand and release. The remaining Duskers drop.
While my racing pulse settles, I survey the damage. These Duskers weren’t new recruits. They were seasoned warriors…and I defeated them all. I’m not even breathing hard.
A year or even months ago, so much blood and death would have had me retching into the nearest bush. My hands would be trembling and tears would be coursing down my cheeks. But I’m not the same person I was then.
I check the angle of the sun and reorient myself, remembering the directions Liglette gave me, and continue running.
CHAPTER 1
FOUR HOURS LATER
I haven’t stopped running since my fight with the Duskers.
Ever since Ry and Dellin disappeared on Vlaz, I’ve been tracking them through unfamiliar lands. Wokee had overheard Ry and Dellin say they were going to the Crystal Caves, a place my mother told me stories about when I was a child. I was always led to believe it wasn’t a real place. But Liglette, the Banished leader of the West, had seen the Crystal Caves for herself. She’s the one who told me how to find them.
I snuck away during high day when neither Wade nor my brother could come after me. They had told me not to go…not when all of us—Solguards, Banished, Halves, and Zeroes—were preparing to march on Malarusk.
But I couldn’t shake the feeling that Ry, one of my best friends, was in trouble. Without our trusted hyenair, I was the only one who could reach the Crystal Caves within a reasonable amount of time.
That’s how I came to be running through the heat of high day when I should be helping to prepare for an attack on Malarusk…an attack that has never been attempted. Until now.
The strength of the one-hundred Zeroes I created was enough to convince the Banished to join forces with the Solguards and me. Now, for the first time, we have the strength and numbers to break down the impenetrable iron gate barring the entrance to the Duskers’ underground citadel.
I still don’t know what I’ll find when I reach the Crystal Caves. I’ve never trusted Dellin, and I can’t imagine why Ry would have disappeared from the fortress unless she was in some kind of trouble.
I know Ry. She’s a loyal Solguard. She would never do anything to betray us, which means that whatever they’re up to, it’s because of Dellin.
Distrust and searing anger wash over me at the thought of Dellin. I push away the emotions, forcing myself to put all of my energy into getting where I’m going. I won’t leave Ry at the mercy of a Dusker spy or whatever Dellin is. I won’t abandon my friend.
The sun’s heat is so intense I can barely breathe.
I haven’t stopped once, haven’t even slowed, but I’m not tired. I’ve covered the same amount of ground in these last few hours that would take any normal person days. I have no way to track my speed, but instinct tells me I’m faster now than I was before my father helped me to change the one-hundred Dusker prisoners into Zeroes.
There’s a tightness in my chest that has nothing to do with the physical effort of covering so much distance on foot. Every mile that takes me farther away from the Zeroes—my Zeroes—is like a rope pulling tighter and tighter around my heart. It shortens my breathing and weighs down my every step.
Go back, my heart says.
A part of me is afraid I’ll stretch the bond linking me with the Zeroes too far. I’ve never tested the length of the invisible cords that bind us together. I can feel their unease at our separation through the threads of energy that connect us, which only doubles my own discomfort. I can sense the Zeroes’ thoughts.
Come back. Come back.
Before I left the fortress, I commanded the Zeroes to go with Dayne to the Banished lands, si
Dayne doesn’t fear the Zeroes like most people. He hates them.
I understand the reason for my brother’s hatred. Dayne was a victim of my father’s experiments to create the earliest versions of the Zeroes. He saw my father’s cruelty firsthand. I still don’t trust my father, nor have I forgotten or forgiven him for his past crimes. But I can’t deny that he’s done nothing but help since he rescued us from the trap the Dusker Supreme set.
A sick, nauseous feeling washes through me at the memory of Aunt Jadem kneeling at Crowe’s feet…the twist of the Supreme’s hands…my aunt’s body falling to the ground….
Tears prick at my eyes, mixing with the sweat streaming down my brow. I push myself to run faster.
I look around, even though I don’t know what I’m supposed to be looking for. Liglette’s instructions were to skirt the western edge of the Subterrane territory, cross the Barren forest, and then keep going until I saw the Crystal River. When I asked her how I’d know which river was the right one, she’d laughed and said, “You’ll know.”
I pick up my pace. The sooner I get Ry away from Dellin and whatever that girl is trying to make her do, the sooner I can put all of my attention into our attack on Malarusk…and destroying Crowe.
I come to a skidding halt at the sight of the sunlight reflecting off something so bright I have to shield my eyes. It looks like a long, uninterrupted sheet of diamonds. Small rainbows dance above its surface.
I take my sling out of my belt and fit a stone in the worn leather pouch as I inch forward. It’s quiet, but not in the enemy-waiting-to-ambush-me kind of quiet I’ve grown so familiar with. It’s just a peaceful stillness.
I’m close enough to touch it before I realize it’s not diamonds on the ground, but a river. The sunlight sparkles on its glassy-smooth surface. I can see straight down to the bottom, to the green algae bending with the water’s movement. It must be twenty feet deep, but I can see every pebble strewn across the bottom as clearly as if it was one of Aunt Jadem’s minnow ponds.
Liglette said I would know when I reached the Crystal River. She was right.
I follow the river, noting the bend Liglette told me about, and then veer off in the direction of the Crystal Caves.
Even as I skirt the diamond-clear water, I can hardly believe it’s real. My mother used to tell me stories about this place, but I always assumed it was made up, like the crazy talking animals she was always inventing to make me forget about the Dweller children who were mean to me.
One of the last times I talked to Aunt Jadem, I mentioned these stories about the Crystal Caves. Aunt Jadem had laughed, as had I, and shaken her head about my mother’s penchant for storytelling.
Now, I wonder how my aunt could have been as ignorant about this place as I. Aunt Jadem was the Solguard leader and head of the Banished council. She had traveled more than anyone I’d ever met. How could a place like this exist without her having known about it?
My surprised laugh breaks the surrounding stillness when I find the enormous, leafy tree that Liglette said marks the entrance to the Caves. I can’t believe I’ve actually found it.
I’m no tracker, but I recognize the two long skid marks as what could only be Vlaz’s giant paws carving a path through the soft earth. I look around but see no sign of the hyenair. Two sets of footprints in the soft ground lead to the stone covering over the caves’ entrance.
I keep my sling drawn as I descend the earthen steps.
I’m not sure what I expected, but at first glance, this place is no different from the hundreds of other caves I’ve seen in my life. The construction of this place is more similar to the Subterrane I grew up in than the cavernous stone caves of Solis. Its walls are bare except for the unadorned torches set on the ground. There are small holes where underground creatures have made their own passages through the earth.
Still, I don’t feel constricted down here. The desire I would normally have to get out of a place like this is absent. Instead, I find myself being drawn in. It’s like I’ve been here before, even though I know I haven’t.
I keep traveling down until I reach the first cave. It’s more cavernous than the previous cave, and when I look up, my breath hitches. Dozens of rock crystals of various shapes and sizes are hanging down from the ceiling.
My mother’s voice echoes from somewhere deep inside me.
There’s a magical place. It’s a cave, but not like one you’ve ever seen before. Crystals, clear as glass, grow from the ceiling. They feel as smooth as silk but are sharp as any sword. When you run your fingers along their surface, it sounds like the tinkle of bells.
Almost of their own accord, my fingernails tap out a musical rhythm on one of the crystals. And I understand this feeling that I’ve been here before.
I have been here. Maybe not in the way I am now, but I’ve seen these caves a thousand times in the stories my mother told me.
I press my hand to one of the smooth crystals and can swear I feel my mother’s presence.
All thoughts of Ry and Dellin flee from my mind. I spin in a slow circle, my gaze fixed on the crystals dangling overhead.
This place is real.
I wander through the cave to the opening on the other side. It’s just the way my mother described it in her stories—from the crystals growing out of the walls along the path that are sharp enough to slice a person’s head off, to the tiny silver flowers that grow down here, to the next cave that’s filled with blue crystals instead of clear ones. It’s all here, just as she described.
I don’t remember my mother ever leaving the Subterrane when I was a child, and yet, one thing is clear. My mother has been here before.
CHAPTER 2
My mother’s stories come back to me as readily as if she had told them to me last high day. I even hear her voice in my head as I move out of the blue crystal cave and deeper into the network of tunnels.
First the clear, and then the blue, my mother’s voice says in my head. Enter the green, and go straight through.
I see the smile on her face as she repeated the rhyme from her story, feel her fingers stroking my hair. The memory of her voice and touch shrouds me, making me feel warm and protected in a way I haven’t felt since she died.
Follow the path that snakes down, deep into the ground. Keep going even when you think there is no more. Only then will you find what you’re looking for.
It was just a rhyme, something silly my mother came up with to put me to sleep. I never even asked her what that last line meant. Now, as I follow the path deeper underground, an overwhelming sense of anticipation grips me.
The tunnel ends in a small cave. I bend down to light the single torch at the entrance. Compared to the others, this cave is unnoteworthy. There are no beautiful crystals, nothing strange to make it stand out from any other cave I’ve been in. It’s empty of furniture or any sign it’s ever been used by anyone other than the worms and moles scratching at the dirt. It doesn’t seem like the kind of place to discover something important.
There was another variation of the story my mother sometimes told. It was about a clever girl who hid her treasures in a secret wall compartment. Feeling a little foolish, I walk around the small cave, running my hand along the earthen wall. When my fingers find the groove, my breath catches.
No one would ever find this hiding place unless they knew to look for it. The lip of the wooden ledge is disguised by dirt on an otherwise unnoteworthy cave wall. Small bits of earth crumble as my fingers work their way under the wood.
It’s obvious whatever is hidden in here has been left undisturbed for years. My hands are shaking and I’m dizzy with anticipation, but I finally manage to tug the box loose. A shower of dirt and pebbles spatters onto the ground.
A small, nervous laugh escapes me and bounces around the cave. This box belonged to my mother, and she left it for me.
The box is small enough to be carried in one hand, but there’s a heft to it. The wood groans and sends up a puff of dust as I pull off the top. Inside, there’s another box. This one is metal and has a lock fixed to its delicate clasp.
