Flare: The Sunless World Book Two Read online

  Furin dragged himself together. “Let’s go,” he said hoarsely. His eyes were like holes torn into the paper-white mask of his face.

  “Not without Isabella,” said Rafe.

  Mirados made a cutting gesture. “We’ll have a hard enough time saving ourselves. Or do you have magic at your disposal even now, kayan?”

  Rafe pressed his lips and shook his head. Yet he stayed stubbornly by the doorway, watching Isabella.

  She hadn’t slowed down even a bit. She spun and leapt and wielded her daggers as if in a dance whose intricate movements were branded into her muscle memory. The insectoid shed layers, ka vaporizing all over it. It made a last futile lunge at Isabella; she jumped over it. Its head crashed into the collapsing bridge. It slid off and fell, shredding into strands of ka.

  Isabella sprinted across the bridge. “Go!” she yelled, her voice echoing as she gained the tunnel. “Go!”

  The men ran.

  The floor tilted and swayed. The ceilings crumbled in showers of stone and dust. A fault line cracked the ground in front of them, widening into a trench. Furin stepped over, Mirados threw himself and Theo across, Rafe had to leap it. By the time Isabella got to it, it was ten feet across and widening rapidly.

  She sprang without hesitation and cleared it. Her feet barely touched the ground before she flung herself onward, after the group.

  They were going to make it. The Chamber of Names was just ahead. Furin and Mirados had reached it, Theo bouncing uncomfortably on Mirados’ broad shoulder. The rohkayan slapped his hand down on the plate.

  Rafe, lagging back, though not completely out of his own volition, called to Isabella. Hurry up.

  Working on it. Some people… She sounded amused, calm, and not at all tired or panicked. It buoyed him, just a little.

  She sprinted down the last stretch.

  We’re all going to make it.

  Shadows flowed from the wall, lunging for Isabella. They twined around her ankles. She stumbled and fell, hitting the ground with the shoulder. Her hands scraped along the ground as more shadows wrapped, cloak-like, around her body.

  Krin, here? Isabella’s shock washed over him like ice-cold water. Rafe felt their suffocating embrace, like being swathed in black funereal veils, through the kyra bond. Isabella scrabbled for her daggers as Rafe started toward her, with no plan in mind.

  And then their bond vanished. And with it, Rafe’s sight.

  Thrown into darkness, he took two steps, faltered. Isabella!

  The ground dipped under him and he fell, striking his palms hard on rubble. He pushed his own meager, weak kyra outwards, but the world was full of featureless grey shapes. There was no color and no depth in it at all. Only collapsing ka-systems swayed and wobbled distantly in the dark, their colors tarnished.

  He couldn’t hear or feel anything now, throwing all his kyra into finding Isabella. Nothing. It was like she’d been entirely cut off from the world, cocooned and whisked away into another dimension.

  A chuckle came to his ears. “Don’t worry, dear Rafe. We’ll take good care of your little friend.”

  “Scorch it, Karzov!” Rafe reached for the voice with his kyra, with no intent in his mind other than to wrap it around the Blackstonian’s fat neck and squeeze.

  He pushed it too far.

  His kyra snapped like a rubber band, ricocheting into the wall. Rafe had a confused sense of scraping against rock and falling into water.

  Then he came back to himself and to a breaking world filled with noise and shouting.

  “Grenfeld!” That was Mirados, and from his exasperated tone, he’d been calling for a while.

  “Rafe, let’s go.” Furin had his hand on Rafe’s shoulder, pulling him back. Rafe didn’t resist—he was too confused. He couldn’t summon his kyra, his ka-sight showed him scenes that made him sick to his stomach, and his normal senses were overwhelmed with the din and tremors of the doomed island.

  Furin hauled him into the chapel-like chamber they had entered what seemed like an eternity ago. Destruction had reached into even this peaceful place; ka melted and dripped along walls turned to a consistency of softening butter. A foul smell, like that of spoilt milk, filled the air.

  Mirados, with Theo, was already out the other side. Furin clamped his hand around Rafe’s wrist and urged him on. A short tunnel later and they were back in the cavern with the submersible. The dense humid air was churned up, carrying dust and salt water spray. The walls trembled and waves slapped against them.

  Coop hailed them, his voice anxious and carrying, but Rafe could make out no words in it over his own thoughts.

  I failed her… not good enough… not strong enough… she’s gone… burn it…

  Mirados yelled back and his footsteps thudded. Metal screeched and clanged, the two grunted and shouted as they hauled Theo on board.

  Furin led Rafe to the access ladder and put his hands around the sides. Rafe’s hands clenched involuntarily around the slick steel, letting it bite into his scraped palms. The sting of salt on his cuts was welcome—a small penance for his failure.

  His feet were leaden, but he got one of them on the lowest rung anyhow.

  Furin clapped a hand on his shoulder.

  He whispered, “We’ll get them back. Both of them. I swear it.”

  Rafe nodded.

  The grim determination in Furin’s voice matched the one in his own soul.

  Chapter Eleven

  Gorvich

  GORVICH HAD GOTTEN USED to many things in the two years he’d served under Karzov—the screaming prisoners, the crying children, the shattered lives—but he couldn’t get used to the underground caverns that comprised Karzov’s secret headquarters.

  The serpentine multi-leveled complex was part laboratory, part training grounds, and all prison. No amount of light could banish the gloom that lurked in corners and veiled the ceilings. The rock seemed to close in on him like a maw as he hurried through narrow corridors. Morion—an opaque black quartz—glowered in every wall and sulked in every chamber. Gorvich had no sensitivity for ka, but it seemed to him that hatred and pain and fear had soaked into the crystal, making it glitter with malice.

  He could hardly stand to be in this place. And over a year ago, Karzov had asked him to move his family in.

  By then, Gorvich had learned to hold his feelings behind a mask of stone. His voice had sounded dead and cold and distant to his own ears as he’d agreed it’d be more convenient. A month later, he’d gone home.

  His argument with Anna had been loud and public. You couldn’t hide marital strife of that magnitude in a cramped apartment building. He’d left with all his clothes and a slam that rattled the door in its frame.

  He could still hear Anna’s voice screaming at him to never come back. He flinched every time he recalled her words.

  He’d told her to say them, but the thought that maybe she meant it haunted him.

  Gorvich hadn’t seen Anna or their daughter since. He made sure, however, to complain about his nagging wife at every opportunity, including grumbling about the money he sent for their upkeep.

  Was that enough to fool Karzov?

  Gorvich didn’t know. Tossing and turning in his bunk at night, sweating in his over-heated rooms, he faced the reality that he was an open book to the Shadow. But with day came a sliver a hope. Gorvich hung on to that slim chance, because without it he didn’t know how he’d face the smiling face and mild eyes of the most dangerous man he’d ever known.

  The man who’d summoned him yet again. The corridor sloped underfoot and Gorvich splashed through a muddy puddle. Widely spaced mage lights burned red in the walls. The tunnels twisted around each other in unsolvable knots; faint marks in the wall dimly showed the way.

  Gorvich was not an imaginative man, but he could never shake off the feeling that each soul that had died in agony in this place, each cry for help and each sob of despair, was lost forever in this labyrinth.

  Something wet touched his cheek and he jumped like a sc
alded cat. But it was just a drip from the ceiling. Gorvich cast a nervous glance upwards and hurried along. He hoped this place would collapse someday—he’d happily be buried here himself if it meant that Karzov and his kayan would also be consigned to a rocky tomb.

  A cavern opened out in front of him, this one lit by sullen yellow lamps. There were no guards at the entrance, but from the tingle on his skin, Gorvich knew that he had just passed a number of wards. That he was alive meant that they had found him acceptable.

  His eye was drawn to the center of the room, where Aliki, Karzov’s favored prodigy, hung by his wrists above a pit of boiling mud. The boy was stripped to his waist, long white scars standing out on his chest and back. Gouts of superheated goop licked the soles of his feet, but the boy’s face was as stoic as ever.

  As always, he made no sound.

  Gorvich’s stomach churned. He averted his gaze and hurried over to Karzov, coming to a halt a respectful distance from the man who could have him disemboweled and left for scavenger dogs with one word.

  “You asked for me, sir?”

  Karzov stood with his hands behind his back, examining what looked like a cross between a vehicle and a suit of armor. The thing was several feet taller than a man and made of curved metal plates, glistening blue as if with fresh paint. Massive legs supported it solidly, its arms hung loosely by its sides. A cavity, vaguely man-shaped, yawned in its torso, showing were the pilot was supposed to sit.

  So this was what they had gone to Renat Island to find.

  “Magnificent,” said Karzov. “Simply magnificent.” His eyes were alight with a kind of unholy passion that unnerved Gorvich. Most of the time, the Shadow was bored or mildly amused. He played with the people around him like a boy pulling wings off helpless flies, with a kind of detached malice.

  Karzov moved to fervor could very well spell the end of the world. Gorvich stiffened his jellied knees against the fear that swept over him.

  “Shall I send word to the Protector of the discovery?” he asked. Of course this armor was a war machine.

  “What?” Karzov seemed to come to himself. He waved a dismissive hand. “No need, Gorvich. It is not a find to bother the Protector with. We shouldn’t distract him from his accounts and regulations.”

  “Yes, sir.” Gorvich felt a twinge of sympathy for the nominal leader of Blackstone, whose authority had eroded over the past two years. Karzov wasn’t even pretending anymore. The Shadow controlled the demons, the kayan, the recovered magic technology, and all the innovation that had come out of his conscripted labor in this shadowy place.

  The Protector had nothing. If he was very lucky, Karzov would stash him in some financial office at the back of the palace when he took over.

  But no one was that lucky around Karzov.

  “What of our guest?” Karzov asked. “Are her accommodations suitable?”

  “We followed your instructions exactly.” Gorvich kept his voice even. He had hoped, prayed even, that the Oakhaven krin slayer—the only person Karzov had ever considered a worthy opponent—would kill the man someday.

  His hopes had been dashed at her capture. Karzov would ensure her stay would be as protracted and ugly as possible.

  Gorvich did not want to hear her scream. She would be voicing his own black despair.

  “Good, I shall pay her a visit myself soon.” Karzov returned to his inspection, the weird flame still in his eyes. “Do you know what this means to us, Gorvich?” There was a caressing note in his voice.

  “A war machine, sir. Once we duplicate it, no one will stand before us.” There was no way he could pretend to be glad, so he settled for a stoic neutrality.

  Karzov put a possessive hand on the metal arm. “Ah, I had not considered you to be a man of such enormous vision, Gorvich. But it seems to me that even you fall short. Tell me, Gorvich, what do you think is the greatest ambition a man can have?”

  One of those questions, whose purpose he could not fathom, but suspected was sinister. “Um… to rule the world?” Gorvich wished he could unsay the words the moment they left his mouth. What if Karzov suspected him of harboring such desires?

  “Is it?” Karzov said consideringly, as if turning the idea over in his mind, as if the thought had truly never occurred to him. “For some, perhaps. But the business of governance is so dreadfully boring, don’t you think?”

  “I couldn’t say, sir.” Gorvich recovered his blank face.

  “Maybe there is merit to your suggestion,” mused Karzov. “But when you rule the world, what is left once all the enemies are defeated and there is nothing left to conquer? What do you strive against next?”

  This conversation was far above Gorvich’s head—and putting him on shaky ground. He decided to interpret the questions as rhetorical and say nothing.

  It proved to be the correct choice, for Karzov shook himself out of his reverie. “But come. Let us hear what Gloriana has to report regarding the other trinkets she gathered on the Island.” He turned away from the kayan machine.

  Gorvich fell into step behind Karzov. He glanced at the suspended boy and said, tentatively, “Ah, sir? How long has Aliki been like this? Hasn’t he been punished enough?” He felt as if he was stretching his own neck out for the executioner’s axe.

  It was disconcerting when the man he had once been spoke out of turn. A reminder that decency still lurked within him.

  Decency would get his family killed.

  “Punished?” Karzov gave him an amused smile, though his eyes were flat as a shark’s. “My dear Gorvich, Aliki put himself in the manacles. The boy takes his training very seriously.” He chuckled and sauntered out of the cavern.

  Gorvich trailed behind him, leaving the silent expressionless boy to his self-inflicted torment.

  Chapter Twelve

  Rafe

  THE WORLD WAS STILL painted in shades of grey.

  It had been five days.

  Five days since the submersible fled Renat Island. Five days since they had watched the collapse of the great kayan’s stronghold from the portholes of a vessel grown almost intolerably hot and cramped.

  Five days since Rafe had felt beautifully-wrought ka-systems that had survived the Scorching and the centuries since fall to pieces and vanish in the boiling waters.

  Five days since Isabella had been taken.

  They’d seen the Blackstonian airships, menacing blots in the sky, fly off towards land. Their submersible had limped after, hugging the water line. With so many systems non-functional from their encounter with the giant squid and the barrage of debris from the explosive end of the Island, they couldn’t submerge entirely nor move fast.

  The submersible’s spent engines couldn’t make it upriver to its mooring place. They left it at the mouth of the channel, in the hands of Ironheart techs who were soon crawling all over it, testing, hammering, banging, riveting, pulling apart systems, peppering Coop and Furin with questions the former answered testily and the latter with a controlled quietness that was much worse.

  Mirados parted from them there, returning to the enclave of Shimmer rohkayan refugees in Ironheart territory. Furin stayed behind with the battered Felicity. Rafe had the vague impression that he would then return to the rebuilt city of Ironheart to visit Coop’s sister, the one who had given her name to the vessel.

  “She won’t move to New Hope.” Coop shook his head. “Half of Ironheart’s moved there, including the governing Council, but not Felicity.” Affection and exasperation mingled in his voice.

  New Hope—the city built around the Tors Lumena Rafe had discovered and Ironheart had annexed two years ago—was the remaining party’s destination. A high-speed train took Coop, Rafe, and Theo to Friendship, one of the outposts, in a day. Theo slept, like he had for most of the trip back. Aside from a clasping of hands and a heartfelt, “I’m glad to be out of there, Rafe,” the brothers had had no time for conversation. An Ironheart doctor had pronounced Theo to be suffering from malnutrition and dehydration, but otherwise unharme
d. The circular, shiny burns on his arms were another matter, entirely. When questioned about them, Theo answered simply, “It was a misunderstanding,” and would say no more.

  Bryony, thought Rafe, with no bitterness. He was too weary for anger, too undone for anything other than grief.

  Why had he never seen how hard and cruelly envy rode her? Why hadn’t he—whose job had relied on watching and assessing people—ever tried to look under the smiling mask she presented to him and the world?

  The train hummed over the rails. Theo slept on a lower bunk in their shared sleeping compartment; Coop had disappeared into his in a flurry of letters and documents, grumbling about paperwork. He’d promised to have his best people tracking down Isabella’s whereabouts. Rafe had to be satisfied with that.

  Now Rafe sat alone in the car, all his kyra focused on water condensing on the glass windows and stretching into miniature comets as the train traveled on.

  He’d tried again and again and again to reach Isabella through their shared bond. All his efforts had ended with him sweaty and strained, feeling as if he’d pulled muscles he never knew existed.

  He’d still been able to sense her from time to time when the Divide separated him.

  Why was there nothing now?

  She couldn’t be dead. He wouldn’t accept that.

  The train rushed on and the world outside was dark, darker than he’d ever known it.

  He recognized Friendship.

  It had grown up into a trade hub and fortified town in the last two years, but it was still the place he had woken up in after his efforts to control the poisonous ka of the Tors Lumena.

  The place where he had woken up blind.

  In those days, the one thing that had stood out to him in his pitiful state was Isabella, a beacon in his darkness.

  But there was no Isabella waiting for him here.

  Only the Tors Lumena welcomed him back. With teeth.

  To the people of Ironheart, it was a place of hope and promise, light and green growing things, their greatest chance of survival.