Burn Bright

The Youth Circle meeting chamber stood empty apart from the girl with the long hair and the mask painted across her eyes, who drifted, distracted, around the table, tugging at the heavy chairs, fingering the polished stone.

‘Jaime!’ called Naif, stepping onto the narrow strip of carpet. Charlonge stayed behind her.

The girl jumped and stared. ‘You!’

‘I’m Naif. Where are they holding the Guardians’ vote?’

‘How do you know about that?’ The girl came closer to her, the soft folds of her skirt making faint, sliding noises as it caught between her legs and brushed against itself. ‘Only the bonded know about …’ Then her eyes widened. ‘You’re the one they’re all talking about. The one Lenoir protects.’

Naif hesitated. Though she didn’t like Jaime’s insinuation, it was the truth, somehow. ‘Where is the vote?’

Jaime pouted and she crossed her arms. ‘He used to have time for me before you came along. Now he doesn’t even touch my hair. They say he’s obsessed with you.’ She looked Naif up and down. ‘I can’t see why.’

Naif’s face flushed at both the insult and the thought of Lenoir’s attentions.

She automatically reached for her Seal training to calm her but it wasn’t there. She must trust her instincts now, and they told her to be forceful. ‘Tell me where the vote is or I’ll set the Night Creatures on you.’

‘Naif!’ exclaimed Charlonge from the shadows.

Naïf ignored her. She didn’t have time to debate with either girl.

‘You can’t control the Night Creatures. Only the Guardians can do that.’ Jaime flicked her long hair behind her shoulders with assurance, but Naif heard the tiny waver of uncertainty in her voice.

‘They’ll come and find you, I promise,’ Naif whispered. She pulled the hem of her skirt up and showed her wounded ankle. ‘They almost took my foot off before I learned their secrets. Now I can speak to them – command them, if I wish. Imagine what they would do to your hair out there in the dark among the thorn bushes and the dirt.’

The girl took a step backwards. She pointed to an apse-like alcove lit by a single wall-mounted candle on the far side of the cavern. ‘That way. But I don’t know where. I never go in there.’

Naif ran across the cavern, hoping that Charlonge followed. She must find out if Lenoir survived.

The door in the alcove led into a cave that was lit by torches hung from the walls. But tunnels branched off it in so many directions that she stopped abruptly.

Charlonge bumped into her shoulder. ‘Do you know where to go? If you don’t know we could get lost.’

‘Shhh!’ said Naif. ‘Listen!’ The faint strains of guitar melody reached them, echoing around the cave. ‘Markes. But which way?’

‘The Dominion is a series of concentric circles connected by short corridors,’ Charlonge replied.

Naif stared at her. ‘How do you know that?’

‘It’s in the books. Before the Ripers lived here, the caves belonged to the monks. They drew pictures of it. It’s like a maze.’

‘Is that what you’ve been studying?’

‘I knew my time was soon. I wanted to know more before I … left.’

Naif felt relieved that Charlonge had been acting – thinking – for herself. ‘I’m glad you did,’ she said. ‘Circles mean that we can’t get lost.’

An unbidden confidence surged through Naif like a firm hand in the middle of her back. She took the candle-torch from the wall holder. ‘We just need to follow the music.’

She chose a corridor by concentrating on the sound, letting it draw her.

Charlonge followed silently behind her. They passed countless wooden doors pressed into the rock like dates in dough. Behind each one, Naif knew, would be a sparse, nondescript room like the one she had laid in after her Enlightenment. She resisted the desire to look inside any of them, focusing harder as the music grew louder.

‘It’s here,’ she said, finally. She stopped and gave Charlonge the torch. Then she placed her hands to the wall, feeling for a gap or seam.

‘But there’s no door,’ said Charlonge.

Naif bit her lip and let her hands roam the rock further. ‘It’s behind this wall … I’m sure.’

‘How do we get there?’

Naif turned to the older girl. ‘What else did you learn from the books about the monks? Please think hard.’

Charlonge took a nervous breath, glancing over her shoulder. ‘How can you be so calm? Joel is like that too.’

‘You are capable, Char. Think of all the new ones you’ve managed. Think of how you’ve tended me.’

‘But this is different. This is forbidden.’

‘That’s what they want you to believe. Fear traps your mind.’ Naif knew that now. It was how Grave worked. Joel had worked that out a long time before her. ‘There must be a way through the wall to the music.’

Charlonge pressed a palm to her forehead, thinking. ‘The book says that the monks found bones in the tunnels. They drew pictures of them, piled into corners. I suppose that means it was a catacomb before they came.’

‘Catacomb?’

‘Burial chambers. Crypts.’

Naif knew about crypts too. In Grave they stood amongst the normal dwellings, not separated from the living in the way Suki had described her village’s former cemetery. Some of the crypts in Grave were bigger than her house. Inside each one would be a wall of coffin drawers, and near that a pot stand with dried arrangements. Excepting for the Council families. Those crypts – she shuddered – were marble and filled with blank-eyed statues. Those ones had no coffin drawers; each member had their own plot buried beneath the floor of the greeting chamber, marked by a different pattern in the marble mosaic.

She stared at Charlonge with widening eyes. ‘You’re so clever!’

‘Wh-what?’

Naif pointed down and scuffed the smooth floor with her foot. ‘The entry is underneath us.’

‘Oh, no,’ moaned Charlonge, softly. ‘Please, no.’

But Naif dropped down on her hands, feeling for the gap, or the hook or the catch. She found it close to the wall in a well-worn groove that was hidden under the rock overhang. She tugged it upward but nothing moved, and the jagged edge grazed her fingers.

‘It won’t open. I think we should go back,’ whispered Charlonge.

But Naif wouldn’t give up. She pushed the groove horizontally this time, and a narrow rectangle of floor in front of where she knelt slid open. Markes’ music flooded up the stairs.

‘Quick, Char.’

But Charlonge stayed still, her back pressed against the wall.

Naif handed her back the torch. ‘Stay here and make sure the door stays open. I don’t want to be trapped down there.’

She slid her legs over the lip of the opening and eased down onto rough-cut spiral stairs. Descending slowly, she stopped to listen for voices every few steps. The last stair brought her face to face with two thick stone columns. In the gap between them she could see through to a large chamber.

Naif crept to the columns and peered through.

All of the Ripers were in there – not seated at a table as she expected, but standing in a circle. Lenoir had his back to her with Test on one side of him and Graselle – the only human among them – on the other. Lenoir faced Brand across the circle. Modai stood next to Brand, with Forlorn on the other side.

Further along the wall she saw Markes crouched, clutching his guitar like a shield. Leather cuffs on his ankles were attached to an iron loop and bolted to the floor. Blood streaked his face, and his lips looked puffy and swollen, as if he’d been hit.

The chamber reeked of rage; an acrid, throat-catching taste that billowed around the circle of Ripers like invisible smoke. Naif wanted to wave her arms to clear the air – make it more breathable – but she stayed still, scared to move any further.

Brand stepped into the middle of the circle. ‘There’s something that should be said before the vote.’

‘What is it, Brand? Simply and without decoration, if you please,’ said Varonessa. She stood midway between Brand and Lenoir, clearly the arbiter.

‘Leyste is dead. Murdered by one of our own.’

The circle of Ripers appeared to writhe like eels caught in a net. But it was Modai who truly frightened Naif. He fell to his knees, clasping his chest as if he’d been stabbed, moaning in a deep and haunted way.

Brand stepped back, her expression showing she was satisfied with the impact of her words.

‘Do you claim to know the murderer?’ asked Varonessa.

Naif held her breath. What would happen when Lenoir was named?

She became overwhelmed by an urgent need to get out. But the desire wasn’t hers; it was Lenoir’s. He’d sensed her presence without seeing her and sent her a warning. Flee.

She fought against the compulsion and pressed closer to the column. Markes saw her and his face betrayed a mixture of terror and pleading.

Conflicting instincts paralysed her. What would happen to Markes if she left? What would happen to them both if she stayed?

‘I killed him, Varonessa,’ said Lenoir into the tense quiet.

The Ripers erupted in a clamour of questions and accusations.

‘SILENCE!’ Varonessa did not raise her voice yet it cut straight through the noise.

Naif felt another surge of power – like bands tightening across her limbs. Someone had taken control of the room, keeping it in order. Either Varonessa or Lenoir.

‘Lenoir, explain yourself,’ ordered Varonessa.

Lenoir did not move from where he stood. ‘Leyste stalked one of the new ones. He saw her arrive at the Register and has been watching her ever since. He tampered with the light relays on a path near Agios and then attacked her.’

‘Tampered with the light relays?’ Varonessa sounded shocked.

Murmurs rippled around the circle again.

‘That is not possible, Lenoir,’ said Varonessa.

‘Not for one of them,’ agreed Lenoir. ‘But it is for one of us. One of us assisted Leyste. We cannot let this happen. It’s not in our agreement.’

The tension in the chamber threatened to strangle Naif, as if someone had looped a rope over her head and left her to hang. She tried to stop gasping for breath. Someone would hear her. Someone must …

But the Ripers’ attention belonged to Modai. He let out a curdling howl and launched himself at Lenoir.

Lenoir met him chest on and gave a powerful slicing chop into the side of Modai’s neck. Modai staggered back, gargling as though his neck were broken. Yet somehow he stayed upright.

The attack brought a rush of release from whoever controlled the chamber and the Ripers leapt at each other. Brand went for Lenoir, Modai for Test in a savage interchange of clawing nails and freakish strength. Screeches filled the cave as the opposing factions tore into each other with the ferocity of wild animals.

Able to breathe again, Naif ran across to Markes and unscrewed the manacles. Neither of them spoke but Naif hooked her shoulder under his and urged him towards the stairs. She resisted looking back for Lenoir in the bloody clash. She would know what happened to him. She would feel it. As she and Markes staggered up the stone steps she sent Lenoir a single thought. Survive.

Charlonge met them halfway up. She took Markes’s other shoulder and together they helped him up through the sliding trapdoor into the corridor.

‘Which way?’ said Charlonge.

‘I know,’ Markes panted, touching the new Circle tattoo on his temple. ‘I have an inner map now.’

His clipped directions were the only words that passed between the three of them as they stumbled along the concentric corridors until they reached the main meeting chamber. Jaime had gone but a lone figure waited there, hunched over in the pews.

‘Naif!’ Suki sprang up and ran over to help. She stared at Markes. ‘Pig-cuss! What happened to him?’

‘Ripers,’ said Naif. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘I’ve been looking everywhere for you. I went to Vank. Someone saw you and Charlonge take the kar to Syn. When I got here Jaime told me you’d gone to a meeting in the Dominion.’ Suki pulled out her knife. ‘Had to scare her silly to find that out. She said you wouldn’t come back. I told her you could look after yourself. I’ve been waiting for you.’

Naif’s stomach tightened into a cramp of fear. ‘Why?’

‘Rollo thinks you’ve been kidnapped by Brand and taken to Danskoi. He’s gone off to tell the League. He says they’ll find you. That you know someone important in the League.’ She bit her lip. ‘Do you? Or is he fou?’

Naif took a deep breath and glanced at Charlonge. ‘He’s not fou, Suki. My brother Joel … he’s Clash.’