Читать книгу Storm of Ash - Michelle Kenney - Страница 9

‘Friends, we gather here today for two important reasons.’ Art’s grave voice echoed through the Ring’s flickering torchlight.

‘Firstly, to give thanks that the stars and earth have conspired between them, to bring home a much-loved daughter of Arafel. On behalf of everyone gathered here, I would like to offer our sincerest gratitude to Talia’s companions who, we can all be assured, have played a critical role in her return.

‘Commander General Augustus Aquila and Unus of Isca Prolet, you are most welcome.’

I watched as August and Unus, seated to the right of the Ring platform, nodded in acknowledgement. August’s inclination was brief and tight; while Unus’s great pudgy head fell forward in confused embarrassment, his one misted eye focused on the rock floor.

My nerves settled briefly. I owed Unus so much. From the moment we met in the strix-ridden passages beneath Pantheon, he’d proven himself a loyal and true friend. He’d saved my life countless times, but more than that, he’d proven real friendship could come from the unlikeliest of places. In truth, Unus gave me hope. He’d also eased into village life easily, proving invaluable in treehouse construction work. And despite a mistrustful start, fuelled by generations of fireside tales, villagers were now starting to treat him with real respect and kindness.

Much more so than Commander General August Aquila, who remained aloof and harder to know. I dragged my gaze back to his proud Roman face, still over-bright from the raw biting wind of the North Mountains, and so at odds here among my people. He’d insisted on sleeping on a mattress outside my bedroom door for the past week, and barely left my bedside during the long silent days. Yet conversation between us had long since guttered and died, overladen with shadows neither of us could ignore. We were lost. Not only because his presence forced me to face the absences, but also because it meant accepting who we’d become, that the constellation that had aligned over our snowstorm cave had faded.

Our snowstorm cave.

I couldn’t think about what we’d done, of how we’d nearly given in, despite everything. Despite everyone. Every time I closed my eyes I was haunted by a memory of us lying together, the flickering flames shadowing our skin as if inking our shame there. How could we have forgotten the others, even for a moment?

August’s eyes narrowed, reading me, as I dropped my eyes to my feet. The memories were corrosive. He could feel it too – I could tell whenever we made the mistake of catching each other’s gaze.

And the irony nearly consumed me – I’d spent a year feeling like a ghost girl with Max, and now I’d give anything to go back there. Not because I was happier, but because those feelings were so much easier than this caustic pit of guilt. The knowledge that Max, Eli and Aelia were lying pale and lifeless within the glassy Dead City river. Because of me. While I was still here, beside two Insiders instead of my childhood companions, and expected to explain their absence in a way that made it bearable. What could be more impossible than that?

‘Secondly, in accordance with Arafel tradition, when one of our community has been reported missing or compromised, we gather to hear the facts and decide on our collective response.

‘Action or inaction, Thomas’s principles stand as firmly today as they did two hundred years ago. An Arafel hunter believes in natural order, respect for his place in the forest, and taking only what he needs to survive. But if the circle is broken, particularly by forces outside of these four walls, it is up to the rest of us to decide whether to meet that betrayal with earth – or fire.’

I looked up at Art, Thomas’s wisdom echoing around the rock walls. He looked older and more wizened than ever before, and though our return had been celebrated with a whole roasted lamb and two kegs of elderberry wine, I could also see how it changed everything. I’d changed everything.

Cassius had broken the circle, but I had too. I’d brought Insiders here, to our most precious secret valley home. I’d violated the most sacred of rules, and I didn’t need to look around the room. I already knew fear and suspicion would be etched into every single face, all at my hand. I wished Mum was beside me, that I could bury my face in her familiar scent and comfort. But she was seated at the back, shelling peas as though it were just an ordinary harvest meeting, safe inside her own quiet oblivion.

So I locked my agitation inside my knotted fingers, because there was still Max, and that meant there was nothing I could do except tell them the stone-cold facts, and hope the people I’d always called my family didn’t end up hating me.

‘Talia … Commander General Augustus Aquila … Unus of Isca Prolet, I ask you to relate your journey and experiences with us now, omitting no … difficult details, so that we might arrive at the best course of action for Arafel.

‘The Ring platform is yours.’

My chest tightened, and I climbed the wide stone steps, feeling as though my legs had grown as dense and heavy as the rock surrounding us. I’d never felt more alone in the world, and yet there was nowhere to hide either. I’d been dreading this moment, finally facing Art, Max’s family … and Mum. Although she’d stopped asking after Eli, I was all too aware that didn’t mean the truth had reached through the mist separating her from the rest of Arafel. If anything, I was probably about to push her further away.

I turned slowly and surveyed the waiting crowd, recalling the last time I’d stood here – appealing for help to rescue the Prolet insurgents. I’d chosen my own path anyway, and could already see the doubt in their eyes.

Why were they even listening to me? I’d acted rashly, spent innocent lives, and exposed Arafel to danger.

The air was sombre and suspicious, I closed my eyes and Pan’s pale face loomed out of nowhere. It was the moment before he stepped into the writhing mass of basilisk, a moment filled with both fear and courage. Human attributes blazing in a creature of Pantheon.

He’d sacrificed his life so Max and I stood a chance of finding and protecting Lake. From Cassius, from the world and from herself. And now Max was gone, which meant the responsibility was mine alone.

It was time.

It was nearly an hour later when we finally finished relating our story. Mum had shelled peas consistently throughout, and the cavern was eerily quiet.

‘We tried everything.’ My voice sounded brittle in the echoing space. ‘We took them to the Oceanids, hoping they would do what they did for myself and the Commander General … hoping they would bring them back … somehow?’

My voice was growing thinner, an invisible fist closing around my throat.

Could they tell I was just about the worst human being alive? That I was the type of girl likely to give in to her darkest desire, even when her best friend was missing and her brother not quite cold in his watery grave?

‘They didn’t,’ August finished for me, ‘or more likely, they couldn’t – not in the time we needed them to.’

His words met with ominous silence, before the uproar began. I was conscious of time slowing, of the mood turning as faces I loved twisted beyond recognition. Until now there had been whispers and conjecture, still laced with hope, but now their worst suspicions had been confirmed there was only pain. And honest-to-God fury.

‘These … Oceanids of which you speak … dare we hope they may yet return Eli and Aelia?’ Art’s face was grave, his eyes straining with grief.

A poignant silence hung on the air before August shook his head. ‘From experience, and what I understand of how the Oceanids work – their therapies either work swiftly, or not at all. So … tempting though the thought is, it is better not to nurse unrealistic hope.’

‘Then I think we have our answer!’ Bereg roared from the back of the crowd, his affable face over-red and raw.

Loud voices bayed their support, their faces leering as unbridled fury pierced my skin like barbs. And for a fleeting moment, I could almost believe I was back beneath the flashing screens and bloodthirsty crowds of Ludi. But how could I blame them? I’d breached village protocol by taking off with Eli and Max in the first place, and I’d breached it again by bringing back two Insiders, instead of two much-loved sons. And August’s defection and Unus’s efficiency with whatever he turned his hand to were no recompense for the biggest danger I’d carried right into the heart of our home. I was a Trojan horse of the worst kind.

‘There are others!’ August’s authoritative tone rose above the din, quieting it momentarily.

‘There are other Outsiders – communities like you – in isolated locations across Europa. The fate that befell Eli, Max and my own beloved blood sister, Aelia, was beyond our control. You must believe what Talia is saying – we did everything we could to save them.’

I stared at the floor, acutely aware he was still doing it. Protecting me by trying to turn the tide, saving me when I least deserved saving. Didn’t he get it yet? There was no reprieve from this. I deserved it all. How could there be any light when the blood flowing through my veins was dark, like Cassius’s?

Black to black, dust to dust.

‘Believe me, I understand …’ his voice faltered momentarily ‘… how you are feeling right now. But there is a darker day than this yet to come.

‘Max, Eli, Aelia … they are just the beginning. Cassius is coming for Arafel; he is coming for each and every one of you. And the reason I know this is because I was a Commander General of Isca Pantheon’s Equite forces, and a senior member of the scientific team for too long. Cassius will not rest until every last Outsider has been eliminated.’

A muted gasp swept across the belligerent crowd.

‘You want revenge on your sons’ deaths, but you would do better to save your energy for those who are still alive. If you march on Pantheon as you are, you will join Max and Eli before the sun goes down. To stand even the remotest chance of bringing Cassius’s Civitas down once and for all, you need strength, speed and numbers. In truth, you need every last Outsider on this earth standing beside you.

‘And I know where they are.’

For a second it was quiet enough to hear the faint call of a lemur outside. And then fresh pandemonium broke.

‘He must be lying … It can’t be true! Where are these other Outsiders? We would know of them. Do they look like him? It’s obviously a lie! How could an Insider know this? We would have known before now!’

‘Silence!’ This time it was Art’s command filling the space, and every pair of eyes levelled with the elderly man charged with making sense of it all.

‘If all of this is indeed true …’ he exhaled raggedly ‘… it is both a dark and wondrous day. We have lived with dreams of finding other communities like our own, but … how do we know they will be friendly or even receptive to helping Arafel?’

‘You don’t,’ August returned baldly. ‘We don’t … at least not yet. But I can tell you they are more like this community than they are different.’

His tone grew gentler as the Ring hushed with new respect. ‘I’ve no idea how many individual communities there may be scattered across Europa. But my own Pantheon mission encountered one that had adapted to a similar climate, and where there is one there must be others. It’s vital to remember that while their Outsider DNA may be as original as any of yours, their culture will likely be very different … We would all need to tread cautiously.

‘Any community that stands beside Arafel will be unpredictable and a risk, until we know otherwise.’

I scanned the faces in the crowd, which had morphed from hostility into something quieter, a grim unified determination. It was a real turnaround, and I knew if it wasn’t for his intervention we would be facing a very different scene now.

My eyes flickered back to meet his. The lanterns were casting shadows across his tapered cheekbones, his dark eyes were hollowed, and the tiny muscle beside his mouth was twitching as though he wanted to say so much more. And yet, even though he’d saved me from clear ostracization, and provided my people with the most fragile of new hopes, I still couldn’t feel anything.

I swallowed, trying to recall my father’s face. I could just see a hint of his smile, and his hunched back as he pored over the old-world maps in his treehouse study, ringing all the valleys in dark red. He would have been euphoric to know his belief and years of work weren’t in vain.

August pulled his gaze away abruptly.

‘You need to gather a legatio, a deposition to locate new communities quickly and appeal for their help. There is no time to waste. I am willing and able to lead this legatio – in Arafel’s name.’

There was a murmur across the crowd as Art nodded, visibly relieved. August already knew where to locate at least one other community, and that whoever travelled as embassy had the huge challenge of rallying them to our cause. He had a natural authority and had just demonstrated his powers of persuasion. There was no doubt he made the perfect choice.

An Insider rallying feral communities to an Outsider army.

It was a bittersweet outcome, and though it was clearly fraught with danger, there was no way back. I’d hurt them all, my own family included, and while August had provided some hope, it was merely a glimmer of light amid the gathering storm clouds.

A war was coming, and my peace-loving people had eyes the colour of revenge.

What, in the name of Arafel, had I started?