Burn Bright (19 page)

Lenoir didn't acknowledge Test at all. Instead he lifted Naif inside onto a softly upholstered seat and climbed in after her.

A rush of memories hit her: the brass trimmings of the interior, the deep scent of the leather seats. It could have been one of the Grave Elders' horse-drawn carriages. She'd travelled in them with Father to probation hearings, his anger like a priest's grille between them, her shirt damp still from her mother's tears.

A sudden jerking movement forced her to grasp hold of the seat.

‘The carriage is merely unfolding its legs. In a moment you'll feel nothing,' said Lenoir.

Naif held on until the rocking sensation stopped.

After a couple of reassuring glances out of the window, she settled against the seat and let her eyes close. She drifted to a place where neither thought nor action dwelt; an in-between place of nothing – away from the pain.

‘Naif!' Lenoir roused her from
petite nuit
with a rough hand. ‘Take this now or the pain will harm you.' He pressed a pod into her hand.

Remembering what Graselle had said to her about
healing, she didn't argue. She chewed it carefully and waited for the effects.

It wasn't long before heaviness crept into her limbs, dulling everything including her reticence. Her head felt woozy but in a more pleasant way.

She glanced over at Lenoir. He stared moodily out of the window, his lips pursed. His beautiful hair matted by dark blood.

She wanted to ask him about Leyste but other words came out of her mouth. ‘Why was the party for me? You said that before when we were in the gallery,' she asked.

Lenoir didn't look at her. ‘If the vote goes against me things will change. I will not be able to do the things I choose. I wanted you to see how beautiful parties can be, how elegant.'

Naif gave a spontaneous smile. ‘That got messed up, didn't it?'

He shrugged dismissively. ‘We are here.'

Naif sat up straighter, wondering if the pod had distorted her senses. ‘We've only been moving for a few minutes.'

He turned to her now, his face almost unsightly, streaked with blood and wearing an oddly vulnerable expression. It frightened her to see him that way.

He reached a hand to her face and the fingers that had burned her skin in Agios felt warm and soothing. He kneaded her cheek between his thumb and forefinger.

‘I thought that Leyste had already killed you, baby bat.'

‘I s-still don't think he'd have hurt –'

He pinched her skin and let go. ‘Yes. He would.'

There was something so convincing in his tone that she let the argument go.

He leaned towards her until his mouth found the graze above her lips. Then he licked it gently, as he had done once before, like a catling with its baby.

Naif's body dissolved, all sensations nullified, other than the pressure of his tongue and the tingling wetness of it. Obeying a welling of instinct, she shifted under his touch until her lips aligned with his. She pressed up hard against him. Her lips opened artlessly and her tongue found its way to his. He tasted salty with the tang of her blood, but that flavour ebbed and another took its place. She craved the moisture, thirsty for more of his special taste.

His fingers clamped around her upper arms, lifting her from the seat onto his lap. With every gentle pull she made on his tongue, he clung tighter to her, as if he would compress her into a tiny portion of herself.

Sensation, numbed by the pod, returned to her body with such crashing intensity that it left every nerve raw. She wanted to scream with elation and with pain.

Lenoir's teeth closed on her tongue and raked the sides of it, causing her to arch in his grasp.

A growl ripped from his chest. He pushed her away and she glimpsed his face, so contorted that she barely recognised him. His cheeks seemed to have grown fuller, concealing his bone structure, and his brow heavier. His lips curled back, revealing the glistening of his gums.

‘Lenoir,' she gasped.

He flung her back onto her seat and fled from the carriage.

She didn't try to follow him. It seemed as much as she could do to lie across the seat and gather her fragmented mind. What had she just seen? Had his face really distorted? Had the creature Leyste been as dangerous as Lenoir insisted? Why wouldn't Joel listen to her? Her thoughts chased each other in circles.

‘Retra?' Charlonge peered anxiously through the door. ‘What are you doing in Lenoir's carriage? What's happened? He came storming into the church and told me to come and tend to you. I've never seen him … upset.'

Naif struggled to concentrate on the rush of questions – she had so many of her own, and her ankle throbbed in time to the beat of blood at her temples.

‘It's Naif,' she whispered. ‘And I think my leg is hurt.'

‘Naif? Isn't that the name I picked out for you?'

‘Yes.'

Charlonge nodded approvingly then stared down at her torn clothes. Her eyes widened. ‘You mean legs, arms, stomach … Let's get you inside. You can tell me what happened later. Has Lenoir given you anything for the pain?'

‘Pod,' croaked Naif.

‘A whole one?'

She nodded.

‘Well, that explains why you're so dreamy.'

No,
thought Naif.
Not just that.

Charlonge helped her into Vank. The carriage had stopped adjacent to the lower platform, making it only a few steps to the door and away from the clutching dark.

Naif thought she saw the carriage jerk upward on long spidery legs and disappear. But she couldn't be sure, because everything had become strangely blurred.

Even Charlonge …

When
petite nuit
dropped away and her mind cleared again, she found herself in Charlonge's bed again, covered in red silk sheets. Charlonge sat at her black escritoire reading a large book. Naif knew it to be old from the crackle of the stiff pages and the musty smell that rose from it every time a page turned.

‘Where do the books come from?' She asked it softly so as not to startle the older girl.

Charlonge put the book down. She seemed relieved to hear Naif speaking normally. ‘Each church has a library.'

‘What are you reading?' Naif felt a sudden yearning to touch it. The library in Seal South had been her place of solace, and frustration. But she'd only been allowed to read about religiosity and etiquette and comportment.

‘Ixion history,' said Charlonge in an offhand way. ‘Newbies always want to know things and sometimes I can't answer them.'

‘What sort of things?'

‘Mainly about Ixion itself and how the Ripers came here. But sometimes they ask about the Tri-suns and cosmology.'

‘Cosmology?' Naif had never heard the word before.

Charlonge sighed. ‘I suppose you've never even heard of the Tri-suns?'

Naif shook her head.

‘It's not your fault, Naif. These things have been kept from you on Grave. But you should know, at least, that we live on a world that spins around a cooling star.'

‘Abraxas. Yes. Joel told me.'

‘Did you know it also has two companions?'

‘There are three stars?'

‘Imagine three friends arguing and sending one into exile. That's our suns.' Charlonge closed the book. ‘And before you ask me any more questions let me see your wounds.'

Naif sat up against the pillows and pulled the silk shift up to her thighs to inspect her legs. Other than the circle of heavy bruising around her ankle, all of the scratches had almost healed. Her arms were the same. She slid the shift down quickly, not knowing what to say.

‘I've heard that Lenoir is a healer,' said Charlonge. ‘But how is that possible? On your face as well.'

Shame and a little excitement burned inside her. As before, Lenoir's tongue had healed her. ‘I'm not sure … but one of the Night Creatures attacked me when I wandered from the path near Agios. Lenoir found me and fought it. Killed it.' She forced herself to say the words – to make it real. ‘Then he brought me here. That's all I really remember.'

‘That's all!' Charlonge picked up a cup and walked the length of the narrow room. ‘Take this.'

Gratefully, Naif sipped the proffered grape juice.

Charlonge waited until she had finished. ‘What were you doing out there?'

‘I-I went with Markes, so we could speak privately.'

‘The musician?'

Naif nodded and drew her legs up to her chin. ‘We talked for a while and then he went inside. I would have followed but Joel called out to me.'

‘Joel?' Charlonge's fingers fluttered. ‘What did he say?'

‘I tried to get him to understand that Lenoir wants to protect us. Joel doesn't believe me – we argued and he left, and I lost my way a little. Leyste was waiting for me. Lenoir said he had been stalking me since I came through the Register.'

‘Leyste?'

‘A Night Creature.' Naif hugged her legs to her chest to hide a shudder. ‘He was hideous, Char, but sad in a way.' She sighed. ‘Lenoir said he would have killed me.'

Charlonge took several careful steps away from the bed as if to avoid breaking something underfoot. ‘Lenoir is showing you great concern, Naif. It's not usual for a Guardian to do that. Are you sure he's not trying to reach Joel – through you?'

Naif shrugged. ‘I don't think he knows.'

Charlonge stared at her. ‘Don't be sure of anything with Lenoir. The Guardians aren't like us. You can't predict what they'll do. You can't
know
them, Naif.'

Charlonge's words triggered a thought. Naif slid off the bed and had to steady herself against a wave of dizziness. ‘The vote!'

‘What're you talking about? You need to rest. I don't want Lenoir punishing me for –'

Naif seized Charlonge's hands. ‘The Guardians are voting on what to do about Ruzalia. If Lenoir loses the vote then Brand will be their new leader. She'll
use Markes as bait for Ruzalia. And you as well. She'll hunt down the League and the gangs. Do you know Brand, Char?'

Charlonge swallowed nervously and nodded. ‘Of course. The scarred one?'

‘I have to go to the meeting and hear the result.' Naif let go of Charlonge's hands and straightened. A powerful wave of determination flooded through her. ‘If Brand wins then I must warn everyone.'

Charlonge stood still. Naif saw warring desires in her changing expression. And fear.

‘Have you decided what you will do, Char?' she said softly.

‘Yes,' she said, finally. ‘I'm coming with you.'

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.'