Girl of Myth and Legend (35 page)

‘Harriad,’ I say.

His face is pale and peeled and bleeding. He grabs me, and for a moment I think he might be attacking me, but instead his arms enfold me and he squeezes me tight.

‘I’m so glad,’ he whispers. ‘I feared the worst.’

‘Um,’ is all I can come up with, though I’m glad, too, so glad he’s all right. ‘H-how are you still alive?’

He laughs, of all the things to do. ‘I could ask the same of you!’ He pushes me back, his hands on my shoulders. ‘We killed most of the rebels, and the others, well, the maiden saw to them. I think they’ve lost control of it, they must have. There are a few left, though, I couldn’t rid us of them. It’s all right, though. I know a way out—through the portal.’

‘We don’t need the portal,’ I say. ‘We have this, and it can stop the maiden.’ I gesture to Sersu and the relic in her hand. She narrows her eyes when I do it.

‘That is…’ Harriad begins, and then looks up at Sersu, glaring with such ferociousness I blink in surprise. ‘Traitor!’ he shouts, and is about to attack her when she unsheathes a dagger and stabs him hard and fast in the neck.

The silence is profound.

‘Ser… Ser…’ I stutter, taking a few steps back.

She removes the blade, and Harriad stumbles back, trying to stop the blood from flowing out of him.

‘What did… What did…?’ I begin.

Harriad falls to the ground, choking on his own blood.

‘Harriad!’ I scream, but Korren moves in front of me so I can’t go to him. ‘What did you do, Sersu?
What did you do
?’

She turns to me, gaze unflinching. ‘Didn’t I tell you before? I was always here for you, Leonie, always, to cut your strings.’

KORREN

BLACK AND WHITE

‘I-I d-don’t understand,’ says my keeper. ‘You… you’re a s-soldier, your family are—’

‘Slaves to power,’ says Sersu. ‘Unlike me.’

I move in front of my keeper. ‘You’re a rebel.’

‘I am.’

‘Then why this façade?’ I ask.

‘Why? My position makes me indispensable to the rebels, and I’m one of a few who are willing to take advantage of it for them.’

‘But why rebel against the Imperium?’

‘I could give you so many reasons, such as how I loathe their black and white laws, but to be honest, I just want to see those pompous Council members fall from their pedestals. So I joined the rebels as a—how should I put it—as a spy. It was because of my position that I was able to find out a Pulsar was born again. It was only a rumour, and I had to be careful, poking and prodding people on the Council, but I soon discovered it was true, and that you really did exist. So I had to make it my business to get to you, to be by your side. That’s where my mother’s influence came in.’

‘You’ve been working with the rebels this whole time,’ says my keeper.

‘I have, and, Leonie, though what you’ve seen hasn’t glorified our cause, you have to believe that we’re the good ones.’

‘Good?’ she repeats, glancing at Harriad. ‘You unleashed a maiden, killed Magen, Harriad and maybe more, and you claim to be good?’

‘Fighting for a good cause doesn’t mean you’ll do good things to achieve it,’ says Sersu.

‘What about that?’ she says, looking at the relic in her hand. ‘Is that really what you said it was?’

‘In a sense; I just don’t intend to use it on the maiden.’

‘So you lied to us,’ says my keeper. ‘You tricked us.’

‘I had to,’ she says.

‘You never wanted to stop the maiden.’

‘The maiden is… was, on our side, however reluctantly. But I had to lie; you wouldn’t have helped otherwise. We’ve been after this for a long time. When we found out the Pulsar would be coming to the Temples of Elswyr, we knew we could kill two birds with one stone.

‘The rebels that attacked you, Leonie, when you first came here, they were my friends, and their objective was to be imprisoned.’

‘What?’

‘They could have just declared who they were, and the outcome would have been the same, but we didn’t want to arouse suspicion, plus we wanted
you
to know we were coming for you, to liberate you. We needed you to know that.’

‘Liberate me? Is that what you mean by cutting my strings?’

‘It’s part of it.’ She looks around and sighs. ‘I never wanted you to be here for this long. It wasn’t our intention. I was supposed to have you with me when my comrades came with the maiden, but I couldn’t find you.

‘You see, we knew the urn was being moved from the ruined temple near the Dator Isles to here, to where you were. It was fortunate on our part. One of the rebels who was captured, Ebren Ohmsfiel, he sacrificed his life for our objective. He had the power to resist any magic, including the imprisonment seal on his prison. That’s why he was chosen. He managed to escape and locate where the relic was being held and relay the information to me before he was murdered. He had to go back, you understand, knowingly to his death, otherwise the Thrones would have suspected something. All of them died…’

‘I didn’t want them to die,’ my keeper says.

‘I know.’

‘They died for nothing,’ I say. ‘Some urn that’s power is probably just myth.’

‘We live in a land of myth, kytaen, where anything is possible,’ says Sersu.

‘What does it do if not what you said it did?’

‘It’s important enough for people to die for. But we need you, too, Leonie.’

‘Why?’ she says. ‘I already
helped
you get that out.’

Sersu smiles. ‘I told you about your potential, didn’t I? So long as you’re in Crato’s grasp, you’ll never be able to reach that potential. But we rebels? We know what you can do, if you choose to.’

‘After everything you’ve done, after what you’ve unleashed today, you really think I’d go with you monsters?’

‘Ah, so we’re the monsters now?’

‘You all are.’

She smiles. ‘If you knew me, if you knew what I’ve been through, you’d know this attack was justified.’

‘That sounds like something O’Sah would say, justifying every wrong.’

Sersu narrows her eyes. ‘I know what I am, and soon you’ll know, too. Everything will be all right.’

‘Hah. My dad said that to me when I awakened, and look where I am now.’

‘You won’t be here for much longer, I promise.’

I don’t like how sincere her words sound, as if she is genuinely concerned for my keeper’s safety, as if she doesn’t want to be standing before us like an enemy.

Sersu holds out her hand towards me. ‘Now, just stay still, kytaen.’

‘What are you doing?’ my keeper snaps.

‘Since I know you won’t come willingly, particularly your kytaen, I have to make sure he’s docile enough to not follow instinct. It doesn’t hurt, don’t wor—’

A hand grabs Sersu’s leg, pulling her down. Behind her lies Harriad, blood-soaked but just alive enough to save us this one last time.

‘Quick, go,’ I say to my keeper.

And we run. We don’t think where to run, we just do, and we come out of the temple and out into the mist.

‘Ow!’

My head snaps towards my keeper. ‘What is—?’

Attached to her skin is a small, circular device, clinging to her like a leech. She pulls it out and looks at it, beads of blood dripping from it.

‘What is this?’ she says.

I don’t know what it is, but I know who shot it into her. The maiden specifically attacked me, a kytaen, which is unheard of, and the only reason it would attack a kytaen is if
they
told it to, to make sure I wasn’t in the way.

The rebels have found us.

I glance around, looking for them, but all I can see is silver mist.

No no no. Not now.

‘Run.’

‘What?’ she says.

‘Run—now!’

I start ahead of her, and she follows me, though her steps are irregular.

‘I feel dizzy,’ she says.

‘Just keep up!’ I shout back to her. ‘They’re—’

I feel something entering my skin. I almost lose my balance, but the pain soon fades. I want to tear off the thing they shot at me, but I’ll have to keep it on a little longer until we’re out of their sight.

I see a whip of red, too fast for me to hinder, and it coils itself around my keeper’s arm and hauls her to the ground. She cries out and I try to go to her but find I cannot move. The nerves in my legs are buzzing, and though it’s not painful, it’s uncomfortable. I try to use my echo but I can’t use that either.

From the mist appear five figures, and the rebels, including Sersu who holds the relic, stand before us in their demonic masks. One of them is holding a blood-like whip, which for all I know could be blood, and I try to move so I can bite his damned hand off. I notice the fire-resistant rebel, and he walks towards my keeper, who is on her back crying out as the whip continues to burn through her skin.

He bends over her, looking down at her. ‘I told you we’d find you, little puppet.’

LEONIE

THE STARS HAVE BEEN WAITING

‘Release her, David.’

The red whip dissipates, freeing my arm. My left coat arm has burnt away, revealing my pale skin and a large burn mark. I cry as I throw snow onto the burn, piling it on. A rebel grabs me from behind, but I’m in such relief because of having something cold on my arm that for the moment I don’t care.

‘This isn’t a Throne, is it?’ says the rebel, holding me. ‘Why she dressed like us? Who is she?’

‘This?’ says the man who hurt Korren’s leg. ‘Why, Kanon, this is the
Pulsar
.’ He says ‘Pulsar’ in such a theatrical way it makes me grit my teeth.

‘Her?’ says Kanon. ‘But her eyes, and she’s plain. I thought you lot was s’posed to be all beautiful.’

‘Sorry to disappoint,’ I say. At least, I wish I had said it, but I’m clenching my teeth as the pain rips through my arm.

‘You proved quite a hard mouse to catch,’ says the theatri-cal one. He laughs in a menacing way that makes me even surer he’s lost his mind, and I know for a fact it’s not from the haze. ‘Now, now, what to do, what to do? How should we play next?’

‘Hau-Rai, how about we get back to your games when we’re at the outpost?’ Sersu says. ‘Jupiter’s going to know of our plan by now, and who knows what she’ll do. We have to get back before she can assemble her people against us.’

‘Why wait when I could have so much fun now?’

She clenches her jaw. ‘We’re losing control of the maiden. It’s already killed so many of us! Let’s just get out of here so we can complete our mission.’

‘I believed you,’ I say, and Sersu looks down at me. ‘I thought you were my friend.’

She smiles, and it’s an honest smile. ‘I am, Leonie. At least, I can be. I believe you can be something amazing, but the way you are right now, well, it’s less than inspiring. You’re not ready for what we have in store for you, and I could see that when you ran away after you learnt of the rebels’ fate.’

‘What do you want with me?’ I try to restrain the fear in my voice.

She tucks a strand of my hair behind my ear. ‘Everything you can give and more.’

‘Enough talk,’ says Kanon. ‘Come on. I wanna get out of here.’

‘The kytaen may be a problem,’ David says.

They turn their attention to Korren, who’s struggling to move from whatever power is holding him there.

‘I have him under control,’ says Kanon.

‘Yes, so long as he’s stood still,’ says David, ‘but once we’re out of sight you’ll lose your power over him and he’ll come after us.’

‘Then I’ll kill him,’ says the last rebel.

‘No, Thomas,’ says Hau-Rai. ‘There now, doggy. Stop struggling, stop struggling.’ He goes to pat Korren’s back, but his shadowy flames blaze more ferociously and Hau-Rai puts his hands up in defence. ‘Only trying to make friends. Sersu, would you please?’

Sersu nods and holds out her hand to Korren.

‘Wait, stop!’ I yell. ‘What are you doing?’

Korren shakes his head, trying to move.

‘What are you doing to him?’ I cry, struggling in the rebel’s grip. ‘Leave him alone!’

He stops thrashing his head and just
stares
at Sersu. After a few moments, her arm is at her side again.

‘What did you do?’ I shout. ‘What did you do to him? If you hurt him—!’

‘Such concern for just a kytaen,’ says Hau-Rai.

‘He’s not just a kytaen, he’s my
friend
, and whatever you did to him I swear you’ll suffer for it.’