The Boys of Fire and Ash (23 page)

I nodded, a lump rising in my throat.

“And for him you want to do something bad, something bad to Serin?”

None of us said anything. The girl nodded, our silence admission enough.

“Because of
them
, yes?”

Them
. Them. I was suddenly so angry, furious that one group of people could cause so much hurt and pain to so many others. And here I was, ready to hurt another on
their
orders. I was Krepin's slave so long as he had Cubby. Did that make me a
them
?

“Who are they?” I begged her, desperate for answers, to understand this disgusting world outside the Ikkuma Pit.

She reached out and held my hand in hers. It was warm and soft, and I felt goose bumps race up my arm, my sadness and anger fading.

“The Beginners are a religion. Their followers can be found all over, which is why they are so powerful.”

“I don't know what that means,” I confessed.

She sighed and let go of my hand, leaning back against a pillow. “The Beginners all believe in a life force. They call that force the Beginning. Everything started somewhere, at the Beginning. One day, they believe, life will end, circling
back to that Beginning. So they give themselves to it, mind, body, and soul, so that the Beginning will keep them safe.”

My finger scratched at the pillow I was sitting on, embarrassed to say I still didn't know what she meant, afraid she'd think I was stupid.

Fiver was less self-conscious. “Sounds like a bunch of Larmy dung.”

“Does it?” she asked him. “Suppose I asked you where Rawley came from, what would you tell me?”

I was taken by surprise. The Mothers weren't supposed to care about Ikkuma. How much did she know about us? How much did all the Belphebans know, about their sons and their lives alone in the Ikkuma Pit?

“His Mother,” said Fiver, without batting an eye.

“And his Mother? Where did she come from?”

Fiver looked to me, but I didn't know the answer to that.

“And the Pit?” Lussit went on. “How did that come to be?”

Fiver began to scowl, but Lussit didn't seem to mind.

“It got there somehow,” she said. “If you asked a Beginner, they'd tell you it was the Beginning that did it.”

“And you?” I asked. “What would you say?”

She smiled warmly. “My own Sisters and I have our faith. I am charged with protecting that faith, guiding it every day. If you asked me, I'd say it was the Essences.”

She sat up, pulling her foot into her lap. “It's silly, though, really. Belphebans, Beginners, Ikkuma, we're all coming from the same basic place.”

“I doubt that,” said Fiver.

But I was interested. “The same place? How?”

She stared at me a moment, obviously deciding whether she wanted to tell me. Then she leaned forward. “I suppose
they don't tell the story of the Sacred Six where you come from?”

Av gave me a sideways glance but I was already leaning towards her, nodding. Blaze had told us about Belphoebe, about Ardigund. “The twins?”

She smiled. “The twin sons of rock and ice, the twin sons of diamond and sand, the twins of water, one boy and one girl.”

“Belphoebe and Ardigund,” I said.

“You do know the story?” she asked.

Fiver nodded. “Sort of. Just a little.” I watched him wriggle in his seat, making himself more comfortable, ready to absorb what Blaze hadn't finished. The storyteller knew a good one when it came his way.

“Could you tell us?” I asked.

She laughed. “Anyone can tell you! It's the oldest story there is. Though I suppose there are different ways of telling it. I only really know the version passed down by our Sisters.” It didn't matter. I just wanted her to tell me something, tell me anything, to help me understand.

This Account of the Sacred Six was first told by Belphoebe to her daughters, and passed down orally through the generations
.

Long ago, when the lands were dark with death and madness, the People who believed in the Essence of all things were fractured, forced apart by the landscape that divided them, fighting over what was truth and what was fiction. To bring balance, peace, and wisdom, the powers of the Essence surged, and from its flesh bore six children: brothers Amid and Azul, born of rock and ice; brothers Keely and Hines, born of diamond and sand; and out of
water and mud came one boy and one girl, the twins Ardigund and Belphoebe
.

The Six Sacred Innocents were brought together by the peoples of the lands. They grew up together as six, a family of divine wisdom, beauty, and strength. Amid and Azul were the masters of mountains, Keely and Hines the shepherds of the earth. Belphoebe connected with the waters, but where she found strength, her brother Ardigund found only weakness. Jealous of Amid, Azul, Keely, and Hines, Ardigund blamed his sister. “Had you been my brother, like Azul to Amid, Hines to Keely,” he often told her, “I would have strength to rival the others.”

When the boys became men, so too did Belphoebe become a woman. Each of the four brothers tried desperately to win the beautiful girl's affection. But for Ardigund, there was no woman, no Sacred Innocent to share his children. Infuriated that no other female had been born for him, he forbade the others from pursuing Belphoebe
.

Unbeknownst to Ardigund, Belphoebe had already given her heart to Amid, one of the twins of rock and ice, and before the new year she found herself with child. When he discovered his sister's secret, Ardigund vowed to take the baby for his own. “Where my sister has made me weak, her son shall make me whole, and restore me to the strength for which I was destined.” Ardigund snuck into Amid's chambers and put a poison into his cup. Weighted with grief, Azul confronted Ardigund, who insisted he played no part in Amid's death. That night, Azul met the same fate as his brother
.

Afraid for Belphoebe's life and the pure Innocent growing in her belly, Keely and Hines whisked her away, hiding in the mountains of Amid and Azul's birth. But Belphoebe knew her brother's heart, knew Ardigund would come for them and kill
her dear friends to have the child for his own. So under cover of darkness, she left the twins of diamond and sand
.

When Ardigund found Keely and Hines, he tortured them, hoping to uncover the whereabouts of his nephew, hoping to find his successor. The twins of sand and diamond died without ever giving up Belphoebe
.

With four other Sacred Innocents dead and one in hiding, Ardigund was free to lead the people in his own design, warping the image of the Essences into a force he named the Beginning. Ardigund appointed a legion of devoted followers he dubbed Gorpoks to help him control the people and placed himself above them as the first of the Ajus, the high ruler. But even with all his power, he still had the desire for more, and continued his search for the child born to his sister
.

Fiver and I sat in awed silence, waiting for Lussit to go on. Her cheeks flushed and she looked down at her hands. I had been so wrapped up in her story that I hadn't noticed she'd been holding Av's hand the whole time. I looked at Av, his throat rising up and down as he swallowed hard, his entire body tense. I wasn't sure he'd heard anything she'd been saying, too uncomfortable with his hand in hers.

“Well?” asked Fiver. “Did Ardigund find her?”

Lussit didn't answer.

“He didn't,” I said. Her big dark eyes flashed to me. “Because that's why you're all here,” I told her. “You're her descendants.”

She nodded.

“What about the baby?” asked Fiver.

Lussit let go of Av's hand and fiddled with the scarf around her head. “Of course, that's just how we tell it. If
you asked a Beginner, I'm sure they'd tell you something else altogether.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“The way they tell it, Ardigund is a hero.”

I sat up, disgusted. “How can that be?”

“According to
them
, Amid kidnapped Belphoebe and she did not love him. According to
them
, Ardigund was only trying to save his poor sister.”

“So…” Fiver looked to me, his brow knotted. “How do you know whose telling is the right one?”

“We can't know,” she said, “not without proof.”

“Proof of what?” he asked.

“Who Ardigund was. Was he a jealous killer? Or a dutiful brother?”

After meeting Krepin, I knew whose version I believed.

And now Krepin was in control.

“And Krepin?” I asked. “What does he want?”

“What the Aju before him wanted,” she sighed, “and the Aju before him, on and on and on, right back to Aju Ardigund himself: more followers, more power, more control. The Ajus before him always hated anyone who didn't follow them, but Krepin took that hate beyond anything before. He wages war on the ‘blasphemers,' people who don't believe in the Beginning, to try to scare them, enslave them into following him. People have a choice: join the Beginners or die.”

Without thinking, I put my head in my hands and drowned in the flood of thoughts and fears that were taking solid shape in my mind. My poor Cubby. All alone with Krepin. All alone with the leader of the Beginners. And what about us? Lussit knew why we were here. She'd never let us get away with killing Serin, who'd be watching us at
all times anyway. I didn't know which path to take. It was all coming to a head, and it was all impossible. I decided then that the only option left was to storm the Beginners' High Temple on my own and break Cubby out, or die trying.

I felt that heavenly touch wrap around my wrist, and she said, “You're very brave, Urgle.”

I moved my hands from my face and saw her smiling that gentle smile.

“You're all very, very brave…. That's why I'm going to help you.”

“What?” My brain almost shut down.

“Why would you do that?” asked Fiver, just as confused.

She grabbed Av's head gently in her hands and kissed his cheek. “Because,” she said, smiling, “Av is my Brother.”

Before our brains had a moment to remember to breathe and Lussit could offer us a bit more information about how she had come to this conclusion, we were interrupted by the woman in white.

“Holiness,” she said, cutting through the silent stranglehold Lussit's words held on us. “Serin would like a word.”

Behind the woman in white stood Serin and several other women: the silver-haired woman from the ambush, and a couple of other older ones. Lussit sighed and then produced that gentle smile that seemed to be made of pure love. She nodded and Serin stepped forward.

“On you all my happiness, Sacred Innocent.”

“Mine for you,” said Lussit.

Av was staring at the ground, his eyes wild and his nostrils flaring as he forced himself to take deep breaths. His jaw was tight and he didn't blink.

He was more than just surprised.

He believed her.

“Many sisters have asked to meet with our guests.”

I looked to the older women behind Serin, their faces
drenched in hope and wearing similar smiles to Lussit's, the love smile. Their eyes wandered from me to Av to Fiver, their hands held over their hearts. They looked so warm and kind, but their smiles were slightly different from Lussit's. The smiles on these women's faces were special, not the everyday smile they gave all the time, but reserved especially for us. You could tell they didn't always smile like this. But Lussit, it was like she knew no other way.

“Holiness,” Serin said, “I have collected the Potentials and they have invited myself and the Ikkuma boys to share the evening meal.”

Lussit bit her lip and looked to Av, but he was still just staring, just breathing—well, trying to, anyway. Her eyes moved to me, but I was no help. I felt myself getting warm, my forehead starting to sweat. The sound of
Potentials
made me nervous.

“You must go with them,” she said quietly out the side of her mouth. “I am not in charge, Serin is, so there's nothing I can do to stop this from happening.”

“Potentials for what?” Fiver whispered.

“Your Mothers.”

My heart began to race and I felt myself getting dizzy. I couldn't face that woman, never. Whoever she was, I wanted her to remain faceless, an evil shadow of the past that I was lucky to escape. She was an unfeeling monster. The kindness and warmth on these women's faces were emotions my Mother would not be capable of conveying. I couldn't face her. I wouldn't face her.

I began to back away, my feet tripping over themselves, and Fiver grabbed me before I could fall backwards.

“We have to, Urgs,” Fiver whispered to me. “That's why they think we're here.”

He was right but I didn't want him to be.

I heard a sharp intake of breath, and saw Av's eyes come up from the floor as he composed himself. If Av could get himself together after what Lussit had dropped on him, then I could too. I was here for Cubby. I had to do it for him.

Lussit held out her arms to her sisters. “What a generous and loving offer. I release them to your tender care.” She turned to the three of us, and said in a grand, ceremonious voice for everyone to hear: “I will pray you find the answers that you seek. May love fill your hearts.” With that, she bowed to us and gestured to Serin and the “Potentials.”

I knew this was what I had to do, but as I looked at their slightly wrinkled, teary eyes, their hopeful smiles, my feet refused to move. Av nudged me forward and I couldn't help but resist it. I guessed Av just wanted to go through the motions and not think about his mother. He didn't even ask Lussit to tell him who it was. She was his sister, after all; she could have told him and he wouldn't have had to go through any of this. That was when Fiver decided to intervene and he smacked me on the head. I snapped out of it and fell in line, following Av and Fiver to the group of waiting women.