The Daughter Of Lava (#3 Reclaimed Souls Series) (2 page)

I stop talking, not knowing what else to say, not without exposing more of myself in the process, and I really don’t want to do that. I want to fill the silence. It bothers me right now, like I’ve left something hanging out there that needs to be resolved. I care, and I don’t know why I care. I shouldn’t care. All I should be concerned about is leaving this balcony, grabbing my gear, and leaving the Palace Skyscraper.

I look again to the Grandfather, to see his reaction, but his balcony is empty. The dark figures on the roofs have also vanished.

I take a step back before I hear it.

It starts slowly, like a hum of a song that you can’t remember the words to just yet, and then builds up into a full-on chant. It takes several seconds before I realize that they are saying my name over and over.

“Rah-da! Rah-da! Rah-da!”

It’s inspiring. It’s humbling. It’s hypnotic. It churns my stomach.
 

I do not deserve their admiration.
 

Finally, I wave and exit the balcony. My mind whirls and spins and I have a feeling I’ll be sick before I can reach the clothing and boots I stashed on the sixth floor. I stalk past Cat Evinas. She opens her mouth to say something, but she sees my face and immediately shuts up.

She doesn’t follow me and for that, I’m grateful. I have no idea of where Roland is hiding.
 

My chanting name follows me like an echo as I walk deeper into the Palace Skyscraper. It sounds like a salvation to them. Sadly, I’m confident that I’ll be the reason that they will all end up dead.

Two

B
ILE
BITES
THE
BACK
of my throat. I can’t swallow it away. In fact, doing so makes it feel worse. Sweat pops on my forehead as I step off the lift at the sixth floor mark, round the corner just as the warm wood paneling comes to view, crouch over, and vomit up the contents of my stomach.

I’m not sure what I ate last. I think it was some chicken and then that red anti-inflammatory, antibiotic juice Cat made me drink just before she removed the blueblood spikes from my leg.

I lean against the wood walls, the panels cool against my back. Even though the hallway is dark, my head pounds, my eyes hurt, my cheek throbs where White Rose hit me with one of her climbing gears, and my shoulder pulsates where her dagger dug a chunk of flesh out of me. I feel the wound, remembering how Roland and his medical droid patched me up.

I’m going to feel worse before I feel better. Much worse.

I wipe the sweat from my brow, stand up, move to the armoire that holds my getaway clothing, and quickly change into them. I take the stupid pearls out of my hair; they pop out and against the wall like tiny, harmless bullets. Sighing, I give up when I can only find half of them on the floor—I really don’t want to leave evidence, but I don’t have the luxury of time—and pull my rebellious mane into a tight knot at the back of my head.

I pocket the loose pearls. I’ll be able to use them as currency if I need to. Hopefully, though, I’ll be able to take care of Lord Jaucey and return in a few hours. Once back, I will ask Roland to discuss his plans.

Before I close the armoire’s door, I retrieve the coral lipstick and my communicator tablet from my purse and toss the golden fabriskin robe inside the wooden cubbyhole. It will buy me a little bit more time since Roland or Cat won’t find it right away—unless they are watching me, which would not surprise me—allowing me to leave the Palace Skyscraper before they notice.

I have to stop Lord Jaucey before he can wage a war against Roland or his people… er,
my
people.

Dear Goddess, it’s a mess. No one is
my people
. No more than the Palace Skyscraper is actually
my home
. It’s all temporary.
 

It’s all insane.

Suddenly, to my left, a shadow moves and then, before I can react, a nautical stench hits me: blackwater and dead fish. The figure is too short to be Roland or Cat, and there’s only one person who would smell that way.

Alben Underwood.

“Figure ya might be needin’ dis wherever ya be headin’ to,” he says in a hushed tone, almost conspiratorial like, thrusting a small object in my direction.

I almost reject it, thinking it to be a cuttlefish—why else would he smell like he did?—but instead, the small object lands lightly in my hands, its weight satisfying against my palms.

A dagger.
 

The leather sheath is still warm and slightly damp. Mr. Underwood must have just finished making it. It feels like a lifetime ago that I asked him to craft me a weapon. In reality, it was only just this morning.

Even in the darkened hallway, I know the weapon is perfect.

I clasp the leather and pull the dagger out. The contoured, braided handle is faultless in my grip. Slim and grooved where it needs to be, smooth at the base, and then pebbled and slightly flared where the handle joined the blade. It’s an unassuming blade. Dull, matted and pewter in color, its lack of shine and sheen might make it seem like an inferior blade, but, in fact, I prefer my weapons more practical than ornamental.

A sightless, silent weapon is a deadly weapon.

“Thank you, Mr. Underwood,” I say just as quietly, re-sheathing the dagger, sliding it under the band of my trousers at my hip. “You honor me. I won’t forget that. I’m not going to ask you to
not
say anything about meeting me right now. But perhaps it’s best if you don’t say anything at all unless you’re specifically asked.”

He huffs at me. “Like I give a rat’s ass. Yer business be yer own, mizzy.”

His statement brings a smile to my lips.

So much for my new royal status.
Alben Underwood couldn’t have cared less, and for that, I think I like him more.

He retreats back in the same direction he came from, to the dark corner at the end of the hallway, and slips into a doorway that leads down into the subbasement floors. I take notice that, as he walked away from me, he did so with a limp that wasn’t there earlier today.

 
Just like me, Mr. Underwood has his own secrets. I’d follow him if I thought that the spiral staircase led me outside. Instead, I retrace the path that will lead me into the back courtyard. The Palace Skyscraper is just too big, too busy, and too confusing to explore a different route. I know I’m on the right path, though, when I find the regal staircase that leads to the room full of couches.

To the left, white light pours under the door that leads to the courtyard, but I halt before turning the knob.

If I do this, I can’t turn back. If I wanted to, I could turn around, find Roland, and let him figure everything out. I might order Cat to never let me leave the Palace. Block every door to me.

Or
, I tell myself,
you can run, and keep running until you forget what you’re running from. You have the skills to survive on your own.

I close my eyes and make a small prayer. My soul answers back.

Sometimes making the right choice is the hardest.

I slip out the door, into the courtyard, and out through the gate that separates Roland from the continent. As I disappear into the celebrating crowd, I head east toward the lower mountains.

Three

T
HE
SKY
NOW
RESEMBLES
midnight, even though it’s only ten in the evening, but it’s so gorgeous, I’m almost tempted to stop my journey and stare up above me.
 

Alben Underwood’s most recent hover-flare bursts into a black velvety backdrop with a million stars slowly orbiting three dense, bright moons. Streaks of white lights resemble shooting stars.

I marvel at the brilliance of it all. Roland stopped at nothing to make tonight special for me and for the citizens. And here I am, outside the Palace Skyscraper, fleeing like thief, without any guarantees of a return. Or success.

I cross over Saints Road, onto Skyscraper City Main and head East toward the lower side of the mountains. Royal Alcove. Jaucey lives there, with the rest of the royal elders.

I weave in and out of a few boisterous crowds. Yelling, drinking, and fighting. Mostly fighting. It’s more of a jousting-style game to get your opponent flat on the ground using everything short of an actual weapon. Large spectator circles have formed and as I pass around one, I’m almost yanked inside it to fight.

“Yer turn, honey,” a heavyset man drawls, his hand wrapping about my bicep. “Need a woman in this round.”
 

His grip isn’t strong, he’s looking everywhere but
at
me, and he wobbles. I assume he’s drunk, but he’s heavy and could easily pull my shoulder out of alignment, not to mention it’s the same side as my injured shoulder, so I don’t struggle.

However, the heavy-set man is too slow: the fight started without his help. Two women run at each other, grunting, punching, tripping the feet of the other.

“Maybe next time, pal,” I tell him, pointing with my other hand at the fighters. His fingers loosen.

Finally, he looks at my face and something like shock registers in his eyes. “It’s you,” he says.

He breathes in and out in quick succession, like maybe he’s hyperventilating. Right now, all eyes are on the fighting women—who are tearing the clothes off each other—but that might not last long.

“I think you should sit down. You don’t look so good,” I say and look around, unsuccessfully, for a quiet spot.

“But yer
you
,” he moans. How does one answer
that
? I have the feeling that if we continue down this conversation, he’ll start crying. “And I touched you. Don’t kill me.” His voice is a combination of moaning and shrieking.

I smack his grimy face and instantly, he sobers.
 

“Get yourself together, man. Follow me,” I order, and he does. I go around a burning trash can and instruct him to sit on the curb. I crouch down with him. “What’s your name?”

“Tomoko.”

“Okay, Tomoko, why in the name of the Goddess would I kill you?”

“The barbarian king woulda kilt me,” he says in a low, mournful voice.

I nod, understanding him to mean that Roland’s father probably killed some of his relatives for something as minor as touching him or touching something that belonged to the king.

Several young boys and girls run at us, circle the burning trash can, and race back up the sidewalk. I wait until they are gone before I answer him. “Do I look like the barbarian king?”

“Oh no!” he whispers with upmost sincerity. “Yer an angel, even with that gash on yer face. I guess even without yer brother, yer still gettin’ into scraps.”

I feel the beginnings of a smile. At least one person paid attention to what I said earlier.
 

“The barbarian king is gone and you don’t need to be afraid anymore. Come morning, everything will be different. You’ll see.”
 

I stand and he looks up at me with such faith that I’m blown away. I pat his shoulder, tell him goodbye, and move away from him and the fighting circle just as one of the women wins. For a brief moment, I hear her victory shouts above all other noises.

For a while, I’m lost in my own thoughts.

My boots crunch against broken cobblestone and gravel when I reach the outskirts of the city. The further east I go, the less populated the streets are, but torches line the streets in each direction I look, an indication that Roland thought that maybe more citizens would have been in this part of the city.

Or maybe
, I think,
he knew you would come this way and planned accordingly.

For my part, I’m grateful that I’m able to see my immediate surroundings. I’m not too worried about my own safety. I’ve already been nearly killed today. I figure the chances of it happening twice in one day are rather slim.

***

The torches are long gone, cool air falls in, shadows follow me, and the sky continues to bewitch me.
 

I look up almost every chance I get to watch the stars circulate and twinkle. It reminds me of the times Pareu and I would gaze up at the far-off stars and point out patterns or how my mother, in hand-language, would recite stories of the Goddess. It’s not a sad memory. I feel like I’m working toward making my family proud and now, since I know both of my parents are still alive, I’m doing something about what’s wrong and trying to make it right.

As I pass an alley, a particular hushed conversation interrupts my silent reflections. I don’t know why it alerted me—I’ve passed multiple alleyways that hid amorous couples—but this one, something about these voices sound urgent.

I press myself against a darkened wall to listen just as the shadow following me—one of the hooded assassins from the rooftop?—settles on the other side.

“This better be important, Elwyn.” The woman’s voice in the alleyway is deep, gritty, and unforgiving. And very authoritative. Whoever she is, she isn’t one to be screwed with. “What’s the message?”
 

When Elwyn doesn’t answer, I hear a thud against the wall and a whoosh of air escaping someone’s lungs.
 

Then a metal-on-metal sheering
ting
of a knife or dagger being pulled echoes in the alleyway.
 

A small feminine cry rings out, but it doesn’t sound like she’s truly scared.
 

“Don’t make me ask you again, girl.”

“The plans have been changed, Griselda,” a young voice answers. A child of eleven or twelve.
 

“I’m sure you understand that things like this cannot be changed on a whim, not without the
proper
incentive,” the older woman says.

“I suspected as much,” the girl says with an equal amount of grit before handing over what sounds like a bag of money. “Have your team ready tonight.”

“Tonight?” The question is hissed, like the older woman is caught off guard.

“Yes.”

A pause.

“That’s too soon—” Griselda’s voice is cut off, I hear her dagger fall to the ground, and she makes a series of choking noises.

Is the girl choking the older woman?