The Sun Dwellers (30 page)

Holding my sword with my left hand, I extract a throwing knife from my belt and snap it at the centermost guard, hitting him in the throat. He falls backward, breathing more blood than air until he dies. I still want to get to my gun, but, strapped to my ankle, it’s too far away. Why didn’t I holster it higher up? So stupid.

The other two men close from each side, spinning their swords like batons, clearly well-trained in the art of sword fighting. I fake a swing at one, go for the other, who blocks my attempt and counterattacks with a three-cut combination, which I parry while stepping back to avoid a slash from the other guy.

Feeling a presence behind me, I risk a glance back to see Adele cut down one of the four men she’s fighting. Considering our disadvantage in numbers, we’re doing pretty well. A sliver of hope rises in me, just large enough to delude myself into a vision of victory where dozens of dead guardsmen lie in red piles on the floor; my father shrinks back, cowering in his throne like the coward that he is; me, stabbing him through the chest, my mother’s name on my lips—
Jocelyn Nailin
—as I kill my last remaining parent.

When hope rises, that’s when things tend to fall apart. A hard lesson.

One of my foes gets inside my sword range, slices my arm, which sends icy, searing,
real
pain through my nerves and nearly makes me drop my sword. I manage to switch my grip to my other hand, however, warding off his next stroke. But then I trip on something—no, no, not
something
; Trevor’s dead body—and stumble backward. The guards are on me faster than a starving man on a stale loaf of bread, their sword points under my chin.

Before I die, I have to see her once more. I turn my head and her sword is knocked from her hand, as five—or is it six?—guards surround her. I can’t watch this, can’t watch her die—kill me first, for God’s sake, do it! DO IT! The scream is in my head, but I hear it echo throughout the room as if I really did yell.

Then I realize it’s not an echo; it’s Roc, yelling “Do it!” and “Kill me!” repeatedly. I follow the sound between the legs of the guards who have me at their mercy. Past them, Roc lies in a similar position to me—on his back, weaponless, blades at his throat—and is screaming his head off, his gaze to the side. I trace the line of his gaze to where Tawni is backed up against a pillar, on the verge of death, just like the rest of us. Roc doesn’t want to see her die any more than I do Adele.

I close my eyes, try to picture the good memories of my life: my mother, singing my brother and me a gentle and soothing lullaby before bed; playing tag and hide-and-seek with Roc in the palace gardens, finding him tucked away in the dead center of a thorny rosebush, no clue as to how he got in there; Adele’s face, the first time I saw her, the first time I kissed her.

“Enough!” my father screams from only ten feet away. My eyes flash open. “Enough,” he repeats. “While admirable, your heroics are fruitless. You’re beaten. Accept it. You’ve had your fun and now it’s my turn. Guards! Bind them!”

What?
He’s not going to kill us, just tie us up? At first the airy bubble of elation swells up in my stomach—my friends not dead; Adele not dead—but then I realize: he wants to destroy our minds before destroying our bodies. Psychological warfare: my father’s favorite. The bubble pops and I’m left feeling sick.

Strong arms lift me, roughly twist my arms behind me, shackle my hands together. Around me, my friends are getting similar treatment.

“Relieve them of their weapons,” my father orders. A guard on each leg, they start low, removing the knife lashed to my calf, the handgun from my ankle holster, the series of various-sized knives from my belt, the bow and arrows from my back. They already have my sword. I glance over at Adele, who’s not making it easy on her guards, squirming and insulting them as they carefully search her. Grinning, one of them grabs her breast.

“Leave her alone!” I shout, which is unnecessary, because Adele kicks the guard in the groin, dropping him to his knees, and then, before the other guards can step in, slams her heel into his face, rocking him back.

“My nose!” he screams, blood gushing between his fingers. “She broke my freakin’ nose!”

A rush of pride courses through me. That’s my girlfriend.

Adele

“Bravo,” President Nailin says, clapping slowly. “Son, you’ve picked a real firecracker. Too bad she’s a filthy moon dweller.”

Tristan turns away from me to face his father, says, “You wouldn’t know filth if your face was covered in mud.”

“What did I say about your temper?” the President says.

The guards work on tying my feet together, determined not to let me break anymore noses. Next time I’ll use my head, I think. When I glance over at Roc and Tawni, Roc’s already bound and weaponless, feet and hands clapped together with thick rope. The guard who’s searching Tawni is as big a pervert as the one I had, his hands still lingering mid-thigh, caressing behind her legs and moving up…

“Knock it off, horn dog,” one of the other guards hisses. “She was throwing those cannonballs, she doesn’t have any weapons.”

The perv guard stands up, smirking, and gives Tawni a quick final pat down, being sure to hit only her curves. I want nothing more than to run to her, kick the sick smile off his face, but my feet are tied now, and I’d only serve to fall on my own face if I tried. Tawni just takes it, her eyes closed, her face expressionless. I hope she’s found a happy place to go, somewhere far, far away from here.

Tristan’s still trading terse remarks with his father. “You’re killing innocent people,” Tristan says, trying to reason with the unreasonable. Perhaps somewhere inside he still hopes his father can be rehabilitated.

“I had no choice. They were going to rebel. You know as well as I do that the
New City
depends on the natural resources the Lesser Realms provide.”

“The
Lower
Realms, Father. Not lesser.”

“You’re a fool, Tristan. You’ve given up everything for a girl, and a moon dweller, no less. You could have ruled the world!”

“At what cost? The blood of so many is on your hands. You killed Mom? What the hell is wrong with you?” Until this point there’s only anger in Tristan’s tone, but upon mention of his mother, a hint of profound sadness creeps in.

The President smiles, his teeth bright white under the glare of the spotlight. “You don’t know what she did, Son. When you hear it, you’ll hate her. You’ll know that she had to die.”

“I’ll never think that,” Tristan says. “Anything she did, she did for the right reasons.”

“Even if she did it to you?” his father says, his evil smile returning.

Tristan

I’m scared of what my father will tell me about my mom. In my memory, she’s perfect, and that’s how I want to keep her. Anything he says to tarnish her reputation will only make me hate him more.

As we shuffle down the long corridor, our tied-up legs only able to take miniature steps, I wonder what she could have possibly done
to me
that would make me angry at her. All she ever did was love me, care for me, try to give me a good life, provide a buffer from my father. Regardless of what my father says, I vow to forgive her for it, if forgiveness is even necessary.

My thoughts turn to Adele, just a step behind me. These are my last moments with her, for I know my father will kill her or me, or both of us. He’ll do it in front of each other, forcing us to watch, destroying one of our minds while he destroys the other’s body. But I’ll not go down without a fight. They’ll have to hold me down with four men, one for each of my limbs, or I’ll break through, rip my bonds to shreds, kill everyone in my path. That’s what I’m feeling now.

The corridor ends and I realize where we’re going: the council room. Although my father holds most of his one on one and smaller meetings in the throne room, he conducts larger meetings with his advisors and vice presidents in the council room.

We enter the room, which is large enough to hold a couple of hundred people on lofted risers, which look down upon a square flat area in the center. Typically my father would walk around in the middle, waving his arms and shouting speeches about the rights of the sun dwellers and new taxes he’s planning on imposing. The sun dweller vice presidents would cheer and clap and shout their agreement with his every idea. Now the room is empty and silent, save for us and the sound of our footfalls on the wooden steps descending to the center, which I’ve always called the pit.

Approaching the pit, my father veers off to the right, takes a seat in the first row. I start to follow, but the guard behind me nudges to continue down. I pause but then obey, wondering what my father has in store for us. Whatever it is, it will be messed up, something only a madman would derive as punishment for disobedience.

When I reach the pit, I look back and up, expecting the rest of my friends to have been ushered down, too, looking forward to one last chance to get close to Adele, to perhaps tell her how I truly feel before it’s all over.

I frown when I see how things have been arranged.

My father, still sitting in the first row, is flanked by a guard on each side, followed by Adele and Tawni on opposite sides. Another guard caps things off on each end. The next two rows behind them are filled with more guards. And coming down the steps to meet me in the pit: Roc, his face whiter than I’ve ever seen it, clutching two swords awkwardly with his bound hands.

It doesn’t take a mining engineer to figure out what the plan is.

We have to fight each other. Not like our fun and spirited training fights, but a real fight. And knowing my father it will be to the death.

Adele

I can’t watch this. It’s too much. If my hands weren’t tied behind the chair, my feet clamped tightly together, I’d jump up, give my own life in an attempt to save them. I close my eyes when the President’s voice cuts the air beside me.

“Now for tonight’s entertainment,” he says, almost gleefully. “Son of the President against servant. Friend against friend. Traitor against traitor. However you chop it up, this has real potential for the dramatic.”

“I think you mean son of the President against son of the President. Did you forget that Roc is your son, too? No, I won’t do it,” Tristan says from below. I open my eyes. Based on the fierceness of his eyes, I know his words are a promise.

“We’ll see about that, you stupid boy,” the President says. “But first, I promised you a story, did I not?”

He stands, a big man with a small mind, ready to deliver the psychological knockout blow before the real fight even begins.

“Your mother…” he says, starting slowly. He pauses, looks at Tristan and then directly at me, his eyes lingering on mine. (It creeps me out if I’m being totally honest.) “…was a bad woman.”

“Shut your mouth!” Tristan growls from below. “She’s dead at your hands, can’t you let her rest in peace?”

The President smiles. “I could…but I won’t. Now, another outburst like that from you, and I’ll slit your little girlfriend’s throat.” The cold edge of a steel knife slides along my throat, as one of the guards demonstrates the truth of his threat.

Tristan’s face reddens, but he closes his mouth.

“As I was saying, Jocelyn Nailin, my wife—God rest her soul—was a bad woman.” He pauses, stares at his son as if daring him to refute his remark, continues. “Do you remember the gift I gave you for your fifteenth birthday, Tristan? The trip we took? Don’t say it out loud, for not all in this room are privy to our little secret, although I suspect you’ve already told your friends.”

Tristan only nods.
The earth dwellers
. He’s talking about when he took the whole family to the
New City
.

“A worthy gift, if I do say so myself,” Nailin says. “Well, your mother—ah, your mother always was a feisty one—she didn’t appreciate me keeping things from the people. As you know, she threw a temper tantrum and I had to put her in her place.”

“You abused her,” Tristan says through a clamped jaw.

“Abused, punished, call it what you want, but she deserved it. She was meddling in things she didn’t understand. Anyway, I thought she had gotten the message to butt out, but as it turns out, her meddling was only just beginning.”

He sighs, looks at me again. “You see, she started visiting with one of my top scientists, a genius, a man who always seems to deliver when I need him to create something for me.” His eyes are the same color as Tristan’s, I realize suddenly, but they look so different, so much darker and full of hate, whereas Tristan’s seem to invite me in, almost sparkling with goodness. Strange how two identical sets of eyes can give off such opposite vibes.

He continues: “Your mother, the weasel”—he raises a finger as if to warn Tristan from refuting his insult—“went to
my
scientist, and said
I
needed him to build something for
me
. None of this was true, of course, but he believed her, because why wouldn’t he? What wife goes behind her husband’s back and lies to his employee?”

Returning his gaze to Tristan, who is standing as still as a statue, his muscles noticeably tensed, he says, “My scientist built what she wanted: a set of microchips, that, when attached to the spinal cord, could communicate with each other and with the brain. What could she want with such devices? It took me a long time to figure it out. But I’m getting ahead of myself. After she got the chips, she disappeared. Do you remember it, son? The day she left us? I thought it was just her throwing another tantrum, not carrying out a treasonous plan against me.