“It’s worth looking into swamp witch magic,” I agreed, then looked at Fiona. “But yeah, it is kind of weird that Zane, the freaking daemon that abducted you in the first place, stopped by to… do what, exactly, say hello?”
“I honestly don’t know,” Fiona said. “He seems to have a peculiar interest in me. But he didn’t mean any harm, even though he kept using those damned yellow powders on me to knock me out whenever I started asking questions. And he kept mentioning that we’re not ready for what comes next… though I could not find out what that means, exactly.”
“You know,” Heron chimed in, “while I do find it alarming that a daemon seems to have the hots for you, I think we could use that in our favor.”
Fiona gasped, looking downright alarmed.
“Are you freaking kidding me?” She scoffed. “What the hell do you want me to do? Cozy up to the daemon?”
“What? The guy’s obviously interested!” Heron defended his reasoning. “Who knows what kind of influence you could have on him? He could tell you more, eventually, about his people, about their objectives, and about that ominous ‘what comes next’ part.”
A couple of moments went by as we all mulled over Heron’s suggestion. The more I thought about it, the less bad an idea it seemed. If Zane was interested in Fiona, and sought to do her no harm, she could definitely try to befriend him. Not only could she get information from him, but maybe she could even persuade him to exert some kind of influence on his people—though that did seem like a stretch for a creature belonging to a nation that thrived on killing innocents and eating their souls.
“Although I’m reluctant,” Fiona surrendered, “I might as well take one for the team here.”
“Well, that’s a double entendre I never thought I’d hear you say,” Heron chuckled. Avril immediately slapped him on the shoulder. He rolled his eyes, trying to keep a straight face before a blushing Fiona. “I was kidding, of course. But yes, you could explore this further and see what you could get out of him, as far as the daemons go.”
“I must say,” Patrik added with a shrug, “I do agree. He may be the enemy, but he did give you back to us, and he even came here to see you. It’s not often that such a thing happens. It’s an interesting anomaly, one you should certainly explore.”
“I get it.” Fiona sighed. “I’ll try a different, friendlier approach the next time I see him. I get the feeling he’ll come around again.”
“Okay, now that that’s out of the way,” Avril said, nodding at Heron, “it’s our turn. We saw Hera and Cynara yesterday. We had a brief conversation about the Maras and the Imen, and we can now confirm that there is definitely something weird going on here. Like you said, Scarlett, chances are that more than a handful of Imen have been mind-bent—and for more than just emotional distress, like the Lords claimed. We know the sisters were tampered with, for example, because their memories are faulty, and yet they have knowledge that the Mara people know nothing about. Basically, the Imen are keeping secret archives of their culture, their legends and history. But since the Maras don’t know that such archives exist, they have not scraped that knowledge from the Imen’s heads.”
“The Maras are preventing the Imen from telling us certain things about their lives here,” Heron added, “but the Imen’s lore seems to have escaped their scrutiny. The sisters directed us to Lemuel, an old Iman who keeps an archive in the slums of level one. We started going through it yesterday, but we’ll dig deeper today. We couldn’t find anything about the asteroid belt, other than some vague superstitions. Nothing of use, really. But I think our main takeaway is that the mind-bending is far more serious than we originally thought.”
“My only question is, where does our diplomacy end?” I asked, looking at Patrik, our senior officer in charge. “Where do we draw the line with what the Maras should and shouldn’t do to their people?”
“I’m not sure yet,” Patrik replied. “But we obviously can’t trust them. To be specific, we cannot trust the Maras, since they are more manipulative than we thought, and we cannot trust the Imen, since they are the ones who are being manipulated. I don’t know how all this relates to the daemons at this point; it could be just an Imen’s rights issue, which would make it our business as GASP. But we have to prioritize. The city is under siege from daemons. I say one problem at a time, but stay vigilant nonetheless.”
We all nodded, as it was something that we could all agree with. Trust no one. That became our mantra. We only had ourselves to rely on, and maybe Caspian—he came across as different, though still full of secrets.
“Okay, then. I think it’s time we all split up, go do our thing, then meet back here in the evening,” I concluded, then chugged the rest of my blood.
“Keep your eyes and ears open as you go through the city today,” Patrik said as he opened the door. “My traps didn’t go off, but given everything else that hasn’t worked in terms of magic against the daemons, I suggest we all be more thorough and see if anyone was taken last night. Avril and Heron, you keep digging through Lemuel’s archives, and see whatever else you can find out about the daemons, the Maras, and their relationship to the Imen. Fiona, you look for Arrah, and hopefully she’ll shed more light on what is going on in this city. We’ll see you later.”
We went our separate ways. Patrik and I headed up to the Spring Fair, two levels up, which was a more common ground for both Imen and Maras in the city. We didn’t say much to each other, and I could feel the tension rising between us with every second that went by. My heart thudded as I tried to think of something to say, while my lips tingled with the need to feel his again.
We had a long day ahead of us—correction: I had a long day ahead of me, as I had to stay close to a Druid who had snuck into my soul, and who I couldn’t get out of my head. It was difficult to navigate all this already, given the madness and secrets suffocating this world; having to deal with my feelings for Patrik on top of that made it even more daunting.
Fiona
(Daughter of Benedict & Yelena)
I kept my hood and mask on as I climbed the stairs to the upper level of South Bend Inn, where the Imen servants of the Mara Lords were being hosted until the mansions were rebuilt. The streets buzzed with people, out and about, but there was an overall air of concern and fear lingering wherever I looked.
The inn’s ground floor was relatively busy, as the breakfast room was open for the Imen. The smell of pastries and hot coffee tickled my nose. I made my way to the first floor and up to Arrah’s room. I knocked on the door, but there was no answer.
I listened for a while, but no sound came from the other side of the door. After a couple more knocks, an Iman from the room next to Arrah’s popped his head out, briefly measuring me from head to toe with a curious expression.
“Are you looking for Arrah?” he asked, his voice low, his gaze nervously darting around, as if he didn’t want anyone to hear him.
“Yes.” I nodded. “Have you seen her?”
He shook his head, then inched closer to whisper.
“Nobody knows where she went,” he breathed, “and I don’t know when she’s coming back, either. But I saw her last night, at around eight, during dinner downstairs. She filled her plate with a lot of food, much more than she would normally eat. She’s a tiny little thing compared to the rest of us, so I found it weird that she was packing so much food, which she took upstairs to her room. She didn’t even sit down to eat with us.”
I figured she had been bringing food upstairs for her brother, Demios, who couldn’t be seen anywhere in public, given that I had just broken him out of jail for her.
“Did she say anything? Did she seem… different?” I asked.
“She did seem on edge, maybe a little impatient while she was lining up for the bread.” He scratched his head, narrowing his eyes as he remembered. “We only said hello to each other, and I haven’t seen her since. Even this morning at breakfast, no one had seen her.”
“Thank you,” I said,
then went back downstairs and outside.
I looked around, carefully analyzing the expression of every Iman coming in or out of the inn. They all looked wary and tired, but none looked at me in a fearful way. If anything, I caught glimpses of hope, as if I was one of the few creatures they wanted to trust.
I, on the other hand, was beginning to feel a little angry and downright disappointed. It seemed as though Arrah had simply disappeared, without a trace, without telling anyone where she’d gone. Most importantly, although I had reunited her with her brother, she’d left without keeping her promise. I could potentially ask Avril to help track her down, but there was still a part of me that was hoping Arrah would come back to tell me more about what she had seen and heard of the Maras, particularly where their treatment of the Imen was concerned.
Avril and Heron were busy with their research for the next few hours, at least, so I figured my time could be put to better use if I checked in on the first level. If Arrah had indeed decided to just disappear, rather than risk her life and her brother’s by helping GASP, there wasn’t much I could do about it at this point.
The top level of Azure Heights was riddled with construction workers and cleaners, as the reconstruction of the Five Lords’ mansions was underway. Piles of rubble and charred wood were being loaded onto large carts, and the Imen cleared the last remnants of the Lords’ former residences away, while the construction workers unloaded massive white marble bricks and mounted them over the foundations. With every hour that went by, another foot of wall was built, another sliver of the horrific attack removed and replaced with pristine white stone.
The Lords themselves were moving around, discussing plans with architects and making sure that their preferences and requests were taken into account as the Imen went on building. Vincent was in charge of overseeing the entire reconstruction process, going over plans with the foreman. Emilian, Farrah, and Rowan were discussing city business, from what I could hear—security measures, the Spring Fair, and the general state of the public after the explosions.
Rewa was really coming into her own as Lady of Azure Heights. Two Imen maids followed her around as she circled all five properties and passed out orders to various workers, telling them to look out for a certain gap, or clean up some corner, or do a better job polishing the marble bricks before laying them into walls.
I went up to Vincent and gave them a polite smile as I said hello. He glanced up from his plans and beamed at me, his pale green eyes twinkling.
“Fiona! What a pleasure to see you this morning,” he said, then nodded at the foreman to move away and give us some privacy. He moved closer, enough for me to feel slightly uncomfortable, but I was unwilling to show it. Given everything that we had learned over the past day alone, I couldn’t have him or anyone else thinking that they were suspected of further wrongdoings.
“I see you are hard at work here.” I pointed at the mansions, all of which had ground-floor walls fully erected, as stairs were being built.
“Yes, well, since the incident two nights ago, my mother decided that I could be given a more active role in rebuilding our homes. She trusts my good taste and architectural instinct.” He smiled, pride oozing from his voice.
“Yeah, and I see Rewa is passing out her fair share of orders as well,” I replied, watching her as she disappeared behind one of the mansions, along with her maids. Vincent chuckled slightly, then ran a hand through his ginger hair.
“There’s only one thing she can do better than any of us—that is, give orders,” he said. Sadness darkened his features. “It’s also the only thing she can do since her father died. I guess it’s her way of coping with the loss of him.”
“She strikes me as a very strong young Mara.” I sighed. “I imagine she will pull through just fine, and that she will be more than capable of taking his place at the helm of the city, along with your mother and the other Lords.”
“I’m glad we agree on that.” Vincent smiled softly. “I really enjoyed our dinner last night, by the way, and completely unrelated… I was hoping we could do it again sometime soon.”
He changed the subject so quickly that it took me a minute or so to catch up, during which time he simply looked at me, almost adoringly. An uneasy feeling crept up my throat. I gave him a weak smile and thought of good excuses to give him.
Fortunately, Emilian spared me the trouble.
“Fiona! Good to see you! How is everything? Have you heard from Miss Hellswan and the rest of her team, by any chance? Have they come back yet?” he asked as he walked up to us.
“Lord Obara, good to see you too,” I said, thankful that he had cut in. “I will have more information for you by nightfall when the team comes back, provided that we don’t have to put together a search party…”
“I must say, I’m very curious as to what they will discover down there,” Emilian muttered, scratching his beard. “Before you and your marvelous people got here, we didn’t even know what our worst nightmare looked like. So, for that alone, I must thank you once more, on behalf of all of us. I know we’re not easy people to deal with, but rest assured we only mean well, even when we seem difficult.”
“Thank you, Lord Obara,” I replied with a courteous nod. “I stand by our promise to get to the bottom of this, and to find a way to keep your people safe from the daemons. I’m hoping that Harper and the others come back with valuable information. Obviously, the more we know about the enemy, the easier it will be to crush them.”
I glanced around for a couple of seconds, noticing the flat stares that Farrah and Rowan were giving me—virtually unreadable. Vincent, on the other hand, was all soft and smiling at me. Zane’s warning from the previous night came back to haunt me, adding more turbulence to my stomach. I couldn’t help but take his words into account as I looked at Vincent, and got the distinctive feeling that not all was what it seemed, not even with him.
“I haven’t heard of any abductions last night,” Emilian said. “Does that mean that the protection spell worked?”
“Unfortunately, no.” I sighed. “The spell doesn’t work, but we cannot identify the reason. The best we can do is stay vigilant. Patrik added some traps on the lower levels, and he will know if they’re triggered. In the meantime, we’ve asked the Correction Officers to keep a lookout, particularly on the second and third levels of the city.”
Emilian didn’t seem happy with the notion of daemons still able to simply stroll through the city, but it was the best we could do given the circumstances. He was, by far, the hardest to read, especially considering the Maras’ ability to deceive. He came across as the typical all-around good guy, with plenty of wisdom and kindness to pass around, and yet, given what we had learned about mind-bending, I had to admit that not even Emilian could be fully trusted.
It made me feel weird, standing there, surrounded by all these Maras with seemingly good intentions. I knew for a fact that they had systematically wiped the memories of the Imen living in the city. No matter the angle from which I approached this, it did not look good for them.
I couldn’t even understand why they were doing it. What were they hiding? What was it that the Imen could not be trusted with, in terms of knowledge about the Exiled Maras? The more time I spent in their presence, the weirder it felt, as if secrets were pushing through the thin and iridescent membrane of reality—their reality, to be specific.
As if, any moment now, it would all split open, and all the answers—especially the unpleasant ones—would come pouring out. My only hope was that the truth would come out sooner rather than later, mainly because I had no intention of spending the rest of my life on this wretched planet.
Avril
(Daughter of Lucas & Marion)
Heron and I went back to Lemuel’s studio, deep in the slums of level one. We skillfully broke in, without anyone seeing us. We found the secret switch in his library and gained access to his archives. We barely said a word to each other as we rummaged through the old papers, scrolls, and leath
er-bound books, looking for anything of use regarding the Imen, the Maras, the daemons, and the asteroid belt.
The Imen’s lore was fascinating, I realized as I flipped through the yellowed pages. They were an ancient civilization, with at least fifteen thousand years of existence on this planet. And yet, the ones living in Azure Heights had been reduced to mindless pawns, their memories wiped and their history tucked away in hidden compartments of old walls.
Their mythology was quite interesting, as they worshiped six main deities—the three suns and the three moons. The first and main sun was Kol, the big star around which all seven planets of this system orbited. Kol was the god of light and life. Drul and Khai were, as per the Mara legends, twins of great importance, and the two smaller stars that orbited the sun. From afar, and when the sky was covered in a thin sheet of clouds, it looked as though Neraka had three suns. On any other day, however, the light they shone together was so bright that it looked as though only one large sun stood in the sky. According to the Imen, however, Drul and Khai were the sons of Kol—each entrusted with the power of wind and nature—and not the warriors they were in Mara culture.
The three moons, named Pell, Xus, and Llaim, were the three goddesses. They reigned over the night, and played a crucial role in the wellbeing of this world. However, when brought together, these three goddesses wreaked havoc and “made everything float when they were perfectly aligned with each other”. That was a reference to the peculiar phenomenon that Rewa had mentioned when we first arrived on Neraka, in which the three moons were aligned in the sky, in a perfect line, and disrupted Neraka’s gravity to the point where anything that wasn’t rooted to the ground was lifted, and drifted away until the moons broke rank.