The Sun Dwellers (The Dwellers Saga)

  I grab Adele’s arm, feeling a zing of energy. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

  She stops, glances down at my hand on her elbow, her lips curled into a tenuous smile that evaporates immediately. “No, Tristan, it’s not you,” she says, gently prying herself loose. “This is just something I have to do. It can’t wait any longer.”

  “What’s going on?” Roc says beyond us. “Are you guys lost? Because if you’re looking for the nearest hotel, it’s back the way you came. Not that I’d recommend it.”

  We both turn to find the shadows turned toward us, watching. Adele lifts the lantern, illuminating our friends’ faces. Roc’s wearing a black tunic that makes his brown skin look ghostly pale in comparison. He’s also wearing a smirk. Tawni’s delicate features are framed by her milk-white hair, above her silver tunic. Together they’re the yin and the yang; I can’t decide who is which.

  “Tawni, I have a favor to ask,” Adele says.

  Cocking her head to the side, Tawni purses her lips. “Yes?”

  “Hang onto this for me,” Adele says, holding the gun out handle-first.

  Tawni freezes, her pale face managing to whiten even further. “But why? I mean, I can’t…I don’t even know how—”

  “I’m not asking you to use it—just to keep it safe for me.”

  Wrinkling her nose, Tawni reaches out a bony hand and slips a single finger into the metal trigger loop, allowing the gun to dangle like a dirty sock. “Where should I put it?”

  Adele reaches under her tunic and works her fingers for a few seconds before pulling out a waist holster. “This fits in the small of your back,” she says, handing the gun carrier to her friend. “You won’t even know it’s there.” If the gun is a dirty sock then the holster’s its matched pair, and although she takes it with her other hand, Tawni clearly doesn’t want it. “Please,” Adele adds, her previously firm voice pleading now.

  “Sure,” Tawni says with a sigh, placing the items in a pile on the tunnel floor.

  Roc stares at me curiously, his lips opening slightly, a question on his tongue. “What are you guys doing up anyway? Your shift isn’t for two hours.”

  Adele’s green eyes flick to mine. Don’t tell them I had a nightmare, they plead. “My stomach was growling so loud it woke us both up,” I say, my eyes lingering on Adele’s for a moment before facing Roc.

  “I’d give you some of my ration,” Roc says, “but I already ate it.” He rubs his stomach, grinning. Tawni laughs.

  I lunge at him, tackle my friend, pin him down. “Tomorrow I get both our rations,” I say. “Don’t I?”

  “Not unless hell freez—” But Roc doesn’t have a chance to finish his thought, as a huge, black shape enters our field of vision from the side, a blur of speed and muscle. I fling myself to the side, trying to avoid the impact, but I’m too late. The beast rams its shoulder into my chest and I’m thrown backward, my spine shuddering as it glances off the rock wall.

  Ignoring the pain, I’m on my feet, ready to fight, ready to defend myself and Adele and my friends. The black shadow looms over me, a head taller and…and laughing. Deep, throaty, Ram. The same Ram that Adele was just asking me about. What she doesn’t know is that before being added to our team, he was my biggest enemy within the Resistance. He was always watching me, calling me a liar, convinced I was a spy for my father. And now he’s my friend, I think? Maybe? Sort of?

  My body relaxes and instantly a bolt of pain shoots down my spine. I cringe. Roc moves between us with a flashlight and Ram’s massive grinning face looms over him. “Everyone all right?” Roc asks. “And by everyone I mean Tristan.” He laughs, claps a hand on my shoulder. “Serves you right, buddy. Me and Ram, well, let’s just say we’ve come to an agreement. Isn’t that right, bud—I mean, Ram?”

  Ram’s dark eyes are violent and yet full of humor. “That’s right. No more picking on your weakling friend,” he growls.

  “Right,” Roc says. “Except for the weakling part.”

  Great, I think. Even Roc’s tighter with Ram than I am. This might be a long trip.

  “I think I’ll join Team Ram, too,” another voice says, approaching from the tunnel behind us. Trevor. Trevor with the curly chestnut hair. Trevor who was Adele’s mom’s right-hand man. Trevor who saved Adele from Brody in the Star Realm. Although his tousled hair and blinking eyes are still full of sleep, he wears an easy smile, one that looks like it could stay on his lips all day.

  It’s only the first night of our mission and already none of us can manage a proper night’s sleep. Yeah, it really is going to be a long trip.

  * * *

  Since we’re all awake, we decide to just keep moving, to save sleep for another time, maybe once the war is over.

  At first Adele walks with Tawni, speaking in hushed tones. I wonder if she’s telling her about her nightmare, about my arm around her, about my questions. I can just make out the bump on Tawni’s lower back where Adele’s gun is.

  Ram’s bulky arm is around my shoulder, as if he’s my best mate, when really he’s just trying to intimidate me. I shrug it off.

  “Ooh, the tough prince exerting his strength,” Ram taunts.

  I laugh. “If you weren’t three hundred pounds I’d do more than that,” I say.

  “Pity. I’d like to see that,” Roc says from my other side.

  “I reckon I could take all three of you,” Trevor says from behind us.

  I glance back at my newest acquaintance. He’s got a big mouth, but for all I know he might be able to back it up. His forearms are cut like stone and I can just make out the start of a toned bicep before it hides beneath the sleeve of his green tunic. I doubt Adele’s mom would have included him on the mission if he couldn’t fight.

  Ram grunts.

  Roc chuckles. “I’m out. You three can settle this on your own.”

  “We might just do that,” I murmur, always one for a challenge.

  Ahead, Tawni drifts back from Adele’s side, zeroing in on Roc. I take advantage of the opportunity to stride ahead, nonchalantly pulling up next to Adele. “Hey,” I say.

  “Hey yourself,” she replies, glancing at me.

  “You okay?” I ask.

  Staring straight ahead, she says, “What did my mom whisper to you before we left?”

  She answers my question with a question of her own, but I don’t mind. I’m just happy to be talking to her after the abrupt end to our previous conversation. “She said that it probably made sense for her to ask me to take care of her daughter, but in your case she knew it wasn’t necessary.”

  Adele glances at me again, and this time holds my gaze for a moment. Pride covers her face like a mask. The urge to intertwine my fingers with hers strikes me, but I ignore it, afraid I’ll scare her away again. She’s so unlike the girls in the Sun Realm. The girls up there are weak and wouldn’t last ten minutes in the Moon Realm, and yet they approach guys with a confidence bordering on arrogance. You know you want me, but the question is: Do I want you? Whereas, Adele’s as hard as diamond, and yet, other than when she kissed me, she’s timid when it comes to being close to me.

  As if she can read my thoughts, Adele’s face falls. “I can take care of myself, but not my friends and family,” she says.

  I try to swallow but a lump congeals in my throat. I have to tell her what I think. “I think my father targeted Ben to get to me.”

  “That makes no sense,” Adele says right away. She’s determined to take the blame.

  “He’s trying to get to me, to do anything he can to take the fight out of me, so I’ll either turn myself in, kill myself, or do something stupid.”

  “Turning yourself in or killing yourself would be something stupid,” Adele replies, not missing a step. “But regardless, attacking my dad and sister has nothing to do with you.”

  “It does if he thought…I cared…about your father,” I say, my words sticking to my tongue like underground river leeches on a swimmer’s legs.

  “Did you? Care ab
out my father?” There’s an edge to Adele’s voice, which is full of steel and glass.

  “You know I did.” My brain struggles to formulate the right words. To make her understand the depth of my admiration for Ben Rose. “I didn’t know him for long, but he treated me like a son—”

  “Which would make me your sister,” Adele says, her gritty words replaced with her usual sarcasm once more.

  I laugh. “It doesn’t bother me if it doesn’t bother you,” I say.

  I’m happy when she smiles. “Sooo, my dad was like a second father to you?”

  I shake my head. “No, more than that. For me, a father is just the one whose genes you share. Ben—your dad—was like a mentor to me. He believed in me. Counseled me. Gave me confidence in myself.” Suddenly I remember something important. Something that will matter to Adele. “Can I show you something?”

  Adele shrugs. “Sure.”

  Without breaking stride, I swing my pack around to access it. Tucked beneath two tunics and a canteen is a book, leather-worn and brittle, its pages yellowed and thinned by time and history. Not a book—a diary.

  “Your father gave this to me,” I say, handing it to Adele. “Well, lent it to me, really, but then…” I start to say the wrong thing, but manage to stop myself just in time. Adele doesn’t seem to notice.

  “What is it?” she says, holding a flashlight to the cover.

  “The diary of a young girl named Anna, from Year Zero. She got picked in the Lottery, was taken below, given a new family, the whole deal. I think your father gave me her diary to help give me some perspective, you know, remember what it is we’re fighting for. You can have it.”

  Her eyes are wide open now, as she flips to the first page. For the next hour she walks and reads in silence, holding her flashlight over the pages, not even noticing when I put a nervous arm behind her so she doesn’t walk into the wall.

  * * *

  It’s a well-constructed tunnel, plenty high and wide enough for us to walk at a brisk pace. According to Adele’s mom (another Anna), the Resistance constructed it during the first Uprising, in case they ever had the need to sneak a small group into the Sun Realm. We walk for what feels like hours, when we should be sleeping. Sleep walking.

  Adele reads the diary for a while, and then tries to hand it back to me. “You keep it,” I say. She tucks it in her pack without saying anything, and then takes my hand, sending shivers up my forearm. My hand’s sweaty and I desperately try to think cooling thoughts, but it doesn’t help. Adele, seemingly lost in her own thoughts, doesn’t recoil, so I guess she doesn’t notice. She’s remembering her father, I think.

  Although I remained silent while Adele was reading, there were muffled conversations and occasional laughs from the rest of the group behind us. Roc seemed to be doing most of the talking, telling stories and jokes and otherwise making friends with everyone, which is just the kind of thing that he does. It’s fine with me because I’m with Adele.

  But eventually everyone goes silent, from exhaustion and fatigue and because the damn tunnel keeps going up and up, getting steeper each time we round a bend. The tunnel gods try to make up for it by cooling the tunnel air as we get closer to the Sun Realm, but it’s not enough to combat the rise in our body temperatures from the heavy exercise. We are made of sweat and blood and bone and muscle. But mostly sweat.

  The light long-haul tunic I was outfitted with before we left is sticking to my skin, held tight against me by the multiple weapons I’m toting. Against my left calf is a short dagger, sharp and deadly but the least of my weapons. Against the other calf is a shiny new handgun, afforded to me by the star dwellers, who were in turn supplied by my father as part of his ridiculous plan to pit the Lower Realms against each other. My sword is in its scabbard and hangs loosely at my side, occasionally bumping my knee. Tight on my back is a tightly strung bow and a satchel of arrows, hand carved and feathered. The moon dweller weapons maker named Hans who constructed them promised me they’d fly straight and true.

  The rest of our group is outfitted similarly, and although I’ve seen the tough side of Adele many times before, there’s something about her getup that I find quite sexy. Her black tunic is a shadow, tight against her curves, serving to enhance her beauty rather than emasculate her. She wears a thick, tight belt, ornamented with various short daggers, as well as a thin, long blade. Like me, she has a bow, but hers hangs from a strap over her shoulder. The hilt of a partly hidden knife protrudes from the bottom of her long tunic, lashed to her calf.

  Finally we stop. Someone suggests it, but I’m not sure who, because I’m so tired and my mind is squishier than a bowl of mushy, oversaturated rice. Heck, it might have been me, I’ll never know.

  We should have a lookout schedule, but this time there are no volunteers and I don’t think anyone could keep their eyes open anyway, so we take the risk. This is a secret tunnel after all.

  There’s no rhyme or reason to the sleeping arrangements—we just lie where we fall. Which happens to put me next to Adele. It reminds me of back in the Moon Realm, shortly after I first met her, when I was bruised and cut and bleeding from my brother and his thugs. I took a risk then and it was wonderful. We held hands all night, our first physical experience together, innocent and beautiful.

  Despite my exhaustion, I’m determined to make tonight (or is it the day now?) our second.

  At first we lie on our backs, using our packs to prop up our heads, but then she turns away, curling up like a ball. I don’t know where the boldness comes from, but I put my arm around her and she stiffens. But then she relaxes, drops her arm over mine, pulls it into her chest. We are so close together it’s as if we are one being, separated by only the thin fabric of our tunics.

  We sleep.

  Chapter ThreeAdele

  I feel better waking up without the gun near me. My subconscious agrees because I have no memory of a nightmare. I feel bad about giving the cold steel weapon to Tawni, but at least I know she won’t use it. The only good kind of gun is one that hasn’t been fired. I hope I never have to again.

  The other good thing about waking up is finding Tristan’s arm on me. I vaguely remember him draping it over me the night before, pulling it around me, the warmth that came with it, but overnight it moved and is now resting lightly on my side, his fingertips barely grazing my hip. His breathing is rhythmic and deep.

  Ever so carefully, I use my fingers like pincers and pluck his wrist from my side, lifting his arm high enough to slide out from underneath. Freed, I watch him for a moment. Although he’s the biggest celebrity in all the Tri-Realms, sleeping he’s just a guy, almost childlike, his wavy blond hair messed and over his forehead, his magnetic blue eyes hidden beneath closed lids, his athleticism and poise all but invisible.

  Less gracefully than I’d like, I clamber to my feet and pick up the long-burning lantern we use as a nightlight. As I scan the other sleeping forms, I notice I’m not the only one who enjoyed the sleeping arrangements. Roc’s and Tawni’s legs are tangled up together, whether by design or overnight movements.

  Past them, snoring lips buzz through the dark. The offender: Ram. Strangely, he’s curled up the most of anyone, almost in the fetal position. It’s odd seeing such a large man in that position. I almost laugh.

  Trevor’s the only one missing, his thin blanket in a ball nearby. There’s the almost imperceptible soft glow of a light down the tunnel a ways. I make for the light.

  He’s sitting shirtless with his back to the wall, a flashlight in one hand and a book in the other. It’s an old, small square and reminds me of the diary Tristan gave me, which my dad gave him. It was an unexpected but appreciated gift.

  “Good morning,” Trevor says without looking up from the page he’s on.

  “How long have you been up?” I ask.

  “A half-hour I reckon. Although time doesn’t seem to pass in this tunnel, so it’s hard to tell.”

  “Did it pass better in the Star Realm?”

  He laughs.
“Not really.”

  It’s weird to be having a relatively normal conversation with Trevor, especially given the particularly rocky start to our relationship. Without anything better to do, I sit down next to him.

  “Whatcha reading?” I ask, catching a glimpse of a handwritten page over his shoulder.

  He snaps the cover shut, making me jump slightly, which makes him grin. “Just my journal, nosy. I like to reflect on the past sometimes. It helps me avoid making the same mistakes twice.”

  A surprisingly intelligent remark. I get the feeling there’s a lot about Trevor that will surprise me. “How’d you meet my mother?” I ask. The unspoken question: And why does she trust you so much?

  “I’d do anything for her,” he says. “She saved my life.”

  My head jerks to the side, locks on his wistful gaze. He’s remembering something. He answered the unspoken question first—and it’s not the answer I expected. Although I have half a dozen follow-up questions, I’m silent. I don’t want to be called nosy again.

  He sighs. “Do you want to know the whole story?”

  I nod hopefully.

  He starts with a question. “Do you remember what I told you about my family?”

  How could I forget? At the time I still had a dad, so although I was truly sorry about what had happened to Trevor’s father, I didn’t really understand. But now…now we have that in common. “He worked at the lava flow. He…he stole something,” I say.

  “A bed. For my brother and I to share.”

  I nod. “He went to work and never came back.”

  “That wasn’t entirely true.”

  “It wasn’t?” I say, suddenly back on my heels.