First, Become Ashes Page 2

  * * *

  I struggle through morning ritual the next day, and every day of the week that follows. Maeve shoots me a worried look when Nova asks me to stay behind, on the tenth day after Kane’s departure. Two months and seventeen days.

  “You’re off guard duty,” she says with a stern face.

  I don’t question her because it’s not my place, but also because I feel the exhaustion in every muscle of my body. The ache around my eyes barely eases anymore when I close them.

  “Yes, Nova.”

  “You’re no good at half-strength, Meadowlark. You’ve trained for too long only to flag in your final days.”

  “Understood. My apologies.” Shame grips me. This is the second time since Kane left that she’s scolded me. That I’ve shown weakness. Get it together, Lark. “If you’ll allow it, I’ll go rest for a while and rejoin the group for skills training.”

  “I will. Eat first. I’ll see you at training.”

  “Thank you.” I don’t look her in the eye when I leave, but I can feel her gaze penetrating me. I didn’t think it would be this hard. That I would lose sleep, ignore hunger. Slip.

  I hear Maeve catch up with me before I see her. “Are you okay?” she asks quietly, even though Nova can no longer hear us.

  “Yes.”

  “You’re trembling.” Before I can stuff my hands into the pockets of my wool robe, she grabs them. “It’s okay.”

  I go limp in the warmth of her grip. Squeeze my eyes shut.

  “I miss him too.”

  My eyes fly open. “I don’t miss him,” I say. “Neither should you. Kane’s following his path. We all are.”

  Maeve blinks, her long lashes only making her look more surprised. “I’m not Nova. You don’t have to pretend around—”

  “I’m not pretending!” I yank my hands from hers. “I’m fine. I’ve been foolish and weak, but I’m going to eat and rest. Nova’s orders. I’ll see you this evening.” I hurry off before she can try to comfort me any more—I don’t need it. I need to pull myself together before I lose everything.

  Between meals, the food court is empty, but inside the kitchens, Fellows work to prepare lunch for the two hundred of us that will descend upon them in a couple of hours. I glimpse Deryn leaning against the service area, playing with their unbound hair, skirt swaying in the breeze as they laugh with a friend. All the Fellows have jobs that support the Fellowship and keep our commune running, so the Anointed can focus on training and ritual.

  Quietly as I can without utilizing my powers, I slip inside a kitchen whose old sign is painted over. I’m old enough to remember when it still used to say POLAR BEAR PIZZA over the awning. Now, it says LUNCH.

  I sidle up beside a Fellow I’ve known since early learning classes. We Anointed are acquainted with almost everyone in the Fellowship, but we don’t really know them, nor they us. I can’t remember her name, but we smile and greet each other with a hand on the shoulder. I don’t feel the same exchange of power when I greet her as I do with Nova or the Anointed. I feel nothing.

  “Would you mind if I made a sandwich, real quick?” I ask, inserting myself in their assembly line. “I haven’t been feeling well lately, but my appetite’s finally kicking in.”

  “No need.” She puts aside the sandwich she was assembling and grabs two fresh slices of wheat bread. “I’ll make it for you. Chicken, right?”

  “That would be great. Thanks so much.”

  I’m watching her slice the meat when I hear Deryn’s familiar, sneering voice: “What are you doing here?”

  “None of your business.” I don’t have to justify myself to them.

  “Shouldn’t you be off practicing magic or something? I didn’t think you hung out with us Fellows anymore. Don’t cater to him, Emily.” They step between us.

  Emily—of course, she’s Emily—freezes, knife halfway through the chicken. “Meadowlark is Anointed, Deryn.”

  “And?”

  She falters. “If he’s hungry, it—it’s our job to—”

  “No, it’s not. If he’s so big and powerful, he’s strong enough to make his own sandwich or wait until mealtime like everyone else.” They straighten up, an inch taller than me. Even though I see myself in their features—in light blue eyes, thin face, and harsh cheekbones—their attitude has long since tarnished any connection we might’ve had.

  “It’s okay, Emily,” I say, deliberately looking past Deryn. “I’ll finish up.” I nod, and she leaves for another station. Deryn always pushes, always tries to cut me short. But I’m Anointed and they’re not. I’ve forgotten myself and my station since Kane left, but no longer. “Nova told me to eat and rest.” I face them. “Are you questioning her?”

  Across the kitchen, knives stop banging against cutting boards, hands stop tossing potato salad. Everyone turns and waits for Deryn’s response.

  “I’m questioning you, Lark. Barking orders as if you’re better than the rest of us. As if you’re any more powerful than Nova allows you to be. As if you’re above the rules.”

  “I’m bound to a higher set of rules than you, Deryn.” Heat swells at my palms. My fingers tingle—itch for motion.

  They laugh. “I bet.”

  “Fellows support the Anointed, Deryn,” Emily says. “We’re the lucky ones, safe inside the fence thanks to them and Nova.”

  “You don’t wonder why they’re ‘Anointed’ and we aren’t?” Deryn grabs one of my braids and twirls it between their fingers. “Lark and I aren’t different. We’re siblings. Born of the same—”

  “Enough.” I swat their hand away. “Shouldn’t you be at work with the other sewists? Go get a needle, or I’ll report you to Nova for disrupting routine and obstructing her orders.” I turn back to the sandwich ingredients, intent on ignoring their provocation. I am disciplined. I will not react.

  Deryn grabs the front of my shirt and spins me around. Greens and poultry topple from their bread, spilling onto the ground. “Don’t you dare tell me—”

  I whisper a command I’ve long practiced, press my palms against Deryn’s chest with a familiar motion, and thrust them across the kitchen. Their back thuds against the refrigerator. I stand braced with my feet apart and my palms up, maintaining my hold on them from across the room. My hands barely warm against the cool September breeze that flows through the open service windows. No one moves.

  “The next time you want to try something, remember that this is easy for me.” I don’t smile. I want Deryn to know I’m not going to spend the next two months and seventeen days letting them test me. “I’ve been guarding our home from outsiders and monsters for the last ten nights. I’m exhausted and hungry, and the person I’m closest to in the world just left. So, I’m taking a sandwich. You can wait there, watch me make it, and then return to your work.”

  I bend two of my fingers and twist my hands, pinning them in place with the power I’ve already expended. What I said was only half true—I can’t afford to waste more energy on them. I curl my fingers into fists as I turn back to the destroyed sandwich. Emily looks at me and then down at my shaking hands.

  “Let me help you.” She cleans up the scattered ingredients, sets out a clean plate, and begins from scratch.

  “Thank you,” I whisper, clasping my fingers together. I try to focus on her motions, on the slicing of fresh tomatoes and lettuce. On her mundane questions about mustard and mayonnaise. Not on the constant scratching sensation I feel from behind, where Deryn remains fixed.

  Emily puts the sandwich, a bag of granola, and a water bottle into a reusable lunch bag and hands it to me. “All set.” She looks over her shoulder at Deryn; her smile falters.

  I snap my fingers, releasing Deryn. They slump, but don’t fall. Wordlessly, we stare at each other. You’d think after two decades, they’d get it through their head that being birthed by the same Fellows does not make us family. And never will.

  * * *

  Nova said to eat and rest. I eat, I try to rest. Mostly, I lie awake surrounded b
y empty beds, staring at Kane’s. Consider crawling into it. I slide my hand down my torso and wrap my fingers around the metal cage between my legs. Remember what it felt like when Kane locked it into place. The sensation remains with me, almost like he’s here.

  “Dinnertime.” Zadie kicks the metal bed frame, jolting my hands from my body and my eyes wide. She pours water from a glass pitcher into a waiting basin and wets her face before taking soap to it. “Nova says to remind you you’re supposed to be eating.” She rinses herself off.

  “I’m coming.” I hop up, dunk my hands into the basin, and rub them over my face.

  “You know that water’s dirty, right?” Zadie asks as she towels off.

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re gross.”

  “The water has soap in it. It’s fine.”

  She rolls her eyes and follows me out of our quarters—a big old round building with several stalls that used to house giraffes. They house us now, two beds in each room. We know what the animals look like from the few textbooks Nova keeps around, and the sun-bleached signs along the path. I used to imagine giraffes walking through the city outside the fence, but one night on guard duty, Zadie pointed out we’d probably see their necks sticking up over the roofs if they did.

  When we arrive at dinner, Maeve is already sitting at our table. Strands of thick black hair spring out from the braid that crowns her head like a fuzzy halo. Zadie beckons to her with a flick of her fingers. Maeve juts her head forward, still holding a forkful of barbecued chicken, while Zadie licks the tips of her fingers and weaves the stray hairs back into her crown.

  I turn away when Zadie kisses Maeve’s forehead—bite my bottom lip, sending a sensation like magic shooting through my body. That’s how memories of Kane feel.

  Zadie bumps into me as she walks past, jolting me back to the spread of umbrella-covered tables and the shady gazebo where the younger Anointed eat with the Elders. They watch us with big eyes and untempered smiles as we walk past the winding food line—past Deryn—to a separate window where the Anointed are served. We have different dietary needs—more chicken than anyone should be forced to endure and a strength potion that tastes vaguely sweet.

  I feel Deryn’s anger radiating against my back as Emily prepares our trays with a smile, but I don’t acknowledge them. We thank her and sit with Maeve. I eat while trying my hardest not to glance at Kane’s empty seat. Why, in the company of two hundred Fellows, has the loss of one Anointed left me feeling so alone?

  I try to kick the feeling. To match my friends’ smiles as they joke around. We clean our plates, then clear our table, taking our potions to go. Maeve casually pops the top off her bottle as she walks, challenging us both without looking either of us in the eye. I look sideways at Zadie, who’s grinning. I thumb open the wire swing on my own bottle and hear the clank of Zadie doing the same. We stop on the path and face one another.

  We don’t have to speak the stakes—we face the same challenge every night. The one who runs the slowest after chugging their potion has to lead evening ritual. Not that we don’t like to, but the competition is our thing. The one pleasure we allow ourselves.

  As he approached his quarter century, Kane won every single day last March—Nova was pissed we let a game override our responsibilities. She was right: leading evening ritual reinforces our authority within the Fellowship. And she made us wake up before sunrise all April to atone. We stopped playing for a while after that, too afraid to win. We drank our potions at the dinner table and divided leader duties evenly. But after a couple of months, the itch to play got to us. To push one another, to prod and tease—to win. Now, we each make sure to lose regularly enough to keep Nova’s eyes off us. Not that we discussed it—we never did and never will. We just know.

  “One,” Maeve says slowly.

  Zadie follows. “Two.”

  They both look at me, lips parted and hovering an inch above the glass rims of their bottles. Inside, small bubbles pop as the opaque potion settles.

  I lick my lips. Look between them.

  “Three!” I upend the bottle and gulp the thick drink down, barely swallowing as a drop leaks from the corner of my mouth and tickles my neck. I don’t stop until I run out of air and my stomach roils with the sudden rush of liquid.

  I gasp, wrestling with a hard stuck-in-my-throat swallow as Maeve takes off running. Zadie wipes her face with her sleeve—an amateur move—giving me a head start on her. I hear her belch behind me.

  “Stars, I cannot run on a full stomach,” she groans.

  A full-bodied laugh slows me down. I’m not far behind Maeve. That girl is all thick muscle. Some of our Fellows underestimate her because she’s quieter, but she spends her time training rather than studying.

  With Ritual House in sight, I push myself, drawing on my power to enhance my speed. The trees blur alongside me, my feet barely touch the ground, and then—I trip. Zadie rushes past me as I fly through the air and land rolling across the cool grass. The girls run victoriously up the stone steps of the ritual house as I stand and brush leaves and dirt from my grass-stained jeans.

  “You cheater.” I smile as I join them.

  “You used your powers too!” Zadie snaps before leaning against a nearby column.

  “One of us didn’t have to use magic to win.” Maeve uncrosses her arms, her freckled face flushed from the sprint.

  She places her palms flat on one of the glass panes between the house’s double doors. Before Nova bought Druid Hill, when it was still a zoo and recreation center and disc golf course—whatever that is—this was some kind of mansion. I don’t think anyone had lived here for years, though. Kane and I were kids when she and our teachers hauled everything outside—broken wooden tables and ripped leather chairs, dusty cardboard boxes and yellowing documents. After dark, they burned it. We followed the smell of smoke to the bonfire. They invited us to watch. Now, the mansion’s a big empty building, warded so that only Nova and the Anointed can open it.

  As the winner, Maeve does the honors. Under her touch, the wards dissolve. I watch her shake off a shiver before grabbing one of the doorknobs and opening the hall. Zadie and I leverage ourselves off the clean white columns and follow her inside, leaving the doors open behind us.

  We take our boots off—Maeve carefully unlacing, Zadie prying them off by the heel—then tread with bare feet across overlapping rugs as we open the rest of the doors and windows. I pause in the middle of the room and breathe deep. Sunset filters through the windowpanes, warming the space. Invigorating me.

  Ritual House is the heart of Druid Hill. Twenty-five years of magic resides within these walls. Morning and evening, the Anointed have conducted rituals here every day since Kane was born. I feel stronger here. More confident. Better.

  We finish readying the space and, soon, the rest of the Fellowship trickles in. Without guidance, they sit in circles that grow out from the center of the room, leaving an aisle open from the center to the front door. Maeve and Zadie, as the reigning winners, stand beside the doors and greet the Fellows who enter, resting a hand on each of their shoulders in turn. The younger Anointed file in under the watchful eyes of their teachers, before taking their places in the closest circle.

  It’s my job to greet them. To exchange a small dose of power with each of them. The littlest ones barely register a spark, but I’m careful with the teenagers. I remember when my brain and body were still evolving so turbulently that I was powerless one day and blowing things up the next. There’s a reason we don’t go on our quests until our quarter century, until our magic has settled into its strength.

  Nova is the last inside, and she greets each of us, Fellow and Anointed alike, as she walks up the aisle to the center of the circle. “I’m glad to see you at the helm tonight, Meadowlark.” We rest our hands on each other’s shoulders and I feel relief. Her confidence warms me along with her magic.

  Her hands fall to her sides as she gives me space to lead. I raise mine, channeling the energy of the room t
hrough my body like a lightning rod. The Fellowship falls silent. Through the many-paneled windows, the last rays of sunlight blind me before the horizon swallows them.

  I close my eyes. “Join me, Fellows and Anointed, in giving thanks to Nova for the home she has given us. For bringing each of us into safety. For sparing us from the corruptions of the world beyond the fence. For the gifts—”

  Glass shatters. I gasp; my body floods with the heat of surprise. Heart pounding, I watch a metal canister roll down the empty aisle toward me.

  Gray smoke erupts forth like I haven’t seen since the bonfire. At first, all I can do is watch, but then the smoke reaches me—coughs burst from my body.

  Another window breaks. A canister clangs and smoke fills the room as the youngest scream, their teachers attempting to calm them. Nova. I can’t see her—or Maeve or Zadie or—cough. I double over. Drop to the ground. Smoke billows up around me, obscuring Anointed and Fellows; all I can see is their feet as they stumble blindly around Ritual House.

  What is happening? Are these monsters, come for us? I crawl, my belly scraping over the floorboards as I try to find the door. Someone tumbles to the floor beside me—dark skin, braided hair. “Zadie!” She rolls over, clutching her head. Blood coats her fingers.

  “Everyone down on the ground!”

  “Hands on the back of your head!”

  Human voices bark orders above us. No one I recognize. Strangers—FOEs? All I can see of them are heavy boots stomping past. I pick up a discarded canister, immediately dropping it with a scream as its heat sears my hands. They tremble with pain, wet and red with blood. Zadie. I force myself to absorb the pain, use it to power myself. “Come on.” I grab her robe, and together, we crawl toward the side door. “Where’s Maeve?”

  “I don’t—” She coughs.

  “I’ll find her.” I nudge Zadie out the door, into the open air. “Go. Meet me at the—”