“Are you with me?” I asked, reaching in the black, trying to find her hand. When I found it, her fingers wrapped around mine.
“Yes, sorry. I nodded. Forgot you can’t see me.” Her voice sounded thick, like she had something caught in her throat.
I led her down the steps, quickly but quietly. As we neared the bottom, I prayed they hadn’t anticipated my escape route. If they were waiting for us, I would have to fight our way out. It wasn’t likely I’d survive the fight. There were too many members of the Order who would overwhelm me, especially if I would not kill them. If Gatsby anticipated us, it would be worse. He might force me to kill him. He had already tested such limits in training, putting me in kill or be killed situations until our Masters called him off.
Finally reaching the bottom, I pushed open the secret door leading to the back courtyard. No one was training or praying, so the well-manicured courtyard was empty right up to the oppressive, wild tree line of the jungle.
There was only one option. “We must flee into the jungle.”
Emma’s hand curled around my arm. “You don’t seem sure of this.”
Yelling arose inside the Temple, and I knew it wouldn’t be long now.
“The jungle offers many dangers. But we will have a chance at survival in there. If we stay here, we forfeit that chance.”
The memory of my trials always wrapped a tight cord around my chest. We were ten years old when the Chevalier were sent into the jungle for a fortnight, pitting us against the elements, wild animals, and our will to live. Knowing now the trials were meant to manipulate me, the cord squeezed with unrelenting fervor. I turned to Emma, her face giving me the scrap of strength I needed from the depths of her enquiring brown eyes.
“Then what are we waiting for?” She asked before running toward the thick tree line.
#
Our pursuers were gaining on us. Soaked in sweat and heavy humidity, the only sounds I could hear were the berserk chirps of birds and insects. They too seemed to know we were giving chase. There was also Emma’s uneven, labored breathing as she tried to keep up without tripping into sink holes or over fallen branches. The humid air was heavy and sickening sweet with flowers and rotting dead plants, smothering me as I desperately tried to suck air into my burning lungs. I knew it must have been even harder for Emma, who was used to the cool, crisp, clean air of the mountains.
We were repeatedly slowed by having to climb over fallen ficus trees or navigate around the behemoth trunks of the trees still standing. There wasn’t time to go back and cover our tracks. No time to mislead them in another direction, our only choice was to move as quickly as possible and pray we would find a spot to hide.
The logical part of my mind knew there was nowhere to hide. My Masters need only cast the spell of last light to find us. Granted they could only conjure the spell just as the sun hit the mountains on its descent from the day to illuminate the missing, whether it was an item or person they were trying to locate. Judging from the slant of sunlight barely breaking through the treetops, it wouldn’t be long before they could siphon that power into a powerful spherical artifact. It was the same spell they’d use to find the bodies of those who did not survive the trials. Rather than let the jungle swallow the failures, my Masters would display them to the whole Order, claiming they were never true to the Light.
I remember standing in line outside the Temple with the four other remaining boys. No longer were we just soulless heathen boys, we were now Chevalier, Knights of the Light. We’d been allowed to bathe, our wounds tended, and we were given white linen pajamas. So very different from the gray and brown rags we had worn up until that point. I had survived with three broken ribs, an infected leg wound, and severe dehydration which had me continually licking my lips with a sandpaper tongue even as I stood in line. My hair was slicked back, still wet from the bath, just like others. I had chanced a glance at Gatsby at the other end of the line. His blonde hair was pulled back in a tight clean ponytail but his face had a greenish tint to it. He was covered in a sheen of sweat. He leaned against a stick meant to prop him up but seemed likely to plummet face-first into the ground any minute. Gatsby suffered a snake bite, which poisoned his blood, then he contracted the jungle sickness. He had emerged from the trees raving mad, vomiting blood, but he made it the two weeks and they treated him for his illnesses. Standing in line at the ceremony, his face was screwed up in intense concentration, as if he was willing himself to keep conscious.
Our Masters had cast the spell of last light and members of the Order went directly to retrieve the bodies. As the sun disappeared behind the mountains, the sky lit up in brilliant red and orange streaks that seemed to mimic the slash wounds on the chewed-up bodies of our soulless brothers lying on the ground before us. Eight bodies. I was proud to have survived and knew the divine had been at work in the trials, but my chest hurt when I looked at the fallen so I kept my eyes slightly averted from looking directly at them.
“They did not believe.” Master Ilsa’s voice boomed from where she stood, on the small podium behind the line of corpses. The rest of our Masters were lined up to the side of the courtyard with grim, yet fiercely proud expressions on their faces. That year, there had been more survivors than any of the preceding trials. The rest of the members of the Order stood in rows behind us, the hoods of their robes pulled over their faces. They did not speak to the soulless ones.
The second time I chanced a glance at Gatsby, it was after the bodies had been brought out. His cheeks were covered in tears. They corrected him for that later.
“They did not believe in the Light,” Master Ilsa was still speaking though it was hard to focus on her words. “And the hellfires of the Stygian came and claimed the nonbelievers. You remaining, may be soiled, soulless, and unworthy, but the gods have offered you the opportunity to prove yourselves. To serve the Light with your whole being and in turn, bestowed with that which you have lost.”
Master Ylang’s voice rumbled from just over my shoulder. I had been declared his ward, and was secretly grateful I had not been bound to Master Wu. “Look at them, Calan,” he said, his voice both stern and soft in a way that confused me. “Do not shy away from the fate you escaped. You are not a man. Men have souls, but you are now a knight. You are a fighter, and you mustn’t squander your opportunity to serve and redeem, where the fallen will now never know rest. Just do as you are told, and you’ll know eternal glory once more.” His touch on my shoulder was so light and brief, I wondered if it happened at all.
It was after that we were honed to siphon our devout belief of the Light into magic which would allow us to fight forces of the Stygian.
Running through the woods with Emma, it felt like I’d swallowed a rotten plum and it wouldn’t go down past my throat. My eyes watered as I swallowed the acidity of my Order’s lies. They had been just regular children.Iwas just a regular child. It had nothing to do with what we believed. I once heard a saying, ‘thrown to the wolves.’ That is what they did to us quite literally, except the beasts in these jungles were far more dangerous than a pack of mutts.
I glanced over at Emma. They wouldn’t get her. I wouldn’t let them. Not now, not ever.
Emma’s face looked thin and haggard as she fought for breath and to keep up with me. She wasn’t a trained warrior. From what I knew of civilians, few voluntarily pursued physical conditioning.
I wanted to tuck her into a safe place until her health and mind could be restored. Something in her broke when Travis accused her of abandoning her duty to save the world. A spike of heat shot through me as I thought of how Travis’s opinion had affected her so. Perhaps she cared more for him than I could admit to myself.
I shook off the disturbing image of them locked in an embrace. Emma and I had shared multiple moments of intimacy, bound by a fated psychic connection. I knew where her desires lay. Still, a small part of me was scared to stop running because I didn’t know if I could put Emma back together again. I didn’t have the answers. She’d been following me around, as I promised answers and guidance, but now I had none left to give. If only I had my magic, I could open a portal for us to step through, leaving all this behind forever. But I couldn’t. I wasn’t even sure we’d last another ten minutes.
Leaves rustled overhead. Something was following us. Something not human.
Maybe less than ten minutes.
“Faster,” I urged turning to grab Emma’s hand, ready to drag her if need be.
“Calan.” Her voice wavered.
