“That's your purpose. That's what theGeistcreated us for. Beings stronger than the humans, capable of being Blessed withmagic. Holy defenders protecting our gods from the forces that seek to destroy them.”
I turned toValin, raising a brow. It didn’t seem like deities as powerful and lasting as theGeistshould have anything to fear, anything to need defendingfrom, particularly not by a comparatively weaker race such as we were.
Valindidn't turn toward me, though. He was too busy watching the half dozen men now making their way across the training yard toward us. They all wore leather armor with more weapons strapped across their backs, chests, and hips than they could ever possibly need within the city itself. They all bore stoic frowns and scars from past battles and none of them glowed.
I had to ask before they arrived.Kleiowould've advised me not to say anything at all. But, blasphemous or not, I had to know what I was up against.
“And what, exactly, are we defending our godsfrom?” I asked, looking up atValin.
He turned toward me slowly. That ever-present scowl remained on his expression but I saw the brief tick in his jaw, the slight widening of his eyes as if surprised by my question.
The men were close now, only a few yards away. I supposed that was whyValinlowered his voice to nearly a whisper when he answered me.
“Monsters.”
Chapter Four
Adrian
“You’ll hang me now. But you’ll be hanging a man who fed his family.”
— The Last Words of Daniel Fletcher, A Citizen of The Deck Executed for the Crime of Theft
Level Four. Agriculture.
I repeated the location to myself over and over like a prayer as I made my way toward the surprisingly advanced mechanized lifts across from the administrative building on the first level. After observing for a moment to figure out how they worked, I climbed into one with at least ten other people while doing my best to ignore my increasingly rapid heart rate. I waited impatiently as we stopped at level two, then three, tapping my foot against the metal floor to rid myself of some of the nervous energy coursing through me. Finally, we arrived on level four. There was a soft, mechanical hiss as the lift doors opened in front of us and then I was pushing my way out and into a widegraytunnel with a curved dome ceiling.
Those who filed off of the lifts with me went directly to the lockers built into the sides of the tunnel and began undressing,pulling on the standard issue olive green jumpsuits which must have indicated they worked in the agriculture sector. The clothes they shed in favor of their uniforms were all the same modern dress as Sanctuary above. That made sense, I supposed. After all, thiswaswhere all of our clothes had come from.
Ignoring the gravity of all I'd learned in the last hour alone, I weaved between them all to the enormous concrete doors at the end. I arrived just as someone pushed the big red button. An alarm blared briefly before the doors cracked open to reveal a sliver of synthetic sunlight. I blinked against the brightness as the woman beside me cast one look over mygrayadministrator’s clothing and straightened her posture before marching out into the fields beyond the doors.
I stood, dumbstruck, in the threshold for a moment. I stared out at the flat, soil-rich land that spread so far into the distance I couldn’t see where it ended. To my immediate left and right were enormous fields of wheat. After that came rice and other grains. I walked forward with the crowd who'd gathered rakes and hoes and seeds and watering cans and were moving through the rows of crops to their assigned locations to begin their work for the day. Some who were already out in the fields saw that the new shift had arrived. They peeled off their gloves, wiped their sweaty brows, and started to head back for the tunnel. I sidestepped them on my way further out into the fields.
The synthetic sun was blazing and the crops were swaying in a slight breeze that shouldn't be possible. It was easy to forget we were four levels underground here. There was only one explanation for it; magic.
I bumped into the watering can of a young man returning from the soybean fields and apologized, pulling my focus back to where I was going. Grains gave way to vegetables which gave way to fruits and then herbs and spices until I stopped counting all the different variety of foods I was seeing. I kept an eye out forDarius the whole way. But I didn't see him until I finally reached the end of the row I'd been walking down and the only thing before me was an empty field being prepared for planting. I saw him then, bent over his own row, hoe digging into the ground beneath his boots. He leaned up after a moment, rolling his shoulders and stretching his neck before wiping the sweat from his brow with a small towel he kept slung about his waist.
“Darius,” I said his name so quietly I was certain there wasn’t any way he could've possibly heard it.
But then his gaze snapped up to meet mine and his lips fell open in pure shock. Every muscle in his body froze as he uttered my name.
“Adrian?”
The disbelief in his tone was palpable, but I couldn’t help my smile as we stood apart, across that empty field, just looking at each other for the first time in over a year. In moments, he'd dropped his hoe and was running toward me, leaping over fresh mounds of dirt with arms outstretched. A hoarse laugh escaped me the instant he embraced me with a force I knew would have knocked me to the dirt before. My enhanced strength kept me standing now as tears streaked down my cheeks and I used my senses to inhale his scent once more. Though it was hindered somewhat by loose soil and sweat, it was still him. Darius. My best friend. Darius who'd been Culled, who I'd never truly stopped mourning, who I'd never believed I would see again.
“You…” he started, taking as we separated. “You got Culled too? I don’t remember seeing—”
“No,” I answered, wiping the tears away as my shoulders shook. I heaved a breath and fought to regain control of myself.
He cocked his head to the side, brows furrowing as he approached.
“Then how are you here?” he asked.
“I did it,” I whispered in reply. It still hardly seemed real and speaking it aloud felt forbidden somehow. “I made it all the way to the tenth Trial.”
His surprise turned to complete shock as his gaze shot down to the bands around my arms, visible beneath the rolled up sleeves of my jumpsuit. After only a moment, however, that shock wore off. His anger was palpable as he met my gaze once more.
“You were betrayed,” he said then, understanding dawning upon him. “By who?”
