“Priest, it’s a pleasure.” The man approaching us is younger than I expected, perhaps thirty, if that, charming to the eye, well-proportioned and clean-shaven with short black hair, tousled like a soldier only recently risen from bed. His ears look almost pointed, lending him a slightly impish appearance for a man of such power. He raises his right eyebrow as he thumps Priest on his shoulder and squeezes his hand as if greeting an old friend. “What brings you?”
Before Priest can respond, the commander settles his deep blues on me. “I’m Mikel, Commander of the Forerunners and guide to this growing city. And you are clearly…enchanting?”
“Rimma,” I reply, not quite as enamored with the man as he is with himself.
His eyes remain on my face, but I watch an assessment taking place, calculations ticking behind the amiable manner. He isn’t the leader of this city by accident. “Welcome, Rimma.” The playful grin returns as he fingers a lock of pale blond hair from my face. “Here at the Fortress we’re the future of humanity, every shade of brown, but yours. Where are you from?”
“Heaven.”
“Ah, an angel at my fingertips.” The eyebrow arches.
“It seems so,” I suggest. “A fallen one in this particular case.”
“I heard the Gardens collapse,” he says, the sympathy perfect. “Forgive me, please sit.” He waves us to an array of cushioned chairs positioned for intimate conversation on layers of overlapping rugs. His quarters are beautiful, far lovelier than even those of Heaven, and I wonder at the age of the treasures here. Angel wanders, admiring tapestries hung on the walls, running her invisible fingers over porcelain vases, the long polished table and carved chairs, paintings in gilded frames. She stands at the window as a man enters, delivering a tray with glasses of water.
“How is the waterwheel working out?” Mikel asks as he sinks into a chair across from us.
“Couldn’t be better.” Priest replies. “A generous gift I wish we could repay.” He leans forward, elbows on his knees, and glances briefly at my sister before addressing me, “The Fortress constructed our wheel. They have skills and knowledge we lack.”
“And we’re happy to help.” Mikel smiles. “You’re existence softens the blow when we’re forced to cast the ill out.”
“The Touched aren’t ill,” Priest says, looking down at his stunted arm.
“I didn’t mean
ill
as in
diseased
,” Mikel explains gently. “I mean—”
“—spectacularly enhanced?” I offer.
The commander glances at me, raises his eyebrow, and laughs. “Just so.”
“I suppose you haven’t given any more thought to letting us join you,” Priest asks.
“Our duty remains,” Mikel replies, his demeanor losing its informality as he rolls into what seems a practiced speech, clearly for my enlightenment. “The Survivors before us made sacrifices that to disregard now would constitute generations of betrayal. We’re the Forerunners of a new civilization, and it behooves us to populate the world with those who have the greatest chance of survival.” He leans forward, speaking soberly to Priest. “There’s also the matter of risk. The Touch is dangerous, a threat.”
“No more than—”
“I understand,” the commander cuts him off, “that it’s not the weapon, but the wielder. I’m sorry. You know it’s not entirely up to me.”
Whether Priest believes that last statement is debatable. Frustration almost oozes from his skin, his whole body struggling for calm as his jaw works to form words he’ll leave unspoken. He drags in a deep breath and lets the tension flow out. “I actually came to escort Rimma here. She wishes to remain at the Fortress.”
“Not happy at the Colony?” he asks me, the charming rogue returned, his head at a tilt.
“A bit serene for my tastes,” I reply, meeting his eyes.
“Ah, and what are your talents?”
“Agriculture and crossbow.”
The man laughs. “An odd combination.”
“I have an untamed side, shall we say.”
“Intriguing,” he says, sipping from his glass of water.
“The Colony’s found me unmanageable,” I add, a hint of challenge in my voice.
Out of the corner of my eye, I note Priest’s warning frown, Angel studying me from the window. But I know what I’m doing. This is how Rune taught me to fight. Lure them in and strike. “Do you think you can handle me, Mikel? Can your fortress keep me entertained?” A tantalizing smile edges my lips as I hold the commander’ eyes. He’s like Greeb, easy to taunt. “From what I’ve seen, other than this room, your city is a shithole.”
“Rimma.” Priest bolts from his chair. My gray eyes remain riveted to Mikel’s blues, ignoring Priest’s fury, my sister’s horror. My lips parted, I dare Mikel to tame me.
Mikel’s hand snaps up to hold Priest at bay. “It’s alright.”
Shaking his head, Priest retreats to the window. He appears to lean into the view, but it’s Angel he touches, Angel who clings to him.
“So, my city’s a shithole? You’re a hard woman to please.”
“I have simple tastes actually, easily amused.”
“How might I amuse you, Rimma?” Mikel asks me.
“A trade,” I reply, leaning toward him. “What I want for what you want.”
“That depends on what you’re asking and offering,” he says with a smile.
“To start, I want a crossbow. One I select.”
“Done.”
“I defend the Fortress. Outside the walls.”
Mikel laughs at me. “That’s soldier’s work. You’re not a soldier.”
“You don’t know what I am.”
His head drops back as he rubs his eyes with one hand, then looks back at me. “If Cullan reports that you have the skills.”
“Fine.” I smile at him. “Last, I want my twin sister to live with me, up here, under your protection.”
“Your twin?” Mikel raises an eyebrow. Priest and Angel stare at me. “Is she in the city?”
“She’s nearer than you think.”
“And what do I get from this bargain?”
“Me.”
22
~Angel~
Our room lies just down the corridor from Mikel’s chambers, wide windows gazing east over more ambling wall, more cluttered city, thirsty pastures and ripening gardens. It’s furnished with floral carpets and carved clothes chests, a wide bed smelling of clean linens and topped with a feathered-stuffed blanket, gold tassels fringing the edge. Instead of pictures, the walls display round glass plates in a kaleidoscope of vivid colors, but transparent with ripples of metal buried inside, shimmering like water in sunlight.
Fully dressed, Rimma lies on her back on the bed, arms spread, still in her boots. Soon she’ll bathe and dress in the liquid silks a woman delivered to our room. She’ll return to Mikel’s quarters to do his bidding, to fulfill her bargain. Before nightfall, I’ll accompany Priest beyond the gallows and bid him farewell at the gate. All of it so wrong.
“Stop sulking,” Rimma complains to me. “I said you wouldn’t need to be invisible. Now you exist.”
“But you don’t love him!” I feel as though I’m screeching.
“I wasn’t made for loving, Angel.” She stares at the ceiling. “That woman died in Heaven with our father, maybe with Max. Maybe a little bit with Rune. I’m made for fucking, and I’m sure as hell getting everything I want in trade.”
“What
exactly
do you want, Rimma?” My back to the window, I cross my arms, my face flushed with anger. “What precisely do you want? What are your dreams? Where is your heart?”
“Dead,” she muses, “absent, lost. I don’t care for your questions or accusations.”
“I’m not—”
“Why do you think Priest brought me up here?” she asks me. “He must have known what kind of man Mikel is, how he’d respond to me. Priest used my appearance, my allure to secure your safety. I merely went along with his plan.”
“This wasn’t his plan,” I shout furiously. “He wanted to help us, protect us.”
“Don’t you find it interesting that men as the group both create the danger to us and then propose to deliver us from it, dole out protection in exchange for our service, loyalty, and compliance?”
“You paint the whole world and everyone in it with the same malevolent brush. You want to destroy,” I accuse her, tears cracking open my despair. “You want to kill, not only the wicked or the obstacles standing in the way of happiness. You want to sacrifice everything that’s good, everything hopeful, everyone who tries. Why heal the broken world when you can lay it low, tear every seed from the ground and leave it fallow?”
Her steel eyes leave the ceiling to gaze at me, softening with her voice. “Not everything or everyone, not you, Angel.”
I hang my head, the heels of my hands pressed to my eyelids. “You make choices without care for consequences, Rimma, just as the deceivers did. You build your own bone wall.”
**
“I didn’t intend this to happen,” Priest says from the door. His eyes seem to ponder the room’s luxury but without truly seeing it. “I…don’t know what I thought,” he admits. “That you wouldn’t need to live down there or out beyond the wall.” He joins me at the window.” I didn’t expect Rimma…I don’t understand her, Angel. I witness all that intensity, all that conflict churning inside her, and then at the same time, she radiates cold loathing and a searing thrill. They almost snuff each other out, leaving nothing.”
“It’s done,” I say. “She believes she did it to give me a life here.”
“Sometimes I can’t decide if she’s an angel or devil,” he confesses.
“I’m not sure either wholly exists without a hint of the other.” I slide my arms around him, resting my head on his chest. He feels warm, solid, and human, and with him, I’m a woman of blood and bone. Without him, I must be real on my own, conjure a genuine life for myself within these new walls.
Soon he’ll leave and rescue Chantri and Tannis from the outer city, but that hour lies a distance away. I draw him to the bed, not letting the chance slip away to feel his skin against mine, the grip of his hand moving me, the gentle probing of his fingers, intimate sounds and smells of our bodies entwined. He softens the light, cocoons us in our private world where only we exist, where love is the supreme creator, the driver of choice and action.
My body surrenders to the slowness, moments lingering in the half-light, storing each sensation, each sticky, wet, sweating caress, each whispered breath for the lonely days between now and when I meet him again. I hold closely the feel of his hair, the smooth, rich ebony of his skin, the slant of his dark eyes, his handless arm. My lips study the line of his jaw, track the contours of his shoulders as his hips rock against me. We mar the clean linens with our road-worn bodies, with a growing mischievousness, a clutching, clawing, desperate need to dissolve into each other. I roll on top of him, finish him, my own back arched, body pulsing, fighting me for release and letting go.
An hour later, Priest offers a final promise to return, a farewell kiss, and leaves me inside the gate, the gallows at my back. With my loss crammed down my throat, I stray through the market as it winds down with the sun, its colors deepening in the glow of sunset. The gallows have surrendered their victims, and I wonder when the next bodies will hang and who will notice.
Little of the ancient beauty safeguarded on the stronghold’s seventh floor reflects on the rest of the city. The structures are functional, the roads efficient, the market goods practical, wools limited to reds, browns, and yellow, metalware pounded into purposeful shape, clay cookware the same ochre hues of the wall. Citizens dress in light wools, linens, ragwear, and leather shoes. As far as I can tell, the common soldiers knot red bands around their upper arms, while the officers wear red stripes or triangles stitched to their sleeves. Other than knives, the only weapons seem to rest in the soldier’s hands. I suppose my sister will stand among their ranks soon.
As I amble up to the stronghold, I wonder if the city’s water comes from the river, and how they pump it up here, if they have a waterwheel and mill rolling with the current. The ripe smell of sewage rises from grates at the road’s edge and I wonder too, if it slides in a thick ooze back to the very same water.
“Rimma.” I start at the name to see the major jogging up behind me, his tawny hair tied back in a tail, a sword at his hip.
“I’m Angel,” I reply, stopping to wait for him.
Rather abruptly, he slows his pace, brow furrowed in confusion. “Uh…what?”
“I’m her twin,” I explain, taking pity on him.
“Her twin?” He still appears addled.
“That means we were born together. We look alike.”
“Identical,” he says.
“That’s why it’s called identical twins.” I start up the road again and he falls in step with me.
“You could be the same person,” he observes, warily narrowing his eyes.
“Not very likely,” I offer. “I think you’ll notice a difference when you come to know us.”
“I didn’t see you earlier.”
“Because I arrived later.” I squint at him. “You have a very suspicious nature.”
“Not usually,” he protests, skepticism still plain on his face. “I’m Cullan, Major Cullan,” he introduces himself, “But Cullan is fine.”