Shadow Heart (2 page)

“Don’t you want to know my
first
name?”

“I already know it, Elizabeth.”

Liz winced, “I don’t like to be called Elizabeth. That’s what the boys call me when they tease me. My friends call me Lizzie.”

“That’s a shame,” Aurora frowned. “Elizabeth is such a good name. A strong name, one that you might want to use again one day.”

Liz doubted that would ever happen, but she didn’t want to be rude. “How did you know my name? Do you know me?”

“I know your name because I gave it to you. I’m your mother, Elizabeth.”

Liz paled, the breath stolen from her lungs. Her mother? But that couldn’t be true. She was an orphan, and orphans had no parents—at least, that’s what the matron and the Discipliner had told her. But when she looked in Aurora’s eyes, she saw the same brilliant blue that shone back at her from a mirror. The golden curls of hair were prettier—cleaner—than her own, but with a good wash hers might have that same glow. Even Aurora’s full lips and high cheekbones were familiar.

Her doubt became wonder, and then almost as quickly, despair. “But then…why would you leave me here? I don’t belong if I’m not an orphan. Have you come to take me away?” Her eyes alighted at the notion, and she even acknowledged a willingness to forgive her mother of the past if she would save her now. But the answer just drove the blade of sorrow even deeper.

“No, Elizabeth. I’m sorry, but I can’t take you with me. I have to flee the city, and to succeed I must be a ghost. I won’t make it if you’re with me.”

“You’re leaving me to save yourself?”

Aurora recoiled as though Liz had slapped her, “It is not that simple. The road I must take is a dangerous one, and if we are found together your father will find you. And that...that must never happen, Elizabeth. You will be safe here.”

“Safe?” Liz felt a lump rise in her throat.
I won’t cry
, she assured herself.
Soldiers do not cry
. But there was at least one hope, “My father is alive?”

“For now,” Aurora replied, voice dripping with venom. “But put away any thoughts of seeking him out. He knows nothing of you, Elizabeth. He thinks you died when you were born. You could walk up to him on the street and to him you would just be another filthy gutter rat. Pray, for your own sake, that it stays that way.”

Liz gazed upon her mother and realized that the word beautiful could no longer describe her. There was no light in her eyes, no compassion on her face. She was wretched, cruel, and dark. “I wish I really was an orphan,” she said, staring straight into the icy depths of Aurora’s eyes. “I wish I had no mother.”

“I suppose I shouldn’t feel guilty, then, that I spent the past six years wishing you had not been born. You were the reason I was cast out of favor. Consider us even.” The lines of her face turned harsh, consuming what remained of her beauty. “It was a mistake to come here. I thought I might see something of myself in you, something that would make all I have gone through worth it, but all I see is…
him
. I must go. Do not follow me.”

As her mother turned to leave, Liz could hold back no longer, “Did you ever love me?”

Aurora paused with her hand on the doorknob, and sighed, “When they placed you in my arms there was nothing in the world I loved more. But then they tore you away, and with it…my soul. Since then I have known only survival. If there is one piece of wisdom with which I would leave you, it is this: do not love; do not
desire
love. Love is a tempting weakness, and it will surely destroy you. Goodbye, Elizabeth.”

“Wait!” Liz pleaded, suddenly remembering what she had done upstairs and how much trouble she would be in. “Please, take me with you. I don’t care if you love me. I don’t care if you’re a bad person. I just want to run away.”

Her mother paused for one moment more, and then slipped through the door without another word. Liz rushed out behind her into the dark hallway, but her mother had already vanished. To succeed, her mother had said, she had to be a ghost.
That’s all you’ve ever been to me,
Liz thought.
It’s all you will ever be
.

But she didn’t need her mother or anyone else to escape. She could do that on her own. The matron and the Discipliner were probably still at the entrance. If she could make it to the back door, then she might have a shot. She turned and plowed right into a wall.

Liz grunted, barely registering at first that it was not an actual wall, but the body of a man. A strong hand reached down and took hold of her hair, forcing her to look up into his face as he sneered, “What are you doing down here, Dear Elizabeth? And how did you get out of that room?”

“I broke out!” she declared. “I destroyed your program and used the glass to open the door. I’m
resourceful
.”

“Indeed you are,” the Discipliner said, flashing a grin that betrayed his pride. “No child has ever broken out of that room. I suppose there is a first time for everything.” His hand tightened in her hair, and she felt a few strands pull free from her scalp. “But you’re a bit too resourceful for your own good, and obstinate. We’ll have to break you of that.”

He dragged her down the hallway by her hair, her eyes watering from the pain. She hated that he managed to draw tears from her—and hated even more that she could not control them—but she would not show fear. She knew the room where he was taking her. The other children lived in terror of it, but she would take it over the room with the monitors any day.

He opened the door and shoved her inside, “24 hours in darkness should do you good. We’ll talk when you’ve had time to think about what you’ve done.” He slammed the door, stealing away all light so she couldn’t even see her hand in front of her face.

Liz balled that hand into a fist and immediately regretted it, as the scabs trying to form on her sliced palms tore open once again. She felt fresh blood trickle down her wrist, and sighed angrily. So much effort, all for nothing.

A whimper sounded from somewhere in the room and her back went rigid: she was not alone. At first she didn’t know what to think. The Discipliner had never put her in the room with another person before. Was this some kind of special punishment? Would she have to fight in the dark?

“Who’s there?” she demanded. “I’m not afraid of you!”

The whimper came again, and she caught a distinct smell in the room, musty and dull like the ground after a hard rain. She knew there was a storm outside, and deduced logically that this person had to have just come in from it. Her unknown companion moved, and she heard the squish of drenched clothing. His breath was staccato, almost as though his teeth were chattering.

“Who are you?” she asked. “Are you an orphan?”

At that the whimper broke down into a choked sob, and she knew she shared the room with a child around her own age—a boy, she guessed, whose shivering sobs grated against her nerves.

Is this my punishment? To be in the same room with someone while they freeze to death
?

“Stop crying,” she ordered. “Crying is a sign of weakness. Soldiers don’t cry.”

“I…I’m not—I’m not a soldier,” the child stammered. “A-and I’m n-not weak.”

“Then grow up. Quit acting like a child.”

“But I am. I’m just six years old.”

“I’m six, too, dummy. That doesn’t mean anything. There are no children behind these walls, the Discipliner says so.”

“The…who?”

“The Discipliner,” Liz repeated. “He trains us to be soldiers. If we pass our OPE we get to stay at the orphanage. If we fail the matron sells us into slavery. Anyway, he was probably the one who put you in here.”

“Him? He was scary.”

“To you, maybe,” Liz snorted. “But I’m not afraid of anything.”

“Are you an orphan?”

I used to be
. Liz’s thoughts returned to her mother, hardly able to believe she had been in her presence just moments before. If there was one way she was exactly like the other children, it was that she wondered what having a family would be like. She daydreamed about feeling safe in the arms of a father, or comforted by the words of a mother. But no longer. If parents were all like that woman she had just seen, she wanted no part of them.

“I asked you first,” she said.

“My dad died today,” the child said sadly. “And I think maybe…maybe my mom, too.”

Liz was glad the darkness hid her shock. She didn’t want this boy to know too much about her. But to have
both
parents die in
one day
? It seemed strange. “Where did you come from?”

“I don’t know. Out there, in the city.”

“I figured that one out already,” she snapped. “But where do you live? Where is your house?” If there had been a battle somewhere in the city then she wanted to know about it. Maybe, if she was lucky, this kid could help her slip away and show her where it was.

“Not a house,” came the reply. “A secret place.”

“Like a base?” she asked, her blood pumping. Some of the older kids talked about one hidden somewhere in the northeastern ruins that the Great Army could never find. “A rebel base? Are
you
a rebel?” Liz had never felt more excited to meet someone in her entire life. It almost drove thoughts of her mother completely from her mind.

“We’re not rebels,” the boy said. “We’re the good guys!”

“Everyone thinks that, stupid, no matter what side they’re on,” Liz shook her head. “The Discipliner is going to give you a harder time than me, I think.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like I said, he trains us to be soldiers. And if you’re here, that means you’re going to be one, too…for the Great Army.”

The boy gasped, “Never. I’ll never fight for them. I’d rather…I’d rather be dead!”

Liz grinned. Maybe she liked this kid after all. “If you’re going to fight against them, you’ll need a friend to help you.”

“None of my friends are here.”

“We can be friends. I can be your friend.”

“But I…I don’t even know your name.”

“Lizzie. That’s what my friends call me. Or at least they would,” she admitted. “If I had any.”

“I’ll call you Lizzie, then.”

A moment of awkward silence passed. “Well? Are you going to tell me yours?”

“Okay,” the boy said. “As long as we’re friends.”

“We are.”

“I’m Elijah…Elijah Charity.”

E
LIZABETH
A
URORA SAT UP
on the luxurious bed and stretched, welcoming the cold air as it kissed her bare skin. Not many soldiers were housed in such comfort, but being Chief of Command to the Imperial Conglomerate of Cities was not without its advantages. Still, she believed she would have slept soundly on a concrete floor so long as it was within the borders of a city.

A life spent within the world’s urban domains could not have prepared her for the past year of roaming in the Wilderness, where the untamed wildlife of earth had retaken lands fled by humans while in the throes of war and starvation. Cities almost always maintained a subtle buzz of activity, even past curfew. Not so in the Wilderness. Outside the cities there was only silence, pierced occasionally by the sounds of the wild—predators who roared in victory while prey called out in despair.

That sound still haunted her dreams.

She dressed quickly, keenly aware of the approaching dawn, and thought hard upon the dream from which she had just woken. There was no doubt it was a memory, though it was the first time she had ever seen it so vividly. Perhaps she had repressed it, desiring to forget the terrible meeting with the woman who called herself Liz’s mother.

But then she remembered Sullivan’s words a year before concerning Elijah Charity.
His memories were modified—and perhaps yours as well to better keep the secret—but I have reason to believe they will return
. Would the Discipliner have gone that far? Would he have erased her memory of the night 301 came into her life?
Yes,
she decided.
There’s nothing that man would not do if it suited his interests
.

The recovery of the memory presented an interesting problem, however. Sullivan claimed her family was on Domination Crisis Eleven. But if her mother had come to her when she was six years old—well after the construction of the barrier that sealed the islands away from the rest of the world—then there was no way she could be there.

Liz walked to the table in the outer chamber of her quarters and unrolled the new world map. Half a century before there had been hundreds of thousands—millions—of cities spread out haphazardly across the globe, planted wherever a new growth of humanity demanded it. But the Persian Resurgence and the World System’s subsequent rise had brought that to a swift and tragic end.

Of those many millions, only a fraction remained. And of the 21 cities that had once formed the World System, just 13 remained under their control. Those were marked in blue and limited to the continents of North and South America. The 8 Imperial divisions—5 in Europe, 3 in Australia—were marked in red. At first glance the odds seemed to heavily favor the World System, but there was also the continent of Africa to consider, colored in three shades of pink.

The Tripartite, formerly a territory subservient to the World System, had thrown in its lot with the Imperial Conglomerate of Cities. The Imperial Citadel had agreed to grant them autonomy on condition of victory, though Liz doubted Sullivan or his High Council would ever give up the resource-rich landmass. He might bring them and their meager towns into the Conglomerate, which was more than they would get from Napoleon Alexander, but they would never gain their freedom so long as the High Council ruled.