As I rushed around the living room, I felt removed from my body. That every little action I took, every step to leave my home was driven by pure instinct.
My grandmother hurried over to me as Dreya’s father gathered up the contents of the pack and tried again in vain to make Dreya take them.
“I wish we had more time,” my grandmother said, eyes welled up with tears. “There’s so much more I have to tell you, so much I kept from you, so much more you don’t know yet.”
I tossed the bag over my shoulder and looked over at Kenzi, who attempted to put it on. He kept accidentally zapping the bag each time it slapped against his back, which would otherwise have been comical.
“You need to take care of him, Caenum,” my grandmother said, looking at Kenzi with concern; “he’s so alone, so vulnerable. Remember, I helped your father, no matter how complicated things became afterward. And then, you came into the world. Great things can happen if you just take the time to help, take the risk, take the chance.” She reached out and grabbed my shoulders, pulled me close. “Now go.”
At this, she wedged a piece of leathery parchment into my hands. I unfolded it quickly, revealing a messy map with scrawled-out instructions.
Across the farm, through the ancient woods, and beyond the river and falls. Over the mountains.
Where the sun sleeps between two peaks.
“B-but I don’t,” I stammered as she closed my hand around the leather scrap, wedging it into my bag. The sun sleeps between two peaks? What did that even mean?
“Trust me, all the answers you need are there.” Thick tears streamed into her gray hair, but her voice was strong, resolute. “Now you need to go. Keep Kenzi covered.”
I turned to Kenzi, now dressed in a thick leather poncho. Under the hood, I could see his stark white hair, and his Ink pulsing ever so slightly, like he had a candle hidden in his jacket. He fussed with a pair of leather gloves, and pulled them over his hands.
“Make sure you get them back, after he’s found some proper clothes. Those gloves were your father’s,” my grandmother said to me softly. “He’d have wanted you to have them.”
I smiled faintly and nodded.
“I love you,” my grandmother said, hugging me tightly.
“I love you too,” I said.
“Go!” she said, covering her face with one hand, shooing me with the other. I nodded at Kenzi, who secured his hood over his head.
I looked over at Dreya, who stood resolutely with her father, the bag at her feet, her cheeks slick with tears. I walked toward her and she shook her head, thick tears streaming from the corners of her eyes.
“I can’t,” she said, and opened her glistening eyes to look down at the bag.
For a beat we just stared at each other.
“I’ll come back for you,” I said, and hoisted my bag over my back.
She smiled and I opened the door. I could hear the mob growing closer, and as I peered out into the night, I saw the torches and lanterns that approached from down the road. It wasn’t the Citadel Guard.
It was the townspeople.
I looked back to my grandmother, to Dreya and her father, dumbstruck. “What they are doing?”
“They’re probably afraid of what will happen when the Guard gets here,” Dreya’s father said, shaking his head. “Get moving.”
Dreya and her father walked out the door and hurried toward their house. I caught her looking back at me, her amber eyes full of sorrow, glistening in the weak light. She turned away and was whisked inside, the door closing briskly behind her.
I turned and looked at my grandmother.
“Run, Caenum. Run and don’t look back.”
“Slow down!” Kenzi said as we tore through berry patches and long wisps of grain. “I can’t . . . I can’t run that fast in this thing.” I turned around to see him stumble and stop to fuss with the poncho Dreya’s father had given him.
“Kenzi!” I yelled despite the oncoming threat. “Stop that! Stop that right now!”
The horrifying, warm glow from their torches now illuminated my grandmother’s house. They had already reached the end of the dirt road that led to the hill.
“Let me just bunch it up a little,” Kenzi said, rolling the bottom of the poncho and tying the edges into a knot. His legs were covered by his long pants, his glowing Ink completely covered. “See, I’ll be able to run faster if . . . there!” He stood back up proudly with a smile on his face, as his hood fell back off his head.
“Kenzi!” I shouted again. “Cover up!”
A small burst of light shot from around his neck and he hurriedly pulled the hood back on over his head. Standing next to him, we looked up at the hill silently. Could they have spotted that small flash?
The eerie orange glow that lit up my home began to shine brighter, bits of light beaming out through the thatched roof like a halo. It started to shift, growing as it reached the side of the house.
“Over here!” I heard a voice yell. “I think I saw something down this way!”
Damn it.
“Come on!” I grumbled and grabbed Kenzi’s arm. He zapped me again through the fabric. “Ow!” I gasped.
“Sorry, sorry,” he said sheepishly. He shook me off and held the poncho down over his head.
We made for the meadows beyond the farm, still smashing through brambles and . . . corn? Tomato plants? Sunflowers? I couldn’t tell—my heart was pounding, my mind swimming.
What would they do if they caught us?
Kenzi and I both stumbled as we reached the end of the farm and entered the meadows of soft grass.
“Are we almost there?” Kenzi whispered.
“Yeah,” I said. “The forest is just up ahead. Stay with me.”
“Caenum,” Kenzi said breathlessly as we continued our run through the meadows, “I’m sorry about all of this.”
“Now,” I huffed, “now really isn’t the time.”
A bolt of orange light whizzed past us with a loud swish, nearly missing me, and crashed into the meadows. The fields were immediately lit up a brilliant gold, the tall grasses lighting up yellow and orange.
Fire.
I looked left and right and to Kenzi, panicked. To the left, flames that were quickly spreading, off to the right, more rolling meadows with nowhere to hide. Behind us, the angry mob, and in front of us, the beckoning ancient woods.
There was officially nowhere else to go.
“There they are!” shouted a voice by the farm. “In the meadow!”
“Go!” I yelled, and Kenzi hoisted up his poncho and tore off. I felt a rush of pain course through my body and patted myself down, only to realize that I wasn’t on fire. I continued to run toward the woods, growing annoyed at the heated little pricks irritating my skin. “Keep going!”
Kenzi and I ran side by side as we made for the forest. He held one free hand over his head and tried to keep the poncho down, his other, outstretched, felt frantically for anything in front of him. In the faint glow under his hood, I could see his eyes, the blue-white light illuminating his face. He squinted, as if he expected to crash into something at any moment.
As the trees grew closer, I felt a rush of adrenaline shoot through my body.
“We’re almost there, Kenzi! I can smell the trees!”
I heard him breathe a sigh of relief. The townsfolk were haphazardly making their way through the burning brush, and I heard several shrieks.
I reached out and slowed Kenzi when the trees were a mere dozen feet away. I hoped that the townsfolk would run blundering into the thick trunks of the pines lining the outskirts. Even with torches or lanterns, they could still surprise you if you weren’t paying attention.
As we stepped into the forest, we tiptoed carefully through the first few trees and wove our way in and out of the trunks, autumn leaves, and fallen twigs crunching under our feet as we rushed along. I winced.
“We’ll have to go quietly,” I whispered at Kenzi, as the snapping continued underfoot.
Kenzi nodded at me.
We continued for a beat, weaving in and out together, Kenzi a few feet behind me and, thankfully, easy to keep an eye on because of the pale light under his hood.
“Try not to turn around,” I said. “They’ll see your face in the trees.”
He nodded again.
“Last thing we need is—” I stopped, and my heart raced as I turned to look at Kenzi and saw a looming shadow in the distance, the reach of a silhouette creeping slowly across the woods, filling in the illuminated ground with the thin, wispy shadows of menacing people. “Run!”
They had reached the forest faster than I had anticipated. I cursed under my breath. I heard Kenzi swearing as he bumped into branch after branch, and my own curses accompanied him, as I scraped against thick tree trunks and sharp bushes. But soon we’d be at the stream, and then we’d be in the clear.
Abruptly, that brief moment of relief was swept away by the sound of a body hitting the earth.
Kenzi howled and I spun around. He was on his back grasping at his ankle, the bottom of his poncho wrapped around an outstretched branch, forming a tent over the bottom of his body. The soft light from his hood illuminated his ankle, which was in bad shape.
“Damn it,” I muttered to myself.
Kenzi groaned, grabbing his ankle.
“Can you—” I started.
“I don’t think I can walk,” he said, barely a whisper through his gritted teeth, answering my unspoken question. I tried to hoist him up but he screamed as he stood on his injured ankle, falling back to the ground. I looked up and spotted several of the torches stopping in their tracks. They had to have heard him.
“Shh,” I whispered, shushing. “I know it hurts, but you have to keep quiet.”
“You’re going to have to leave me,” Kenzi said, sitting up, holding his ankle.
I scoffed. “Not a chance.” I bent down and picked him up again, forcibly swinging his arm over my shoulder, which promptly zapped my neck. I gritted my teeth through the charge. Having his arm up in the air like that opened his poncho even more, lighting me and the surrounding spot around us up as if he had a lantern tucked under there. I pulled at his long sleeves to conceal his lit-up arms and Kenzi tried to fuss with the poncho, but there was no way we could move without it bunched up.
“Caenum, you can’t . . . ,” he started.
“I’m not leaving you like this. You know how much trouble my grandmother is already in, along with Dreya and her entire family?”
“B-but I,” he stammered.
“Suck it up!” I barked, hoisting him up higher. “You’re stuck with me.”
Kenzi softly grunted in agreement, and we shuffled on across the forest floor. Navigating between the trees wasn’t something two people could do comfortably. I had to keep walking us sideways through tight spaces and, sometimes, backtrack around entire bunches of thickly planted trees. Our progress had slowed practically to a crawl. For every couple of feet forward we went, we had to backtrack almost half of that,
The voices were getting closer.
“Caenum,” Kenzi said faintly, pulling back on me.
“Keep going,” I said, dragging him along.
“Caenum,” he continued. “Caenum, stop.”
He pulled back and let himself fall to the ground. I almost went with him, but he let his arm go and pushed me off. “Come on,” I said. “Get up.”
I looked up. The mob was almost upon us and I could make out some faces in the torchlight.
“We aren’t going to make it,” Kenzi said, and shifted uncomfortably on the ground.
“Yes we are!” I yelled, and grabbed at his arm, trying to pull him back up. He lurched his arm back, sending me tumbling into the black night, crashing against a tree. I fell to the ground, bits of earth and broken twigs pressing themselves painfully into the palms of my hands as I forced myself back up, my body smarting from the fall. But as I glanced up at Kenzi, he was lifting himself up, leaning against a tree . . .
And taking off his poncho.
“Kenzi!” I yelled, clumsily walking my way toward him, bumping against bramble and tree trunks. “Stop, they’re going to see you!”
“Good,” he said, and pulled off his hood. The area around him glowed with his eerie blue-white light.
He pulled off the leather gloves my grandmother had given him, stuffing them into his pockets, and balled his hands into fists. The air around him crackled and my skin started to tickle. I held out a hand to grab his shoulder but stopped when I saw the hair on my arms starting to stand on end.
“Kenzi,” I said, the townsfolk approaching, mad looks in their eyes. “Kenzi, what are you doing?”
“Stopping them,” he said coldly. He looked back at me, his eyes a brilliant white, pools of hazy smoke pouring from them. He opened his mouth to speak, a white light shining on and shutting off with each word, like a white firefly was trapped inside his throat. “Stand back.”
“Kenzi, no!”
But it was too late.
He let out a scream, at which several of the villagers slowed, then turned to run. Light radiated off of him, like a fallen star. The air crackled, my skin buzzed, small bolts of lightning emanated from him, setting branches on neighboring trees aflame.
I scrambled backward as the villagers made their way for the meadows. Kenzi opened his outstretched palm, and a thick, jagged bolt of electricity burst through the trees, leaving empty singed husks in its wake. The bolt licked across several townsfolk, and they crashed to the ground, shaking wildly, as if in a seizure. The smell of the lightning’s energy filled the air, a mixture of burning leaves and a sharp, sulfur smell that stuck to the back my throat. The ancient oaks crashed around the retreating mob, as the sounds of falling timber and screams echoed into the evening.
Kenzi’s shoulders drooped as the light slowly faded. I cautiously approached him.
“Kenzi?” I asked, reaching out to touch his shoulder. “Kenzi we should go.”
He spun around, his manic eyes opaque. He opened his mouth and growled, the white light still shining from inside his body. All at once he stood upright, seemingly reenergized. He outstretched his arms, his fingers spread wide, like he was trying to grasp something enormous.
“Kenzi, stop!” I protested. “They’re leaving. They’re retreating. You did it!”
But he wouldn’t.
He pulled his arms in toward his chest and lowered himself down, as if he were about to duck. And then he sprang up, hurling his arms back out and jumping from the ground, sending a spherical charge from his body through the woods, rushing over the earth in all directions, changing the night into a brilliant, terrifying white blast. The sphere of energy sent me hurtling too, and as I slumped to the ground, the world went black.