Defiance: The Umbra Chronicles Book 2 Read online

  ‘Right,’ I said briskly. ‘Wake up. Get up. Wash your face. You’ve been in Cairnagorn before, you know where to go to get cleaned up. As soon as we can, we’re going to Caillen to get you settled.’

  ‘Settled?’ she asked, sitting up and pushing her long, dark hair out of her eyes. ‘What do you mean, settled?’

  ‘We’ll get you a new Guardian, Sparrow. There are some good ones.’

  She frowned. ‘Why do you say, get me a new Guardian? What about you?’

  ‘I’m too old for a Guardian,’ I lied. The previous Winter Solstice we’d come for the changeover ceremony, I’d petitioned the Master for the right to live independently. He’d told me that we would have to wait until we’d completed our eighteenth year. The next Winter Solstice, when we were nineteen and all properly grown up, he’d informed me that we were going to live under the care of the creepyguardians all our lives.

  The girl in front of me didn’t need to know that, though. Let her believe that she still had some hope for freedom. My life was already ruined; hers didn’t have to be.

  Lynnevet stood up and dusted the light covering of leaf litter from her clothes, grimacing when she saw the stain left by the damp moss we’d slept in all night. ‘If you’re too old for a Guardian, why can’t you be my guardian?’ she asked.

  Clearly, I was the one with the magic, not the brains.

  ‘Because,’ I said shortly. She looked at me suspiciously, as she had every right to do, but went off in search of one of the little rivulets that flowed constantly through Cairnagorn. She was back five minutes later, her hair slicked back from her face and pulled into a tidy braid.

  ‘All right then,’ she said, and we left the ruins where we’d slept. At the gates of the city, she turned to me again. ‘How are we supposed to get to Caillen? It’s a day’s travel at least. We don’t have any food or water and anyone who passes us on the road is going to report us to the authorities. We’ll be burned if they find out we have magic, the Guardians always said.’

  I’d forgotten about that ‒ the creepyguardians had instilled in us a fear of being reported to the authorities. Who the authorities were and what they wanted with two little girls was never something they explained and never something either of us dared to ask. It was like asking why we were at war. It was just the way it was.

  ‘We spent the night under the moon,’ I said. ‘We can turn into birds and fly to the hive.’

  ‘It was only one night and the moon wasn’t full,’ Lynnevet said dubiously. ‘I don’t have much magic yet.’

  I didn’t have much either. As she’d said, it was only one night and the moon wasn’t full. Still, we had to get to Caillen somehow. I had to ditch Lynnevet, so I could get where I was going. And there was something I needed to do in Caillen, something even more important than Lynnevet.

  ‘We’ll fly as far as we can,’ I said. ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’

  ‘We can plunge to our deaths, Emer.’

  ‘Hmm. Yeah. Oh, well.’ I shrugged and Lynnevet started to laugh a little hysterically. ‘Come on. You can ride on my back. Hop onto my shoulders and turn into something small and I’ll fly us both to Caillen.’

  I turned myself into a hawk and Lynnevet rode as a flea, holding on tight between my wings. We survived the trip, which was, given the low bar I’d set for success today, something of an achievement. As we rode the highest, warmest currents, I glimpsed soldiers moving far below. Caillen was dangerously close to the Front, where the forces of the White Queen and Dark Queen were currently contesting territory.

  By the time we arrived, I could feel my feathers itching, a sure sign that I wasn’t far from having them turn back into fingers, but I wasn’t about to tell Lynnevet that.

  We couldn’t just march into Caillen. The Master of the Order of the Guardians lived there, but they were a secret Order. They only wore their insignia during their secret meetings. I didn’t even know exactly where the changeover ceremony was held. Every time Sparrow and I were taken there we’d been told to transform ourselves into something small, like an insect or a small bird, and put into a covered cage, both so we couldn’t see where we were going and so we wouldn’t be recognised. It wasn’t like I could just front up to the local guards and ask for directions. I was going to have to rely on one of the creepyguardians recognising me. And at the same time, I had to avoid recognition by anyone else.

  Lynnevet’s hand crept into mine as we emerged from our cover behind a rocky outcrop on the outside of the hive. ‘It’s all right, Sparrow,’ I whispered, helping her down the slope towards the hive entrance. ‘I’ve been here before, back when I was about your age.’

  ‘Really?’ she asked. ‘I don’t remember that.’

  I felt such a surge of relief that I nearly lost my footing. She ended up being the one who held me up. I put my other hand out to get my balance on the soaring stone of the hive. If it had happened to her, she would have remembered. I hadn’t been able to recall if she’d gone through the Portal before or after Maldwyn touched her. All of a sudden, I found myself breathing heavily. Was this her chance to live an ordinary life?

  We’d been here only a few days ago. The Winter Solstice had just passed and we’d been given a new Guardian, chosen by lot, the same as always. When I saw who it was, it was all I could do not to run out the door and throw myself into the river I heard washing beneath a bridge not far away. If it wasn’t for Sparrow, I would have. I would have been found the next day, washed up on some shore, some young woman with no name and no family and no grave to mark her name on, anyway.

  It’s always rivers for me. Rivers and mountains. I can’t cross either one without the urge to just let it all go nearly overpowering me. Some years had been worse than others. It all depended on which creepyguardian won the lot that year.

  Sparrow and I were raised by the creepyguardians. Sparrow says ‒ said ‒ I shouldn’t call them that, but I did it since we were children, and I’m not so good at letting go of the past as she is. They called themselves the Order of the Guardians which sounds very nice and protective, but when you’re a kid whose Guardian changes every year at the Winter Solstice, along with your address and your name, the strange people who come and go through your life, masquerading as trustworthy adults are really best described as… creepyguardians.

  The creepyguardian Order wasn’t large. There were only ever ten or twelve of them, give or take on an unfortunate year. One was chosen by lot annually when they gathered at the Winter Solstice to be this year’s Guardian of me and my sister. Last year we were called Ella and Emerald. This year, our new Guardian let Sparrow choose a new name, but he gave me the name he’d given me last time we were under his so-called care.

  To be fair, the Master and most of the other creepyguardians weren’t that creepy. There was just one or two who would have done the world a favour by being drowned at birth. They weren’t all monsters.

  We all know who the real monsters are. Oh, to laugh. Yes, any person who has ever looked at the world and looked inside themselves knows who the real monsters are.

  Some monsters, though… some monsters…

  Maldwyn was the worst I’d ever known, even worse than Aoife and I’d just made it my life’s work to kill her. Maldwyn had been our Guardian when we were thirteen. He’d done unspeakable things to me. I’d let it happen.

  As long as I live, I’ll never understand how I let it happen when I could have blasted him into nothingness. But I was only thirteen. I’d trusted him. So, when he told me I was a worthless piece of refuse, I had to believe it. Even Sparrow used to say that I wasn’t the nice one. Even at thirteen, I knew what lurked in my own heart. It wasn’t until I met Maldwyn, though, that I realised what darkness can lurk in the hearts of others.

  I could have done something. I had powerful magic, even then. I could have crushed him into dust on the wind, but it didn’t happen all at once and I was too young to know the danger I was in. He started slow, until I accepted it all as normal. A
touch here, a kiss there, a slap to follow, to teach me to behave. And behind it all, sly words that found their way into my soul, and I believed him when he said I was worthless, that no one would listen to me, that I deserved what I got.

  So, I’d tolerated it, until one day I’d gone home, and home was the same as home always was in those days. I’d been gone for a long time, mucking about in the ruins of the Library, grieving because I’d lost more than a little girl should ever have to lose.

  It should have been safe because Maldwyn was supposed to be working in Caillen that day. I never knew if it was because it was something he’d been planning, or if it was to punish me for being away so long, but when I opened the door of the apartment, he’d prepared a horror to wait for me.

  It was my Sparrow. Maldwyn was gone, but he’d left Sparrow behind. He’d done to her what he’d done to me.

  She didn’t even have to say it. I knew how it felt to have that look on my face.

  I ran out of the house, there and then. We lived in the ruins of Cairnagorn, the ancient seat of learning, the home of the Library, the centre of magical scholarship ‒ a ghost town. It had been built into the side of the mountain and when the dragons attacked, they flattened the city. Now that magic was outlawed, people avoided Cairnagorn and whispered to one another that it was haunted. There was no one around for miles. That was why Maldwyn kept us there.

  I flew to the next hive, a village built into the honeycombed centre of a mountain called Caillen and changed back into my own shape in a private place where no one saw me doing magic.

  I found my way to the Promenade, the centre of the hive. It was crowded ‒ but how do you grab a stranger by the shoulder and confess such an awful thing? And I’d been taught since my earliest days that strangers were dangerous. They might report me to the authorities.

  My breath caught when I got down to the level where the river ran through the broad cavern that passed for a public square. People were everywhere, selling and buying, carting water from the river. A guard was walking along the Promenade beside the river, moving in and out of the crowd, his black uniform standing out in the bright patterns worn by the rich people able to shop on the Prom. He was taller than most others around him and his shock of red hair made him stand out even more.

  I ran through the crowd. He kept moving along slowly, but I still had to race to keep up. I grabbed his arm. He turned and looked down at me politely.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry.’ I would have run away. I wanted so much to run away, but if I’d started running, I might never have stopped running. And then, oh, God, there was Maldwyn. I’d known that he worked in Caillen, but I hadn’t known where else to go. I looked up at the stranger and begged for my life.

  ‘Help, please help,’ I whispered.

  I took a step closer to him and to take that step made my very flesh crawl. I stumbled a little and he reached out a hand to save me.

  ‘Oh, God, please,’ I whispered.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked. He looked around, saw Maldwyn thrusting his way through the crowd to get to us.

  ‘Please, don’t let him hurt me again.’ Maybe he could tell I whispered those words every day of my life. He looked at me, really looked at me. I was only thirteen, nearly fourteen, but it was already obvious that the swelling of my stomach that still hadn’t gone down since the birth of my son a few days before wasn’t puppy fat.

  The guard’s handsome face went hard and he looked older all of a sudden. He’d seemed very young at first, but now he was an adult, a grown man, capable of dealing with the creepyguardian. He put a hand on my shoulder and the other hand he dropped down to rest on the hilt of his sword.

  ‘Can I help you, sir?’ the guard asked as Maldwyn drew near.

  ‘That’s my daughter you’re holding there,’ the creepyguardian said. We were supposed to call him ‘Father,’ but the thought of calling him ‘Father’ made me sick to my stomach. I couldn’t say the word, not even to the guard.

  ‘I’m not his daughter,’ I said, standing up tall and straight. I don’t know if I’d ever stood so tall in my life, but for the first time I felt like I was an adult, in charge of my own destiny. ‘And even if I was, there are some things you can do that break even the bonds of family. The things he has done to me, the things he has done to my sister…’

  That was as far as I got before I broke down. I’d never spoken aloud what he’d done to me and even there, with a kind stranger’s comforting hand on my shoulder, I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t blacken the day with the words. Besides, how do you say these things? How do you describe the unspeakable? And for all his kindness, the guard was a man, and the words I would have to use to describe what had been done were words I’d never used in front of anyone, not even Sparrow.

  I wasn’t so tall anymore. I wasn’t an adult. I was only a kid, and Maldwyn had done his best to break me. It had worked. I was broken. I curled my hands around my soft, swollen belly that no longer held my son and sobbed.

  The guard looked after me. He hailed another guard who must have been his partner, walking ahead of him, and they went with me all the way back to Cairnagorn. We flew on a dragon, the fastest way to travel, but the creepyguardians had always warned us that if we were seen by a Dragon Guard, they would report us to the authorities. The only thing that kept me there was the fact that Maldwyn was arrested and brought with us.

  In Cairnagorn they found our home, the only house inhabited among the ruins. They found Sparrow, still curled up on the floor.

  The guards turned their faces away. I pulled a sheet off the bed to cover her. She was all bruises, pallid and blue. They’d brought Maldwyn with them, his hands tied behind him. The first guard was holding him, and I really think if his partner hadn’t been there he would have killed Maldwyn. I wish he had. It would have saved us a lot of trouble.

  We went before a judge in a closed court to protect our privacy. He was an old man, thin and spry with a hooked nose like a bird’s beak. He commiserated with our plight. He ordered us to be placed under guardianship of the court. Sparrow didn’t even speak. Just another Guardian.

  The guard with the red hair was in the courtroom that day. He gave us his best wishes as we left the courtroom. I asked, with the directness of a child, if he could look after us. The judge looked disapproving, the guard looked shocked, so I didn’t pursue the idea further. I shook his hand like an adult.

  Sparrow didn’t shake his hand. She barely looked up these days. In the shock of what had been done to her, she hadn’t realised the full horror of what had been done to me, too, for months. I’d hidden it from her as much as I could ‒ the first secret between twins. I think the knowledge that I’d been hurt was worse for her than being hurt herself. I think that was when she stopped eating.

  We were placed in foster care for the night. We’d never known anything like it. A clean room, a warm bed, where we could huddle together and weep and whisper in our own language like we hadn’t done since we were children. The creepyguardians didn’t approve of secret languages. We’d been punished for it often enough.

  Our foster mother that night brought us a cup of cocoa each, to help us sleep. I suppose it was very late into the night. Who could sleep after that? But we sipped our cocoa and the sweetness of it brought sleep with it.

  We awoke in the morning to a new day. Our foster mother said that there was a home for us to go to. She took us through the early morning corridors of the Caillen hive, deserted at that hour. Our steps slowed when we reached the neighbourhood where we had lived briefly with Maldwyn, before he took us to Cairnagorn. We stopped dead when the fosterwoman arrived at our old front door.

  ‘No,’ I whispered and turned to run, but she caught me and held me fast.

  Maldwyn opened the door. I screamed but the fosterwoman’s hand went over my mouth. It didn’t stop the sound, but it muffled it. I suppose the war between Meistri and Camiri was bad in those days. People knew better than to investigate screams. Maldwyn took
us back into the apartment and the fosterwoman went away. Then he took us back to Cairnagorn again.

  At the next Winter Solstice, we had a new creepyguardian. All that remained was a slew of terrible memories, and sweet memories that shouldn’t belong to a thirteen-year-old girl. For a few brief moments, there had been a baby to look after. Those were the only moments that made the year worth surviving. I named him David. Maldwyn took him from me and I wasn’t even allowed the joy of being a mother to my own baby.

  Then, the next Winter Solstice, another Guardian, and another, and another, until we were seventeen and finally got a nice one. And the Lynnevet standing beside me now had been spared the worst of it. Maldwyn had never laid a hand on her. That was something. That was important.

  I was trembling as we entered Caillen, walking past the gates and the guards who didn’t even do us the courtesy of looking twice at us, much less reporting us to the authorities. The gates went through a narrow tunnel first, to give safety to the hive beyond, then opened onto the Prom, the massive cave with the river running through the centre, then dropping into a waterfall that disappeared from view at the edge of the cavern.

  There were people everywhere. ‘Where do we go?’ Lynnevet asked, shrugging closer to me in the crowd, keeping a tight grip on my hand.

  ‘I’m not sure, Sparrow,’ I replied, looking around. ‘They’re bound to be here somewhere.’ We could have gone back to the fosterwoman’s house. I knew where that was, but no force in the world could have drawn me back there. ‘We just walk around, I suppose.’ We’d walked around a bit already. Absentmindedly, I led Lynnevet onto the bridge. I paused to look over the edge. I could drown in this river and there was no one who could stop me.

  It was only when Lynnevet started pulling urgently at my hand that I realised that from our current position at the highest point on the bridge, we could not only see everyone on the Prom, but everyone on the Prom could see us. I ignored Lynnevet, who was pulling on my hand with both of hers now, muttering, ‘Emer, Emer!’ Finally, I saw a familiar face in the crowd.