NOVEL NEXT Chapter 80: Broken Promises
Kess sat on the balcony overlooking the main entrance to the manor, her legs dangling through the slats to swing in the air. The lobby was empty, though lightning crawled through the sky outside, a slow and terrifying thing. Kess watched it through the windows, a series of flashes prowling around the clouds like snakes. While Lightstorms had always left her jumpy, there was a sense of relaxation that came with them too—the knowledge that something in the storm understood that hidden part of her.
Now, with her powers in full blossom, steadied slightly by Rowan's, she found the storm outside an alien thing—a predator that sensed some sort of change in its prey and waited only for the right time to strike. Whether it was truly the Ashfall mentioned in her vision or not didn't seem to matter; it destroyed the city just the same, a slow and terrible thing that she had no idea how to fight.
She leaned her head against the grain of the wood in front of her, sighing. It had been days since her experiments with Rowan, and more sessions had only confirmed their initial suspicions; Fulminancy wasn't just the white-hot lightning that Kess and Rae had, or even the cool, calming touch of Claire's powers—it was a balance of several powers together, lost over time. She'd misunderstood the very powers that she'd spent her life fleeing. She'd thought them best suited for killing, a tool of destruction, but what if the reality was something else entirely? What if they were just using the wrong tool?
There were still too many mysteries for Kess's taste. She scowled at the storm outside, thinking. Why had the Council kept this hidden for so long, and why lock the origins of Fulminancy away in the Archives? It was natural for them to want to hold on to their powers, but no sane person would pursue that option if the cost was so much human life. There had to be some other explanation. Maybe I'm more like Rowan than I realized, Kess thought. Maybe I really do want to believe the best in people. How she could believe that the same group who had forced her to murder her family would have a reason for killing wantonly, Kess didn't know. But she believed it all the same.
Regardless, their research left them with one last step: try the locket on Rowan. If he could hold her powers temporarily, he should be able to hold some of them permanently. What they would do after that—with the other requirement to obtain a Seat—she didn't know. She shifted her sling, rotating her arm gently underneath—it could come off soon, she thought, especially with Claire's help.
She wasn't so certain about the locket part of their plan. Her power was a wild, untamed thing. Was it right to risk Rowan just to find her brother? She had suggested the idea almost casually, but now it occupied a space between them so large she was afraid she couldn't go back. But regardless of the risk to her, she was more worried about Rowan. What good would saving Oliver do if she lost Rowan in the process?
She tightened her grip on the railing, the bars like a cage, as she stared out between them. She would have to make sure nothing happened to him—that much was firm in her mind. A plan formed there, nebulous at best, but it was all she had. She would pay Malane a visit again, though she'd sworn to never do so again.
She was breaking quite a few promises these days, unfortunately.
Something thumped overhead—Rae, likely returning from her rounds in the city. Kess got to her feet gingerly—she'd been sitting there for quite some time, and her limbs were stiff with disuse.
Rae would, at the very least, have news of the outside world. Kess hadn't left the manor in days with her dislocated shoulder. She supposed she should feel fortunate that Fulminant healing still worked on her, since Claire was still having problems with Rowan, but Kess had never been good at sitting still.
Rae left puddles as she walked down the hallway, her gray-blond hair sopping wet and her cloak a thick mass of cloth over her shoulders. Still, her face had the grim set of a smile on it as she made her way towards Kess. Rae adored her Fulminancy, no matter what the world tried to tell her to feel about it. It was like looking into a mirror and finding a completely opposite woman on the other side.
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Kess opened a linen closet nearby and tossed a towel at the soaked woman.
"It's a shame you fell down the stairs," Rae said, eying the sling as she toweled off her hair. "The weather outside has been an absolute joy." Kess snorted, following her down the hallway.
"If it's all the same to you, it's been kind of nice to be warm and dry for once."
"I'm not sure those words are in my vocabulary any longer," Rae said. Kess followed her into the kitchen, where Rae took off her cloak, wrung it over the sink, and hung it on a peg by the back door. Her clothes underneath, while damp, were at least not soaked through.
"So?" Kess asked. Rae ignored her, grabbing a piece of fruit from a nearby bowl on the galley counter. She took a bite of the apple and watched Kess, her turquoise eyes serious.
"You'd better sit down," she said, chewing. "You're not going to like any of it."
"More wagons?" Kess asked, fighting the devastation in her voice. She'd been out of commission for just a few days, but from the sound of it, things were worse than ever. A sleepy Rowan sat beside her, and Rae had collected more food from the kitchen, including a bowl of stew she dug into while she spoke. Kess found it hard to reconcile her with the delicately mannered Reina of balls and galas.
"They show up at night when they think no one's watching," Rae said. "There are a few exit points where they bring everyone up from underground and load them into the wagons for transport, but I can't figure out where they lead."
"Why not?"
Rae shrugged, still eating. "Unlike you, I don't make it my business to know every nook and cranny Downhill. Why crawl when you can fly?"
Kess supposed that made sense. While she'd spent the last several years familiarizing herself with bolt holes, hidden rings, and other odd features of the underground, Rae hadn't felt a need to; her powers were enough to get her out of any potentially harmful situation.
"I'm going to follow one of those caravans Uphill," Rae said, tearing into a roll. "There are too many of them. We can't have that many Fulminancers down here."
"What if they aren't Fulminant at all?" Kess asked, playing with a knife, her eyes unfocused. Rowan, to his credit, didn't flinch at the whirling metal so close to his arm.
"Why would they bother taking Duds?" he asked, yawning.
"I used to think they were jailed for upsetting the Uphill, but I'm not sure any longer," Rae said. "Regardless, there's only one way to figure out what they're doing." Rae shoved away her food, moving to stand. "If your spooky ghost lady is right, maybe they're just being used for fuel, but I think something else is going on. I intend to find out what." Kess got to her feet, leaning over the table with one arm.
"I'm coming with you," she said. Rae paused, eying the sling around her arm, then Rowan, sitting half awake beside her.
"No," she said simply. "You two have your own jobs to do. The sooner we get someone in that Seat the sooner we can find out if your vision was right or not." She pointed her spoon at Kess. "Figure out what you need to do to get it done, then do it. There's a gala coming up soon anyway—a big one." She got up from the bench, where she'd left a wet spot with her clothes. "I have some personal business with a few of the Seats. Nothing would make me happier than paying them a visit."
Kess watched her, trying to figure out a way to argue. Unfortunately, it made too much sense. Rae was right—she and Rowan had enough to focus on already. That reminded her of something, briefly.
"What about the other thing?" Kess asked. Rae paused, back already to them. She didn't turn around, and her voice was quiet.
"You weren't wrong," she said. "There were several tonight. I don't know what they are, and I haven't been close enough to touch one, but since I've seen you jump through the air without problems for months now, I can only assume that what they did to you was real." She turned slightly, those strangely intense eyes on Rowan. "No idea what they'd do to someone like him," she said, then met Kess's eyes. "Watch yourselves."