The Partisan Chronicles [Dystopia | Supernatural | Mystery]

Rhian

Avoiding the Delphi spire was an unwritten rule among us Partisans. Then again, it might have been a written rule and I just couldn't read it. I wasn't all too worried about the telepathy when spending time alone with Adeline. I had excellent counter-training and I trusted her not to browse around in my brain. But the spire was their territory. Hundreds of them roaming around, reading minds willy-nilly.

The point is: I didn't much care for hanging around the Delphi spire.

There are some words I'd learned to see, even if I hadn't learned to read. Those words included the Assembly's names. I knew Adeline had the perks of being a Councilwoman's daughter and that included a scoring room on the fifth floor before she'd earned it. So I zipped up four flights of circular stairs, whizzed around the corridor, and knocked about a thousand times on the first door with a nameplate I recognized.

"Open up, post-haste, lickety-split, right this goddess-be-damned second."

The door creaked open. An eyeball peered through the crack.

I also peered through the crack. "I'm looking for Adeline."

The door creaked the rest of the way open.

"My sister lives next door," Not-Adeline said.

Wrong Blanchett, but I saw the resemblance. Tall, fiery, pointy. The only difference was, Adeline's brother seemed the sad, mopey sort. It made sense, seeing as the poor bastard had probably spent his entire life playing last-best to his sisters: the all-mighty successors, future grand pretenders, and keepers of dark, dirty secrets.

"Right, well—I'm Rhian."

"I know who you are," Not-Adeline said. "My sister often speaks of you."

"Afraid I can't say the same, but it's nice to meet you."

Not-Adeline almost smiled. "It's kind of you not to lie."

I was about to agree when the door to the left burst open.

Without a single thing to say for herself, the Squeaky Lass dashed out into the corridor, waved to Not-Adeline, yanked me by the arm, and locked me in a room.

We'll have to learn more about the sad, pointy one another day.

Adeline pressed her precious back to the door, looking around with big, puffy eyes.

"You all right, lass?"

"No, Enforcer Rhian, I am not all right."

It'd only been about an hour since she'd broken into the asylum and set seven inmates free, so it wasn't too tricky sorting out why she was acting strangely. It didn't take long for the Assembly to catch on to what happened, but they still didn't know who did it. There was a Chase scheduled for later that day.

"Did you know they are one and the same?" Hiccup. "The locks on the doors—" Hiccup. "—and the cells? This is both practical and lazy."

This was true for the cells in solitaire, and that's why I said springing the place would probably be easy. The thing is, Adeline had no way of knowing until she tried the key.

"How were you planning to open the cells, if it weren't so simple?" I asked.

"I would have picked the locks." Sniffle. "It's a hobby."

Adeline Blanchett had a lot of hobbies apparently. Her room looked more like a workshop, what with all the cogs and springs and things likely to explode in my hand. Also, she had tonnes of clothes, folded in colourful piles next to a shelf full of shoes. If I'd been the envious type, I might have been seeing everything in shades of green. The rest of us didn't get hobbies or clothes with colour.

"Would it have worked?"

"With my tools and talent? Yes, of course."

"Give 'em here," I said. "The tools."

The lass was obedient about it, tossing me a sack full of picks and jimmies. I stowed the sack away in my satchel.

"Enforcer Rhian, I've decided to turn myself in. I must pay the consequences."

Adeline had stopped crying, but her big hair still looked sad.

"Stracha's Steed and its mythical shite. Do not say a word, hear me?"

"Those men and women will die!"

"Aye, maybe, but you knew that heading in, didn't you? And they knew that when you let them loose, didn't they? Your confession won't change anything, and at least they'll die in the wide-open air instead of in a puddle of their own miserable piss. You did good lass. I might have underestimated you a lot. Don't you dare confess."

I had about an hour to spare before I was meant to meet with the Chasers assigned to hunt down the escapees. Also, I had a plan so the Assembly would stop searching for the culprit. But Adeline was still feeling guilty and I didn't trust she wouldn't ruin everything while I wasn't looking. I glanced around the room again, stopping at the workbench.

"Some of these doohickeys you've got here—they look impressive, lass. I haven't got the first clue what they are, but, they look impressive."

"Truly?"

"Truly."

"Well—thank you, Enforcer S. These are my greatest innovations, but my mother believes my talents are irrelevant. She tells me, 'Adeline, you will not have time for frivolous hobbies when you are Councilwoman.' Take, for instance, this prototype."

We wandered over to the workbench and I took, for instance, the prototype.

I peered over at two oval pieces of black glass held together with wire. "What is it?"

"They are for your eyes—to conceal them and protect from the sun. Could you imagine, Enforcer Rhian? We introduce these sun-goggles to the southern territories first, creating a fashion trend. Then we take advantage of this trend and wear them amongst the locals. Not only for protection, but to hide our eyes and more easily blend."

Seeing as no Barren was born with eyes the colour of ours, and it wasn't always advantageous for us to stand out when working a job, the idea was genius. Also, and I reckon Strauss might have mentioned this already, but Partisan eyes are especially sensitive to sunlight. I put on the sun-goggles.

"Well, I can't see a bloody thing."

"This is why it's called a prototype."

I took off the sun-goggles. "And your mum disapproves of this?"

"Yes, and this is why I called it a hobby. If only my elder brother had been a sister, or my little sister had been born first, then perhaps I wouldn't have so many restrictions."

"Is your mum dying?"

"No."

"Sick?"

"No."

"Then why all the pressure? You have decades to become the next Councilwoman. We could use your doohickeys now."

When Adeline Blanchett laughed, it was like a cold pillow on a hot night. Like it, hate it, ignore it—whatever suits your character best and whatnot.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"You know better than most how careful my mother truly is. You may have prevented one attempt on her life, but it was not the first, and there will surely be others."

She had me there. But she was feeling better about herself, and that was the point.

"Look, I've gotta go, mate. But it was nice spending time on your side of the fence. We'll have to do it again. Just don't do anything stupid in the meantime. We freckle-faced lasses have got to stick together, all right? I've got this one."

Adeline chewed her lower lip a while, but eventually she nodded. After that, the strangest bloody thing happened.

I gave her a hug.

Seeing as it was an island, the inmates Adeline released knew they'd have no chance escaping Palisade. We could stop a ship going too far on account of they were slow, and an embark wouldn't go anywhere at all without a Celestian navigator at the helm. They knew what they were in for when they were sprung.

The inmates couldn't escape, but they could do some damage. The entire compound was locked down for the main event. Faust's soldiers held the doors and the docks, and Blanchett's telepaths kept them company, just in case the escapees tried playing any mind-tricks. On the list of targets for the day: one Strachan, two Amali, three Delphi and a Senec.

With everyone gathered 'round on the ground floor of the Strachan spire, I paired one of my students with one veteran Chaser until I ran out of matches. The decent lad went with the promising lass. The so-sos with the so-sos. The most talented Chaser of the bunch was placed with the best of my class. The shittiest of both were paired with each other. Fifty-fifty chance they'd pass or fail the hard way—one weak team, no weak links.

Next, Councilwoman Kelly gave out directives. Number one, kill on sight unless someone surrendered or it'd be a clean capture. Number two, choose a timekeeper and keep it. The teams were ordered to swap locations with another group every fifteen minutes. What one pair didn't see, another might not miss. Number three, don't die.

There were nods, salutes, and off they all went. But if you're expecting details about the Chase, too bad. I couldn't be everywhere at once, and ultimately, I never got to hear the reports. Besides, I had business of my own. Random Man was out there, and I needed to find him afore someone put an arrow through his neck.

I slipped out with the rest of the Strachan, but seeing as I wasn't officially taking part, I didn't have much arsenal except the usual pair of daggers. I hadn't planned on getting too involved, but I couldn't be sure who I'd run into out there. Good thing I kept some extra toys in the tree house, which also happened to be an excellent look-out point.

It didn't take long to get there. As I said, fast like a kitty-cat. But after climbing the tree, I had no way of knowing what I'd see inside the cabin.

Random Man was living up to his name. I hadn't expected to find him so quickly, let alone just sitting there, munching on a loaf of bread without a care in the world. He'd found my snack stash, and that was quite all right. I tossed him my flask of Hocks.

"I seem to remember this place having a door," he said, looking at me like he'd known me for years. Must have been the family resemblance.

I settled across from him on the floor. "I've never claimed to be a goddess-be-damned carpenter, have I? We rebuilt what we could of the place after someone came 'round and busted it up."

"That was my fault," he said. "We all used to come here, back in the day. I told the Assembly about it when they offered me the Chase in return for information about your father. I reckoned all they'd find were could-be-clues mixed up with decades worth of other people's rubbish. I didn't get a Chase, but it shut them up for a solid week."

"You mentioned your mates were killed—Strauss and somebody called Laine? So why are they keeping you alive?"

"Couldn't tell you, but I wish they'd stop. I was a nobody, just a random man under Rick and Rhydian's banner. Strauss and Laine, though? They were somebodies."

"Tell me about Strauss." Given the man's apparent age and the fact he knew my father, it stood to reason he wasn't talking about my Strauss.

"Reckoned you'd be more interested in Rhydian."

"Nah, I'm not too interested in hearing about the man from whose loins I sprung or whatnot. Tell me about Strauss."

Random Man considered for a moment, poking his tongue through the hole where he was missing a tooth. "Rhydian loved you very much, lass. He never wanted you to end up in this place, all right. You have to believe that. As far as Strauss goes—Andreas Strauss was the best of us. No more, no less."

I wasn't ready to absorb what I was hearing about my father, mostly on account of it didn't matter, but also on account of it hurt. Moving along.

"Andreas, huh. Are you aware he's got a son?"

Random Man paused mid-sip. "You're telling me the half-breed boy's alive?"

"That or I've been hallucinating."

Right about then, things got a lot more complicated. There were only a few Celestian with the power or the permission to do this particular trick. Reckoned the ones who were capable of learning it on their own defected far, far away. They probably hopped an embark and went on living invisibly in some invisible village somewhere. Shudder to bloody think. The bottom line is: we weren't alone in that tree house. We probably never were.

One minute she was air, and the next…

Councilwoman Oranen was tall. The cabin was short. Slouching wasn't her best look.

"Enforcer Sinclair, do you often dine with your prey?"

"Aye, it's a thing I do. You ought to join us, Councilwoman. Might not be a bad idea to get a load of the view from down here."

"Erika," Random Man said. "Finally come to kill me?"

The Councilwoman had eyebrows like fuzzy, black caterpillars. They were distracting as all six hells. "Death would be merciful. The Assembly would prefer to see you before them, although I must commend you on your role in this clever escapade. Whatever it may be."

"He had nothing to do with it," I said.

"Perhaps not, but he will tell us who did."

"Isn't it obvious?" I stood, dusted off my bottom, and shrugged. "I needed wolves."

After the three of us left the tree house to meet with the rest of the Assembly, I shared a private moment with Random Man. It was only a second, but sometimes a look and second of silence speaks louder than all the words in the world. It had to be then, and it had to be me. Now, seeing as it was a private moment, I don't intend to share the details. But I will tell you this: three of us left the tree house for the compound that day.

One of us didn't make it all the way.