Month: May 2025

Marya held her breath, waiting for a response. None came, except that after a few seconds, Cay’s jaw dropped. He’d connected the dots between her and the name of their pitiful group.
Marya pushed the button to speak again, but hesitated, not sure how to convince them.
“I want to say – and I know how it sounds and you’ve every right not to believe me – but I want to say I’m sorry. So sorry.”
Her voice rose a little in pitch, pinched by the tears threatening to choke her, but she forged on.
“I didn’t want to do this, I promise you that! But I did it, and that will never go away. The – the shame, and the guilt, of those…murders. I’m so sorry.”

Cay Vojen found himself leaning toward the orb, straining to hear the muffled last sentence.
Zinnia narrowed her eyes at him, her lips parting, but Cay couldn’t help himself.
“I think…I mean, since you didn’t want to hurt us. And it seems like you’re trying to help us now…I think we can work together. Or, er, are you trying to help us now? And also, uh, why?”
In the silence that followed, the occupants of the coach began to breathe again, and Cay waited patiently until the woman’s voice returned.
“Yes, Cay Vojen, I am trying to help you now. I’ve wanted…I was ordered to kill…” She trailed off for another few seconds.
“My, my sister’s name was Zinnia,” she said finally.
Cay sensed the other passengers shifting uncomfortably, saw Joran’s gaze flick to Zinnia, before he realized what the woman meant: she had been ordered to kill Zinnia next.

Joran Arundasi tried to push away the sudden wash of emotions. Relief, fear for Zinn, guilt, anger at the unknown woman, uncertainty…
Why had this woman chosen to speak to Cay? And why wasn’t Cay as discombobulated as he himself felt? Glancing again at Zinn’s shaken face, he realized he had the answer. Cay had always been the innocent one, in a way. His humble, apologetic ignorance was a funnel for anything new, whatever his uncle had taught him. He’d paid rapt attention to Okner’s ramblings, admired Friya’s skills, unashamedly expressed his confusion during Solldero’s training. This woman clearly knew them all, and had been watching them from the beginning. She must know that Jor was too self-conscious, too guilt-ridden to be open to the idea of her help. And Zinn had been next on the death list… Could he believe her? It seemed a little too clever for her to choose the one person who might be receptive to her overtures, but on the other hand, it made sense if her story were true. Conflicted, he looked to Zinn for a decision.

Zinnia Questel focused hard on a torn thread in her sleeve. She wasn’t about to die, or if she was, it wouldn’t be while she was frozen in panic, not even attempting to save herself. Anyway, it was possible she didn’t need to be saved.
Cay was actually engaging the orb in conversation, the passengers listening apprehensively. Looking up, she found Joran’s eyes anxiously on her and realized that she would have to make the final decision here. She breathed out slowly. Turning her attention to Cay, she caught him saying,
“But where would you go? Do you have a family?”
There was an agonized pause, then,
“I don’t know, Cay.”
Zinn had no idea what could lead to someone not knowing if her family lived – or had disowned her – but the whispers in her imagination made her eyes sting.
Where would the woman go? Where…
“Cay, ask her what they’ve been trying to do with us,” she blurted suddenly.
Cay interrupted himself to stare in surprise, but the edge of the orb floated into view.
“I can hear you, Zinnia Questel,” the woman said softly. Her voice was so sad.
“I want to understand,” Zinn began, frustrated at her own tumbling thoughts, “And know why we were told to do these things. Why us? And why what we did? And who wanted them done? And, what do you know about the king’s advisor Malcav?”

Marya swallowed. The name had brought her suddenly back to herself, half standing over her hasty pile of belongings, the door a slim defense against Malcav’s eventual return.
“Malcav.” The name even tasted ugly.
“He has been directing this, under the king’s…orders…”
A memory tugged away the rest of her sentence: “You spoke out against the king and his advisors! No punishment is bad enough for you…”
The king and his advisors. Every suspicion she’d had, and every cautious suggestion Okner and the others had made, came flooding back.
The king was vain, cruel, selfish, yes, but she’d allowed that to blind her to the power Malcav had not only held but wielded, skillfully and gainfully and in large part through her. Her original protests had been against the advisors as a group, and she hadn’t hesitated then to call them voracious, power-stealers, leeches, even demi-kings. But it had been Malcav at the front all the time, or rather at the back – carrying orders ‘from the king’ that furthered the greediest plans and simultaneously undermined royal support.
Poor Friya’s death hadn’t been final proof of the king’s insanity, then, but a glaring error on Malcav’s part, a window into the truth that he’d smeared with her friend’s suffering! Blood and screams and death…

Cay Vojen leaned cautiously closer to the orb.
“Um, are you ok? Why are you crying?”
It was a deep, almost silent kind of sobbing; she seemed to have forgotten them entirely.
The university student, who had been as quiet as the other passengers until then, spoke up gently:
“I am studying politics; I know something about advisor Malcav. He gained a large following in Calcor’Bolad, where he grew up after his parents were banished. It’s not really clear how he managed to become one the king’s advisors, but he rose through the ranks surprisingly quickly and is one of the most powerful men in the kingdom. Some people, confidentially-”
The young man glanced around nervously before continuing,
“Some people have called him the mind behind the throne, although the king has shown himself to have some definitive opinions from the beginning of his reign, so most do not think Malcav is controlling a puppet king. But he certainly has a strong political influence.”
“And?”
Cay glanced at Zinn, surprised, but it was the cartographer who’d spoken.
“What part do you think he has played in all this?”
The student hesitated.
“Well, ma’am, everyone knows the king’s groups have been happening for a long time, in various forms, dating back to when it was a ritual for initiation as a citizen, I think. And the current king has used them to emphasize loyalty to the country, with the severe consequences of, er, failing to attend. But, I think, er…there haven’t been many deaths before, or not since this system was set up.”
He looked at the lady for confirmation; she nodded.
“And, er, opening the Doar Blockade doesn’t really align with the king’s past political actions. The national embargo hasn’t been lifted for anything since Calcor’Bolad resurrected slave trade.”
He paused again.
“I don’t know how the Skye gangs are connected to Calcor’Bolad, if they are; I remember hearing that the tunnels network used to be used for trade but only within our own country. So…”
The student frowned, trying to collect his thoughts, and the older gentleman interrupted:
“I know, believe me, a military assignment when I see one. Not every assignment uses soldiers or even anyone connected with the army,” he added, seeing Zinnia’s expression, then continued, “The mission is perfectly set up. A group with extraordinary potential, but with no consequences for its failure. By slowly eliminating each member of the group, these children would be motivated to succeed in the tasks and all evidence of the endeavor would be wiped out entirely and explained away as accidents resulting from failure or misunderstandings.”
“An apple and a stick,” mused the lady cartographer. “Both at once.”

Zinnia Questel cut herself off before she could fit together the stark description with her actual experience. Something else wasn’t going on, that should have been. The woman had been crying all that while as though she’d forgotten their existence. But now Zinnia heard an active silence from the hovering orb. What was her name again?
“Marya?”
The boys and the other passengers fell silent, and they could all hear her breathing carefully.
“He’s coming.”
She took another slow breath.
“And he has my sister.”
Zinnia felt a wave of panic, first on Marya’s behalf, and then in the aftermath for herself.
The cartographer leaned forward and placed her hand on Zinnia’s knee.
“It is clear…”
She paused for them all to lean in to hear her murmur.
“Whatever this man’s plan was, he wants you all dead. You all know that. The king will not save you. I can’t save you. You must all run. Run and hide, and I at least will do what I can here in the capital. Your lives may very well determine his success or defeat, which in turn could even mean laws for slavery or freedom in this country.”
She stopped; the older gentleman and the student had both reacted slightly in perturbed understanding, while the three teenagers were frozen, hunched, not knowing what to do.
In the heavy silence, the door opening next to Marya sounded loud.

Joran Arundasi’s whole body was tense, his teeth clenched, on the edge of his seat with one foot flat and the other bent, as though ready to run. But to where?
The silence in the coach pressed him down with a heavy hand.
Malcav’s voice felt so close, closer than when he’d first called them up onto the stage and formed them into their ill-fated group.
“…forgotten so soon?” he was saying, and the pure evil in his tone sickened Joran to his core.
“I haven’t forgotten,” Marya was saying, but she sounded unfocused even past the intensity of her words, as though her gaze and heart were elsewhere.
“I haven’t forgotten anything I said, especially now that I know it is all true. You have been-”
“DO YOU forget!” His anger was so quickly controlled, or least his voice. He’d had them all under his control, and still did – their deaths at his fingertips, a flick of a switch away.
“I have the power here, woman. You will pay for your lies and rebellion…”
Joran closed his eyes. In his mind he saw his father, sitting almost proudly at his desk, holding up a silver-rimmed controller for Joran’s unwilling inspection. Jor had ripped his gaze from it, staring through welling tears at the twisted wiring that wound around and under the desk to mysterious connections.
“I wanted to rip it out,” he breathed. The others shifted noiselessly to stare at him. His father had explained it to him in painful detail. “The navigational systems. They are needed to orient the Device in the air…”
Malcav was still talking to Marya – shouting at her over a stumbling crash that must not have been Marya; they could still hear her uneven breathing.
“It can’t track movement without them, or fully cloak itself, or ignite flames…” Why had his father thought he’d want to know? His father’s obsession fit perfectly into the blankness he wanted to spread over his memories: when the Device had materialized out of nothing, how it had moved and tracked them, and why his mother had disappeared. His father wanted to understand, but Jor only wanted to run away.
“All those wires, strung with drops of blood…”
They just stared at him, and the cartographer gently motioned with her hand for him to hush, but that was how Jor had seen the little red connectors that his father produced, painstakingly tying the black strands in bitter patterns.
He’d just wanted it all to stop.

Marya didn’t think Malcav could hear Joran’s voice, even though it was getting louder. Her sister, though – Marya was still recovering from the awful shock of seeing her precious sister in Malcav’s grasp – Zinnia was clinging to the edge of the desk where Malcav had pushed her, staring wide-eyed at Marya. She didn’t deserve to be treated like this, but neither did Zinnia Questel, or Joran, or Cay. She couldn’t control Malcav’s injustices, but she could refuse to commit them for him.
…Could she?
Malcav was in her face now, lowering his tone to a harsh whisper, warning her of everything he could and would do, and she knew it was all true.
She’d seen it, felt it…dreaded it. And she’d allowed it control her – no. She wouldn’t hide from the blame. She had given in to fear, and given in to Malcav, but not anymore. No cost was higher than the price of her allegiance to Right.
“…but your sister!”
She hadn’t been listening, but Malcav’s now-calm words aligned so perfectly with her train of thought that they almost seemed her own.
“I know,” he continued smoothly, maliciously, aware of her surging emotions. “I know you would do anything for her. Anything at all. There are so many things I could ask you to do.” He smiled, reveling in his power.
By her ear, she caught a murmur from one of the boys – Cay, she thought. Already their lives had been changed so much because of her actions, and no matter her choice, they would be changed further. The three of them, and probably her sister Zinnia too, wouldn’t be able to go back to their families after this; they would always be in danger.
She knew what mattered here, and her fear bubbled up in a last stand against that knowledge.
No one will know what happened to you…
You should protect your sister first…
What will happen to me?
But the part of her that knew what was right only listened calmly and sadly, and her thoughts changed to imagination.
Cay, Zinnia, Joran – the three of them would think of the one relative no one even knew existed. The kind driver would help them find her, maybe the student too, and the three passengers wouldn’t sit quietly and wait. They would do something, and even if Marya didn’t live to see it…or even if the teens didn’t…change would come. Malcav would not win.
She looked up, meeting his eyes and his arrogant smile, and looked at her sister.
Zinnia looked back at her and nodded, and whatever that meant, however much she’d understood, it was enough to give Marya the strength to lunge forward and rip out the complicated wiring Joran had painfully described.

The passengers in the coach sat stunned for a moment. The audio had crackled to silence, drawing their gazes almost at the same moment that the Device began to spin crazily in the air, halting only to drip a clear fluid into the dust.
A new quest had just begun.