The Sun Dwellers

My soul rises above my clenched body, as if I’m trying to remove myself from the muck of human violence, and I watch, watch—

—as, in one swift motion, I snatch up the knife and jam it into the guardsman’s chest with the force of a wild beast, my eyes bulging, my teeth snapping, my grip like iron on the handle. He’s not crying out anymore, just wheezing with sharp gasps, sucking at the air as if it’s some magic potion that can save him from the death wound my body has already inflicted. And it is my body, acting of its own volition, that’s done it, that’s killed this boy—for that’s what he is: just a teenager.

At least that’s what I’m telling myself, as I hover above the blood that’s creating a crimson pool on the floor. It wasn’t me! Not really, I reason with myself. I’m up here and he’s down there.

My argument is crushed to rock dust as my mind, my soul, my heart swoop down and back into my heaving body, so close to the boy’s blood I taste it on my tongue. Horrified, I push with the bottom of my feet, scrabble backwards, doing everything in my power to distance myself from the smell of death.

“Tristan,” Adele says, and I jerk my head back, my lips mangled and creased. I duck my head, not wanting her to see me like this, the animal I’ve become.

“I heard noises. What happened?” she asks and I really look at her for the first time. She’s squinting, her green pupils a thin line through her slitted eyes and long, feathery eyelashes.

And with that one question, I’m back. The level-headed, instinct-driven Tristan who doesn’t make mistakes. “We have to go,” I say. “There’s not a minute to spare.”

I don’t want her to see the guy, to see the truth of what I’ve done—although somewhere in the back of my mind I know she’ll understand—so I guide her to the hole in the floor without turning on the light.

“Are your feet on the ladder?” I ask.

“Yes, but Tristan, please, what’s going on? What happened?” she asks.

“I killed him,” I blurt out.

Adele’s face is unreadable as she squints up at me. Silence. She hates me. She thinks I’m a monster. I’ve lost her. “You did what you had to do,” she says. “He would have raised the alarm.”

I know she’s right. “Go,” I say. “Get the others. We’re entering subchapter eighteen.” I begin to move back into the room, but Adele grabs my arm.

“I won’t tell them,” she says.

I nod. “Thanks,” I reply, and then she’s gone, clambering down the ladder three times as fast as we climbed them. Her feet slap the rock steps, each footfall more distant than the one before it.

There’s no time to lose. Trying not to look at the guy’s eyes, which remain open in an eternal stare, I drag him by his feet to the corner, use an old military tarp to cover his bloodstained form. There’s an iron-gray sink and a brown towel against one of the walls, which I use to mop up most of the bloodstains before they set too deep into the valleys between the stone floor tiles.

I stuff the soiled towel beneath the tarp before turning off the light.

In darkness once more, I wait with my thoughts and regret.

The red-hot fire is gone.

I am stricken with sorrow. I clench my hands together to stop them from shaking. He was going to kill me. He was going to raise the alarm. All my friends would have been killed. Adele would have been killed. Like Adele said, I did what I had to do.

Thankfully, the others arrive quickly, saving me from myself. The flashlight beam comes first, and then the flashlight, gripped by Adele’s pale fingers. By the time her head pops up, I’ve shaken off my dark thoughts and I’m all business. As the others climb through the gap, heads bobbing around the room, I say, “The moon’s bright enough that we won’t need our flashlights, and they’ll only draw attention to us anyway.” Like Adele, Tawni and Trevor gaze out the window at the false moon, like they’re seeing the real thing for the first time. Now that would be something worth getting excited over—the real thing.

Roc, who has seen many artificial moons in his day, moves to my side. “What are we doing? What is this place?”

“A royal guardhouse,” I say, my eyes darting to Adele, who’s watching Tawni and Trevor.

“What?” Roc says, his face as flat as cardboard.

“I don’t think anyone’s here though,” I say. Not anymore, I think, my eyes naturally resting on the rumpled tarp with the human-sized bump in the corner.

Ram’s by the door, beckoning to the rest of us with his eyes, his impatience thinly veiled. “This is no sightseeing mission,” he growls.

“Let’s go,” I agree.

The guard station is really a small tower, only large enough for a couple of guards, even during the day—and apparently one guard at night. We’re on the first floor, so exiting is as easy as leaving the room, locating an outer door in a semicircle hallway, and pushing into the cool air.

Unlike the stagnant air in the Lower Realms, a gentle breeze wafts through the subchapter; another one of the luxuries developed by my father’s engineers and reserved solely for the use of the Sun Realm. Although the taste of privilege became bitter to my mouth long ago, I prefer it to the coppery tang of death that sits on the back of my tongue like a frog on a stone.

The city is sleeping and I wonder why. Typically sun dweller cities are alive late into the night, as the citizens try to get the most enjoyment out of each and every day. “It’s quiet,” I murmur.

Roc’s frowning. “Doesn’t make sense,” he says. “Maybe because of the war?”

I shake my head. “I doubt a little thing like a war would stop these people. They probably think the whole thing will be fought in the Moon Realm.” And they’re probably right, I think darkly.

“Wait—what day is it?” Roc says.

“I have no clue. Why?”

Roc’s counting with his fingers, trying to figure out the damn day of the month. For what purpose? I wait to find out.

“Oh, God,” Roc says finally, his eyebrows narrowed. “It’s the eve of the Sun Festival.”

What? “But that’s not for weeks,” I say.

“Yeah, when we left the Sun Realm weeks ago it was,” Roc says. “Now, it’s tomorrow.”

“Surely it’ll be cancelled,” Adele says. “They do know a war’s on, right?”

“No way,” I say. “Maybe some other year, but not this one. This is the big one.”

“Celebrating five hundred years since Year One,” Roc agrees.

“My father will use the day to reinforce how lucky we all are, try to garner support for ending the war peacefully.”

“Yeah, he’ll be talking peace while bombing the bejesus out of the Moon Realm,” Ram adds.

“Probably,” I say.

“So that’s why everyone’s inside? Because of the Festival?” Tawni asks.

“Absolutely,” I say. “This is the event of the year for these people. You’ve seen it on the telebox before, right?”

Adele and Tawni nod. “Sure,” Adele says. “Everyone watches it.”

“Well, what you don’t see is how everyone goes to bed early the night before, so they are well-rested for the forty-eight-hour party that starts the next morning.”

“So the Sun Realm’s going to be swarming with people for the next two days,” Roc adds. “Our timing couldn’t be worse. It’s the calm before the cave-in.”

“Shit,” Ram says. I look at the faces around me, their lips pursed, their expressions grim.

“Why wouldn’t my mom have told us?” Adele asks, practically pulling the question right out of my mouth.

Trevor sighs. “She did. She told me.”

Adele’s head snaps to face Trevor. “What?” A flash of pink appears on her cheeks and her fists tighten at her sides.

“She told me,” he repeats. “She thought the Festival would likely be cancelled, but she told me just in case it wasn’t—so we’d have a contingency plan.”

“Why didn’t she just tell all of us?” I ask, still not understanding all the secrecy.

“She didn’t want to worry everyone about something that probably wouldn’t matter,” Trevor explains.