The Earth Dwellers

“Not right away,” Skye says. “You can cover yer noses and mouths with cloth until we can find somethin’ better.”

There’s still tension in my muscles, but I drop my sword arm. In this case, a bow and arrow trumps a sword, and I’m not about to die now. Not after racing across the Moon Realm, dodging sun dweller soldiers and killing a deranged psychopath named Rivet to free my sister and father. Not after infiltrating the Sun Realm and assassinating the President of the Tri-Realms. I can’t let an arrow from this strange girl be the reason I won’t get to see my sister, Elsey, ever again.

Tristan throws his sword on the ground in front of us, also realizing we’ll have to make our move later. I follow his lead and do the same. We can’t fight arrows with swords. Not now. Maybe later.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“New Wildetown,” Wilde says. “Home of the Tri-Tribes.”

~~~

They cover our faces with thin pieces of cloth, tied tight against the backs of our heads and clamped down by our hats and sunglasses, which they put on over them. I can’t see anything except the glow of red light. We can breathe, but I don’t believe for one second that filtering our breaths through the cloth will protect us from whatever harmful chemicals are in the air.

What the hell is going on? Who are these girls, so young, so rough, so here? With their sun-kissed skin they’re clearly not Dwellers, not the ones from the Sun Realm, the Glassies as they call them. But didn’t everyone else die when the meteor hit hundreds of years ago? That’s what the scientists predicted, that’s what the history books say. But what if they were wrong…?

My hands are strapped behind my back, but my feet are free so I can walk. Big mistake. All I need are my feet, if I can just get the cover off my eyes…

A firm grip on my elbow. I pull away, struggle against it.

“Everything’ll be easier if you don’t fight us,” says a voice. Not the smooth one, not the rough one, the in-between one. The young, ski

When she tries to take my elbow the second time, I don’t resist. Not because she told me not to, but because it’s not the time to fight. They’ve got our weapons, we can’t see, our hands are tied. Not the right time.

I stumble on my first step, because there are rocks and lumps under my feet, but Siena holds me up. “Careful,” she says, like she cares whether I fall or not.

“Why are you doing this?” I ask, my voice muffled through the cloth that’s over my mouth.

“No talking,” the rough one says. Skye, who would sooner kill us first and ask questions later. Siena’s sister. I’m still trying to wrap my head around everything that’s happening. Is it real? Am I dreaming? Just a few minutes ago Tristan and I were enjoying my first ever glimpse of the earth’s surface, and now…now we’re prisoners of the people who apparently live up here—who have maybe lived up here for a very long time. What? I repeat: What!?

“Tristan?” I say, just to make sure they haven’t separated us, leading us in two different directions.

“Yeah?” he says.

“I swear to the sun goddess if you say one more word I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” I spout. “Abduct us? Take us prisoner? Kill us? Do what you have to do and quit talking about it.”

I tense my muscles, wait for the blow. There are scuffs and scrapes and grunts: sounds of a struggle. And then: “Okay, okay, let go of me.” Skye’s voice.

“We’re not going to hurt you,” says Wilde, and I almost believe her, because her voice is so calm, so warm, almost like a song. But no, it’s not true. Although they stopped Skye from hitting me just now, I can still remember the gleam in Siena’s eyes as she looked down the arrow pointed at my chest. If we threaten them, they’ll kill us in a heartbeat.

Which is why I’ll have to do more than just threaten.

Siena’s hand is back on my elbow and we’re walking again. The rocks and hard ground disappear, and it feels like we’re walking on clothing, on some type of material that sinks down beneath our feet. Everything up here is new and I desperately want to see it, but I can’t, because…damn this covering!

“We’re on the sand dunes,” Siena says, as if reading my mind.

Sand? “Like on the beach?” I ask. Memories of my grandmother’s stories flash amidst the red glow leeching through my blindfold. The beach. The ocean. Waves lapping against the shore. Tiny granules of sand, countless, stretching for miles and miles, as far as the eye can see.

“You’re thinking of water and storm country,” Siena says. “This is fire country. Our sand is much hotter and there ain’t no big water next to it.”

“I’m not thinking of anything,” I say. “I don’t have the slightest clue what you’re talking about.”

I’m hoping saying that will get her to keep talking, to tell me more about what lies above the Tri-Realms, about fire country and water country and storm country, and any other countries there happen to be, but she goes all silent on me.

The sand dunes go up and down, up and down, some bigger than others. I can feel the heat on me like a hot iron, pressing down, burning me. My skin’s not used to it. I wonder if I’ll catch fire. Can the real sun light a person on fire?

Eventually, Siena speaks again. “You swear you ain’t never been to fire country ’fore?”

“Will you believe me if I tell you?”

“I might,” she says. “Skye, she’s…”

“What?” I ask, wondering what her sister has to do with whether I’d lie to her.

“She’s tough and brave and’ll do everything she can to protect our people. You remind me of her.”

Not what I expected her to say. Like, at all. For a moment I’m speechless, dumbfounded, and then I say, “I’m nothing like your sister.” I can’t stop the words from bubbling up, because I mean them. I wouldn’t threaten complete strangers’ lives, wouldn’t take them prisoner, trudge them through lands filled with air that’s toxic to them. No. No way.

Would I?

The doubt creeps in right at the end, when my mouth stops working and my brain kicks in. What if I thought—no, truly believed—that those strangers were the enemy, that they’d try to kill my friends, my family, the ones I love? Then what would I do?

The answer comes as hard as a kick to the gut and as trembling as a wizened old man’s hand: I might’ve attacked first and not asked questions at all. Compared to me, is Skye more forgiving, more reasonable? Am I more like her than she is like me?

“Think what you want,” Siena says. “But don’t judge Skye for trying to protect us the only way she knows how.”

Chapter Five

Siena

The girl, Adele, goes quiet after that. I keep leading her, on and on, ’cross the desert. And further still, even as the sun turns the red sky purple and orange and sends a bright green flash overhead as it sinks below the horizon.

The sun goddess sleeps, and still we march on in silence.

If Adele won’t talk to me, then I’ll talk to someone else. “Hey, Skye. You miss Dazz yet?” I ask. It’s not a real question, just one of those ones you use to get your fingers under someone’s skin, to get a rise out of ’em. It works.

“Dazz? Scorch, Siena, I tol’ you a thousand times, he’s just a guy,” Skye says. That’s the rise I was talking ’bout. I snicker.

“But you like kissing him,” I say, prodding with my words.

“So?”

“And he makes you laugh like a little Totter.”

“He does not!” Finally Skye looks at me, and if looks could kill…well, I’d be deader’n a two ton tug after the last Hunt of the year. But I’m already laughing, and evidently Wilde’s amused too, ’cause her giggle escapes her lips, sounding as light and tinkly as rain on rocks.