I.17: Denial

In the deep calm of the night, Kanna paced the roof of the barracks. She slid her feet over the debris, kicking aside small stones and listening as they clattered in the quiet. The slight night breeze caught in the windtower that rose from the center of the flat roof, and she turned and shut her eyes, listening as it whistled softly through the vents and was carried into the building below.A tuft of grass had managed to lodge itself into the dirt on the roof and grow in spite of the conditions, and she squatted near it. A long stalk grew from the center of the array, its end bristling with soft seeds that the wind was meant to carry. She kneeled on the rough ground and tipped a broken tile nearby up and over, but there wasn’t anything beneath it.Kanna shifted back to her heels and looked around her. She crawled to the short barrier walls at the outsides of the roof and squinted. She drew one of her knives and ran the tip of it down a long crack that had formed in the wall, then tried to peer closer into it. With a breath she attempted to clear the dust but it blew back into her face.The seeking was nothing more than habit at this point, but one that she couldn’t shake. She didn’t know what she was looking for, didn’t know if she wanted to find it, but she couldn’t stop even if she tried.Kanna sat back, rubbing her eyes to clear the grit from her lashes. She was both relieved and disappointed that she hadn’t found anything, and she wasn’t sure how those things existed inside of her at the same time but they did.After blinking the last of the sand from her eyes, she looked up. The dark of night was never pure. It was littered with lights, burning somewhere so far away that she couldn’t wrap her mind around the distance. For all she knew, the hearts of them could have long gone out. The light was still a constant, a reminder that something is always left behind.Kanna sighed, then leveraged herself up from the ground. She dusted off the palms of her hands and paced the roof until she found a clear space. Here, she set her feet. She shut her eyes, and let out her breath before inhaling again, deep, feeling the air in her lungs and the night in her veins. Properly settled, she began.Her body moved through the motions of the routine, knew each step to take. She reached out her hand and her weight shifted forward then back as she withdrew and turned.The Governor’s invitation was the first thought to return to her mind. It nagged at her, even as she tried to clear herself from the distraction. There was too much pull to him, too much champing for acknowledgement from the world. Hautman’s greed was simple, which made it dangerous. He wanted power, wealth, things to fill his home and wear on his neck and wrists to show everyone that he was someone important, someone who should be revered. Kanna was a prize he could stand before proudly, an anomaly of the universe that he could parade for favor. The heavy familiarity of it soured in the back of her throat.People were always taking from others. Always desperate to fill some yawning ache inside of them. She’d seen it over and over again, and what she had learned from the world she had woken to was that everyone was rotting for the want of something.She wasn’t so different from them in that way.Her foot lifted from the heel. She stepped and set it forward, shifting her weight to her toes and then back. Her muscles burned with the slow restraint. They wanted to move faster, to strike hard and true. Even in the quiet, her body wanted to fight. It wanted to attack. It was as greedy as Hautman, but it knew what it wanted, and it terrified her. The scars on her body weren’t from a life well lived, she knew. There had to be a reason why her instinct was to hurt, why the single moment she had that was anything like a memory was of violence.She didn’t want to know the reason.Her hands swept through the air and she felt the breeze traveling between her fingers, sensed the shadows as they curled and bent around her form.Kanna didn’t know what she wanted except everything, anything, something her hands could grasp and hold and not break. Since she couldn’t have that, she would take peace. But she couldn’t have that, either.Her hands cut through the air, her feet turned, and her thoughts slowly cleared. There was nothing left but her, in this place, in this body that moved confidently, precisely, knew without knowing where each step she took would lead, how her hands would follow, when her lungs should breathe.When her first routine ended, her body found another. It moved quicker, turned sharper. Her heels dug into the ground and the debris scraped against the roof.She finished breathless, her muscles burning. She listened to the rasp of her lungs in the dark, felt the slight tremor of her fingers and her heart beating and knew she was alive.She opened her eyes to the world again and turned them skyward.The stars clustered in long sweeps. Those branching arms of galaxies reached across infinity, but in the vastness of the sky there was a gaping distance between all of them. They were beautiful, and they were alone. She wondered if they knew the light of each other, or if they, too, were lost in the black.

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II.02: What Lies Below

Beneath the city, the newly formed cadre of misfits and traitors huddled in a rock-covered alcove of Yassen’s design. When the white boots hit the city streets, they dug into their shelter, hiding from the army that flooded the streets. Kanna had awakened from her exhaustion swinging, but enough of her sense had returned that she was able to recognize her companions. Some of them, at least.Isco set himself to the task of assessing Kanna’s injuries. Being able to focus on something he knew how to do burned away the last vestiges of the shadows that lurked in the corners of his mind. Besides the obvious dehydration and exhaustion, most of Kanna’s injuries were, to his near astonishment, already half-healed.Kanna hadn’t stopped glaring at Haru, who leaned on the wall opposite of her, his arms crossed at his chest. He returned her stare, and Isco was at least grateful that he was too distracted to notice him.Yassen raised his hand. “I have a question.” The many glares turning on him didn’t deter him from asking it. “What did they mean by ‘Surrender the Legatus’? We don’t have a Legatus.”“I’m the Legatus,” Kanna said, her voice plain and even. The declaration was met with silence as the information seeped into the gathering.“You’re not the Legatus,” Astar replied with a snort, not wanting to believe the words. “I’ve known you for a year, Kanna. You could barely remember your name when we met. How are you the Legatus?”Kanna shrugged. “I am.”Astar was caught between confusion and anger. “Why didn’t you tell me?”“I didn’t know.”“But you do now?” Astar asked.“Yes.”Astar rubbed her hands against her face, running them through her hair and yanking at the ends. “How?”“I don’t know,” Kanna said, then turned her stare back on Haru. She shook her head as if clearing it and refocused. “Who are we up against?”Osawa cleared his throat. Standing next to the other two men, he seemed out of place. The other two radiated danger, so there was something about the calmer man that made Isco worry more. “I was able to determine the sender of the message. It was Salinae.”“Oh wonderful,” Vahn muttered.“Is that supposed to mean something?” Yassen asked.“Salinae is one of Velinius’s most loyal soldiers,” Osawa said. “Not to mention the Saint of Water. And Vahn’s ex.”Vahn shot a glare at Osawa. “Did you really need to add the last part?”“Hold on,” Astar said. She held her hands out in front of her, shaking her head. “You break up with the guy, and he brings an army after you and wrecks my city?”“In my defense,” Vahn replied, “I don’t think the two are related. Besides, he’s probably more pissed at Kanna. She’s the one who rearranged his face. Violently, and permanently.”Kanna’s brow furrowed. “Why would I do that?”Vahn’s grin slipped away, and the teasing lilt in his voice grew cold. “Who knows? Doesn’t matter. But of all the people that bitch could send.” Vahn sighed, his head lolling back behind his shoulders. “Sorry, K, didn’t mean to call your sister a bitch.”“My what now?”“Her what now?” Astar asked, her voice a near shriek. She whirled on Kanna. “You have a sister?”Kanna’s expression remained blank. “Maybe?”“Yeah,” Yassen said, “I’m still not sure what’s happening.”“Join the club,” Edin joined, breaking her previous silence.“There’s a club?”Astar covered her face with her hands and groaned. “What the fuck.”“Stop.” Vahn’s voice echoed in the cavern, rising only enough to be heard over the convoluted din. “Everyone stop, for a minute, let me think.”Isco turned to Vahn. The man was lean and sharp, but he appeared to Isco like a wild thing at rest. Osawa was buttoned down and creaseless, and while Haru wore a simple tee beneath his open jacket, there was something impeccable about him that still screamed uniform. Vahn was loose, his collared shirt untucked and half-buttoned, and yet there was something about it that made him all the more dangerous. He turned to Kanna. “Ananke?”“Yes?” she answered.“So, we’ve got that much,” he said. He gestured to include Isco, Astar, and Yassen, who were standing on Kanna’s side of the expanse. “Who are they?”Kanna looked to them in turn, her eyes locking on Isco for a moment.. "My friends."“Now, what about us?”Kanna looked at the others in turn, carefully considering. “I don’t know her,” she indicated Edin, “but that is Osawa Tando, a water loa. You are Vahn Noson, the Saint of Fire. He is...” she trailed off. “Haroun?”“Only when he’s in trouble.” Vahn turned to Haru, who raised a hand and shook his head to stop Vahn’s questioning. Vahn turned back to Kanna. “Anything else?”Kanna paused, her thoughts flickering behind her eyes as she searched for the right expression. “You are my friends?” she said, a half-question more than something known.“Fantastic,” Vahn said, sarcasm biting at the word. “Now that we’ve established some common ground, can we all stop growling at each other? We have to get out of this current mess, then we can figure out the rest of it. Objections?”No one raised any, and there was a moment of blessed silence.“How is she?” Haru asked, breaking the quiet.Isco flinched. Haru had stayed silent during the chaos that had followed their route following Kanna’s fallout. The sound of Haru’s voice was enough to trigger a near panic, memories from the night the Cardea fell threatened to curdle Isco’s precarious calm. Instead, he focused on the arm he was assessing. “Her injuries are mostly mild, or as mild as sword wounds can be, but the amount of them is concerning.”Kanna looked from her arm up to Isco, but he couldn’t meet her gaze, either. “Something is wrong with you,” she said. “Why are you so nervous?”Isco cleared his throat and sat back on his heels, taking his hands from her skin. He wasn’t sure how by her abilities worked, but some distance between them couldn’t hurt. “I need supplies. Something to clean the wounds and bandage them. You also could use a transfusion, though I don’t think that is something readily available.”Her eyes narrowed on him, and he had a feeling this wasn’t the end of her questioning. She left it alone, though, and turned to Astar. “Does your father have medical supplies at his compound?”“Basic things, sure. Nothing for transfusions, though, for that you’d need a Medicium.”“That’s fine,” Kanna said, “the needles seem unnecessary, anyway.”Kanna patted the side of Yassen’s knee to get his attention, holding out her hand when he looked down. He took it, lifting her to her feet easily. Once upright she swayed, and Haru stood up as if to move to her. She steadied herself on the wall behind her, and he leaned back to his previous position.“Maybe unnecessary,” Isco said, “but it would help you regain your strength faster.”“We’ll discuss it later,” she said, but in a way that Isco knew they would not. “Astar, I assume your father has tunnels connected under his home?”Astar nodded. “Of course he does, but it's like you’re forgetting we’re occupied. That’s the first place any force would go, right?”“Why?” Osawa asked, “It’s just your house.”“Astar is the Governor’s daughter,” Kanna said.The soldiers turned to her in near unison, their expressions a mix of concern and pity.“So, that’s where they’d go?” Yassen asked before the implications could be weighed.“Yeah,” Edin adjoined, seeming to catch on to Kanna’s trail of thought. “They would, which means they would have already checked the place and left. No reason to check the same place twice.”“Besides,” Kanna said, “my horse is there. I go nowhere without her.”“Your horse?” Vahn said, his sarcastic tone heavy with bitterness. “We just hauled your bastard horse halfway across the continent.”Haru pushed away from the wall he’d leaned against. “Leave it, Vahn.”Vahn turned on him. “Fuck you, Haru.”“All right.” Yassen clapped his hands together and stepped into the center of their makeshift cavern, interrupting whatever was happening. “Which way?”“There are tunnels that go west between the Theatre and the compound,” Astar said.“And I’ll be going east, to the railyard and away from here and you lot,” Edin said. “Astar, you coming?”Astar looked between Edin and Kanna and back. “No,” she said, “I don’t think I am.”Haru looked up, his eyes sparking momentarily. “Loose the horses before you go.”Edin snorted. “Gladly. Now can you open this thing up?”Yassen turned to study the walls.“East is that way,” Osawa offered, pointing to the wall behind Haru. “West is the other one.”Haru moved next to Kanna, but kept a spare distance between them. He was clearly agitated, but holding back with a practiced detachment.The earth shifted, opening under Yassen’s guidance as Astar led them into the existing tunnels, Edin taking her own path in the opposite direction. Osawa was the first of the soldiers to follow behind Astar. Vahn looked back, his gaze flitting over Isco then landing on Haru.Isco stayed close to Kanna. He knew the others would leave him alone as long as he was useful to her because, despite her current unsteady gait, she was still commanding. Her memory was a patchwork of facts, and she didn’t seem to remember the time she spent on Adur. At least, not yet.He had no illusions with regards to his ultimate safety. Once Kanna remembered him, that would be the end. All he had to do was look behind him to the blue-eyed soldier to know his fate had been sealed long ago.

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