The Raging Ones Read online

  “I gave you five thousand bills to be here.” He repeatedly jabs at the podium’s sleek surface.

  “And we thank you greatly for your contribution to the world’s aerospace department. We promise it’ll go to good use.” Amelda forces a bright smile that shakes a little as the man starts yelling about refunds. “I implore you to write a letter stating your grievances. It’s more helpful than shouting at me, hmm?” She waves the boy behind him forward. “Come here, little lamb.”

  In one minute, he’s enrolled.

  I start to think that they’re only taking children, but then two men in their twenties smile wide, hug each other, and wait by the benches.

  We watch a redheaded mother and her freckled son split up, the mother trying to pull a smile from the boy, but he stares morosely at the floor.

  She whispers, “If this is the last I see of you, look up at me.”

  He looks up.

  “You will go down in history, Seifried, and I will be with you, right where the gods lie.” She puts her hand to his heart. Securing his travel satchel on his shoulder, she says gently, “May the gods be in your spirit, my Seifried.”

  He apprehensively holds the strap of his satchel. “And I in your heart.”

  I should have no emotion toward this scene, but my eyes feel like they’ve sprung an irrational leak. A chord struck that deep makes no sense. I glance at Franny.

  She rubs aggressively at her watery gaze as the mother lingers and then exits the museum. If I ask the why to her emotions, I’m afraid of growing more sentimental.

  I don’t want to cry.

  I don’t want to be angry.

  Or paranoid, worried, maddened—I don’t want to be anything at all.

  Franny sniffs loudly and a few heads turn. When she wipes at her dripping nose with the back of her hand, I reach into my waistcoat for a handkerchief.

  Just as I offer, she grabs the red cloth and the longest pause passes before she remembers to say, “Thanks.”

  I see how hard she tries to remember etiquette. I’m just not sure if Franny’s best will be enough.

  Almost there.

  We’re next in line.

  Mykal rests a consoling hand on her head and, with a smile, she smacks it away. He glances at me—Focus.

  Assertive. Straightened. Readied.

  No distractions.

  “I apologize, you haven’t qualified,” Amelda says to a girl no older than eight.

  She begins to cry. “But my father said I can’t go home until I’m hired for the Saga 5 Mission!”

  “Then tell your father you were overqualified. He’ll still be proud.” Amelda smiles warmly at me; the little girl slumps and drifts away.

  I approach the podium and procure a stuffed envelope from inside my suit. “For all three of us.” I motion to Mykal and Franny who flank my sides.

  “Set your identifications on top while I count.” She licks her finger and flips through the bills, mouthing numbers to herself.

  I think I’m holding my breath because Mykal clears his throat roughly, hating when I cage in air.

  Swallowing hard, I try to inhale fully. Franny massages her throat, adding to the layers of senses that crash at me like a brash orchestra. Out of tune, wildly annoying. I’d like to shut it off.

  Just once.

  Just right now.

  Identifications on the podium, I close my eyes for a long moment, then open as Amelda exclaims, “The bills are all here. Now let’s see…” She gathers our cards. “Wilafran Elcastle of Altia?” Clucking her tongue before smiling. “You’ve qualified for enrollment. Let me just…” Amelda uncaps a marker and bows forward, scribbling.

  None of us can relax.

  “Here you go.” Amelda stretches to hand Franny a rectangular name badge with a purple Altia emblem.

  “Thank you,” Franny says, voice stilted.

  “You’re quite welcome. Now for you and you.” She lifts another blue card. “Mykal Kickfall—Ah a fall. Not a single fall has been turned away, isn’t that something? Though there haven’t been many of you.” She gives him an extra smile, which is common for falls to receive.

  Mykal’s mother died giving birth to him. Therefore he became Mykal Kickfall instead of Kickcastle. Many cradle superstitions like treasures, and mothers who choose to conceive nine months before their deathday are bringing life at the moment of death.

  For most, it’s a holy ending. And many say the God of Death has touched the newborn. A symbol of great fortune. And so they shall fall into luck throughout their lives.

  I’ve told Mykal plenty of times that no god kissed him. He’s one of the most unluckiest individuals I’ve ever met. His reply, “Then my luck will be coming in due time.”

  The rest of us are just castles. Sturdy fortresses, together, in this world.

  “Great,” Mykal says to Amelda. “So have I qualified?”

  “Yes you have.” After she makes his name badge, she inspects my battered identification with confusion. I explain that I dropped the card and a Purple Coach ran it over during the blizzard.

  “Oh bad luck. Maybe your friend can give you more.” She laughs at the joke.

  I try to force a semblance of a smile, but Franny wrinkles her nose at me. I’m cringing, I realize.

  “Court … Iv … I apologize, sir, what is your surname?” she asks.

  “Idlecastle of Altia.”

  She squints at the card for another full minute.

  I rub my lips like any second I may scream.

  Amelda passes the card to me. “I think this will do. You might look into applying for a new one through Altia mail.”

  “I will.” I won’t.

  I pocket the identification, tensed, and then she hands me a name badge. We wait by the benches in complete silence, the line dwindling quickly.

  Only one other Influential enrolls after us. The little girl who elbowed Franny arches her shoulders and ensures her pigtails never cover her nametag: Odell Petalcastle, Altia emblem.

  Not everyone wears the Altian eight-pointed star. Seifried wears Maranil’s silvergill, a fish that no one mocks since it’s said to be favored by the God of Victory.

  “Ten total.” Amelda hurries to us “Six born in Altia, three in Orricht, one Maranil. That’s quite a decent size out of fifty-eight.” She pushes the elevator button, doors springing open. “Go, go, go—before more come. I’m doing a batch of candidates at a time.”

  We’re ushered inside the spacious elevator. Mykal scrutinizes his surroundings. With added weight, the elevator wobbles. He grabs hold of the railing, eyes hardened and alert.

  Mykal hates riding elevators and almost refused the last time we were at the Catherina Hotel. He calls them the “silliest contraptions he’s ever seen,” and his eyes speak those same opinions.

  I only convinced him to abandon the stairs when I said, “You’ve slain bears in Grenpale. You’ve survived backbreaking winds in the Free Lands. Do you truly plan to waste your energy and fear on this?”

  I’m frightened of much more than Mykal. That is the truth.

  And very rarely do I need to instill the same confidence in him that he instills in me. I believe that I’m terrible at that, but he stayed in that elevator.

  Just as he stays in this one now.

  Franny hugs her satchel and stares upward. I can practically hear one hundred and thirteen repeated in her head.

  “You’re all very lucky.” Amelda shrugs off her golden jacket, Museum of Natural Histories & Figures embroidered on the breast pocket. “So many people want to enroll and they never will.”

  “How did we?” I ask first.

  Amelda swiftly turns the jacket inside out with two tugs of the arms. As though she’s done this many times before, she easily fits the jacket back on.

  It’s black now.

  This time, a golden triangle with three stars is stitched over the heart. The StarDust logo is unmistakable.

  “It’s simple, truthfully.” Amelda lights up the only
button, no labels or floor numbers. “StarDust is only looking for Influentials with the most possible years ahead of them. We only let in people who’ll die after a hundred and who are currently younger than twenty-five.”

  I try not to glare at the ceiling, so I end up rolling my eyes. They could’ve clearly written age and deathday requirements on the flyers, but they chose not to. For that extra five thousand bills.

  If that’d been us, I would’ve … I don’t know what I would’ve done. Cried. Screamed. Wished for a sooner ending than a later one.

  The elevator descends.

  Lowering far beneath the ground.

  More of us inquire about being hired for the mission, but Amelda evades the extra questions. “I can only explain so much at a time,” she says. “All candidates will learn more later.”

  Ping.

  Slowly, the doors slide open to a quiet, warm common room: dark purple sofas and velvet chaises, rich-threaded rugs on hardwood, an oak staircase, casia crackling in a fireplace, gold-leafed walls with wooden panels. If not for the ornate paintings of a galaxy and planet, I’d believe we walked into an Influential’s home.

  “Dessa will mark your bags.”

  As though summoned, a wrinkled woman with a gray pixie cut and cross face walks down the staircase. She is dressed in slacks and a buttoned blouse. “Let it be known, this is not my primary job. I will not clean up after you or unpack your things. The porters are busy with the welcome dinner and I drew the short straw.” Nearing us, she yanks the satchel out of Franny’s hands.

  Welcome dinner. Beyond a wooden door, voices pitch and seem to echo …

  “This way,” Amelda says, guiding us to that very door after we’ve dropped off our possessions. “Four hallways will connect you to the schoolroom, the common room, the dining room, and the training facility, which includes a medical wing. Above the common room are your dormitories and baths.” Turning the knob, she pauses. And smiles. “Are you ready?”

  “Yes!” the younger children exclaim first.

  Amelda pushes into a wide marble hallway that stretches to another door.

  Odell gasps and races toward the left-side wall. Which is not so much a wall as they are windows, looking out toward a cavernous room. The children press their noses to the glass while we all near. They ooh and ahh.

  My eyes too, start to grow. My chest swells and I stare at my only hope: the sleek, saucer-shaped starcraft, three tubular engines and Saga painted in gold across the onyx shell. High above is a dome window, lilac smoke clouding the panes. Since we’re under the museum, the dome must be the only window to the outdoors.

  “The launch area is the center of everything.”

  This is why we’re here.

  “Pardon the tools and machinery beside the starcraft; the technicians don’t always clean up if they’re working late. This way to the dining room.” Amelda spins on her heels and directs us forward.

  Halfway there, the door cracks and a figure looms behind it, shielded by the wood.

  Amelda walks so urgently that the pencils slip from her brown tendrils. She ignores them and then clutches the edge of the door, speaking in a hushed voice to the hidden figure.

  I find myself increasing my pace. Swift, uncertain. I have a strange feeling all of a sudden and I turn to Mykal, to Franny, and they shake their heads.

  Is that feeling mine?

  Forward.

  I walk forward, and as the deep voice on the other side escalates, I know for certain.

  The strangeness belongs to me.

  I’ve never met anyone from StarDust, but that voice carries eerie familiarity.

  Forward.

  Closer.

  Nearer.

  Amelda unconsciously cracks the door farther open.

  At the sight of the man, I skid to a stop. I stand like a crimson fortress to the west. Like Vorkter. Unmovable, impenetrable—stuck rigidly in ice. “Never touch the iron bars,” my cellmate said when I first entered. Without casia to warm Vorkter, flesh would stick to the freezing metal. And rip right off.

  I do know that man.

  Unbridled mirth with no counterpart, no comparison, shines through dark twinkling eyes, his strong jaw and high-set cheekbones. He wears a tux effortlessly, like he was born in one. Head smoothly shaven, only a grayed prickled goatee is rough against his dark brown skin. His poised stature welcomes Amelda. Friendly.

  My father.

  He has always been friendly.

  He’s older than I remember. In his late fifties now.

  The last time I saw him, he gripped my arms, shaking me with heart-wrenching sorrow. Hot tears poured down his cheeks. His broken voice bled into my ears for seven long years after. “Why did you do it?!” he screamed. “Why did you do it?!”

  There were no answers that’d appease him, nothing I could bear to say. Eyes burning, I stood unblinkingly. His legs buckled at my tearful silence and my mother’s sobs wrung the frigid air.

  I was ten years of age.

  He only let go of my shoulders when the Altia Patrol ripped me from him, and they pushed my head down into their black car, Purple Coach driver at the wheel. Ready to bring me to Vorkter.

  “Why did you do it?!”

  Everyone smiled when we buried Illian. Everyone smiled but me. And my father—he cried when he last set his eyes on mine. He lost me before he ever thought he would.

  “Why did you do it?!”

  The memory slices my eardrums.

  My father glances absentmindedly to the hall, his benevolent eyes catching mine, but I turn to the side—he can’t know me. I look much older now, but more than that, he believed his son died.

  My face heats and I listen to his voice trail off before he says a flustered goodbye to Amelda. The door shuts.

  I buried so much of my life with my family. I never planned to excavate it.

  Not to this degree.

  But I believed that I truly knew my father. As a boy, he’d lift me on his knee and let me peruse his physics books, pointing out surface plasmon resonance and polariton, sometimes thermodynamics and casia. He hoped I’d follow in his profession, but he never chastised or swayed me when I chose medicine.

  At our oak dining table—cream doily cloths beneath plates and robust chairs occupied by my mother and father, little brother Illian and older brother Kinden—no one ever talked about aerospace or astrophysics.

  So I ask Amelda, “Who was that man?”

  She reaches for the door again. “Tauris Valcastle, Director of StarDust. He ultimately decides everything.”

  SIXTEEN

  Mykal

  Amelda swings open the dining room door to extravagance that befits kings and queens in fairy tales. Suited for polished men and ladies with grace learned from birth.

  Hundreds of tufted chairs line endless rows of mahogany tables. Brass chandeliers hang low. Dark green and maroon tassels dangle off lamp shades. Tables are stuffed to the brim: red rose centerpieces, sugar and salt boats, crystal goblets, five-tiered plates, and forks, spoons, knives galore—who needs that much silverware?

  Blood drains from my head. Realizations pound at me. I’m supposed to fit in here?

  “Take a seat wherever you can find one.” I hardly hear Amelda, my focus brewing elsewhere. “Dinner will be served once I’ve enrolled the final batch of candidates.” She pads away.

  I take a step forward and glare at my feet. Carpet. I loathe carpet. Floor should be hard beneath every boot.

  I thought Franny would match my discomfort, but she’s nothing short of awed, eyes glittering at the nauseating décor.

  Many ladies here wear a similar style blouse to Franny’s sapphire silk: big bow over the chest and thimble-sized buttons cascading down the spine.

  Her senseless bra pokes at me, the underwire bothersome. I’d scratch my chest, but I know better now.

  Three rows of tables and Court chooses the one closest to the kitchen. Doors thrash open as porters rush feverishly in and out to fill wine goblets. />
  More than a few empty chairs here, I settle next to Franny. Court faces us.

  We’re quiet. Influentials seated right beside us. Ranging from twenty-five to as young as seven, they prattle among themselves.

  Court drums his knee incessantly. Until he catches the tic and closes his fingers into a fist.

  I haven’t ever been able to read his mind, but I know the name Tauris Valcastle rattled his core. In the hallway, Franny and I were able to ask what was wrong, and he whispered three words, “He’s my father.”

  His father. Court had talked of him somewhat, but not often enough to paint a vivid picture. I gathered that he wasn’t nasty or malicious to where I’d arch my back and bear my knuckles. When Court mentioned his father, it was with sorrow. And guilt.

  I try not to be concerned about all the complications that’ll be arriving with his father here.

  “We should be given more instructions by now,” a boy sitting closest to me says crisply. “The dining room is practically full.” Name badge: Symons Ravelcastle. Emblem: a horned ram. Orricht born, a country known for farming wheat, shearing wool, and raising livestock.

  Symons pinches a cigar between jeweled fingers. His suit chokes the hollow of his throat, dapper and clean-cut with slicked black hair and warm beige skin. To his left, a thin brown-haired boy fiddles with a lighter, flame dying. Bronze glow to his cheeks, he huffs in frustration, but Symons doesn’t hassle the boy to go faster.

  Court kicks me, not hard, but I shift anyways.

  I’m peering close to Symons, so near that if he turns, our noses would whack, I see. So I ease back.

  In the past ten years, I can count on two hands the number of people I’ve spoken to. I don’t always know how to react around others so they won’t label me as strange.

  “StarDust is secret for a reason,” the boy tells him. Click. From the corner of my eye, I see a flame from his lighter.

  Symons puffs the cigar. “So secret they’d allow any Influential to join,” he rebuts. “Did you see Patrik on our way in, Sel? What does he plan to do, play the flute in space? At least be sensible enough to have a background in the sciences before you pay five thousand bills.”

  Franny frowns darkly at the dish and then she takes a breath and traces the golden lip of her five plates. Court has his fingers to his jaw, more alert than every Influential combined.