Her eyes blaze with a sort of fire. Not real fire, but determination. It is unexpected. She just looks so thin, so frail. Although she towers above me, I feel so much bigger than her. At least normally I do. But now she looks strong, like maybe her bones are made of a tougher material than I thought. I wait for her to speak.

“Your father is alive,” she says.

Chapter Four

Tristan

I like calling the Tri-Realms the underworld. For to me, that’s what it is. At times it feels more hellish than if I were at barbecue with a bunch of demons and zombies, roasting the undead on a fiery spit.

I long to feel the wind tousle my hair, the sunlight on my face. Not the fake sun my father’s engineers have created, but the real thing. There is nothing like it.

The underworld is so different. Dark, gloomy—it feels dead to me. Like it isn’t natural that any form of life other than the spiders and snakes and bats should occupy it. Certainly not humans.

And if we live in the underworld, then my father is the Devil himself, shrewd, evil, self-serving. They say that blood creates an unbreakable bond. If there is a bond between my father and me—created by blood, DNA, or something else entirely—it is as brittle as talc, cracking and crumbling while I was still in my mother’s womb.

I see her face again—the moon dweller with the shimmering black hair—so beautiful, so strong, so sad, like she is crying invisible tears. Reaching out, I try to touch her, to comfort her. But each time I try, she seems further away, as if some unseen force is keeping us apart. I run, pumping my arms and legs harder and harder, trying to keep up with her, but never able to close the gap. Finally, when I think my legs will collapse beneath me, she stops. I approach, my heart fluttering, my body trembling in anticipation of feeling her skin against mine. I hear a slight whirr and feel a whoosh of air as something flies just past my ear. A flaming arrow. No! Already a spot of blood is seeping through her white tunic where the arrowhead has pierced her breast. The flames are licking at her clothes, charring them. I try to run to her, to douse the flames, to pluck the arrow from her skin and stop the bleeding, but my feet won’t move. At first I think I’m in shock, that I’m simply too weak-minded to gain control of my body, but when I look at my feet, they are encased in stone. He moves past me. The archer. I can’t see his face, but I’d recognize his gait anywhere. My creator. I scream at him to Stop, please stop! but he ignores me, instead blowing softly on the flames, fueling them until they spread. I have to turn away—God, how desperately I want to turn away—but I can’t. Can’t. Can’t even close my eyes. I watch her burn. She is brave—doesn’t even cry out, but I can hear her screams anyway.

I wake up sweating and yelling, thrashing about in my bed. And thinking about the underworld.

Roc is by my side. As always. He puts a hand across my chest. “Shhh,” he says. “Someone will hear.”

My legs stop thrashing, my arms stop flailing. I am breathing heavily but not screaming anymore. It was just a dream. I am on my bed; Roc must have carried me.

“What happened?” I say.

“You fainted,” Roc says, his lips curling slightly.

“Does that give you some kind of pleasure?” I snap.

Roc continues grinning. “Given it was brought on by your battle with a ferocious warrior, namely me, I’d say yes, it does bring me a level of pleasure. Especially because it was in the midst of my stunning and heroic victory,” he adds.

Normally I would laugh. But I feel anything but normal. I feel like I’ve lost someone special to me, someone close. Like my mother—but a different kind of close, a different kind of special. I grunt.

Roc seems to recognize that something is wrong and his smile fades. “Tristan, are you okay?” he asks.

I honestly don’t know. So I swing my legs over the side of the bed and tell him everything. About the girl in the Pen, the big guy who was about to assault her, how I saw her face just before I fainted, and about my dream—what my father did to her. When I finish I look for his reaction. I think he might make fun of me. If the roles were reversed it’s what I might do.

Instead, his lips are tight, his eyes narrow. He says, “I think it means something.”

“You do?” I say, genuinely surprised.

“Yes. A storm is coming. I’ve felt it for some time now. I think you have, too. Why we have never spoken of it before, I do not know. Perhaps we were scared.”

My first instinct is to contradict him. Not the stuff about the storm—whatever that means—but about us being scared. He might be, but not me. I’m not scared of anything. Not even my father—not anymore—although I probably should be. But I know I’ve been too reactionary lately—too quick to fire back at Roc if I don’t like something he says. Like a good friend, he’s put up with it, shaking his head and ignoring my outbursts. So, for once, I don’t say the first thing that pops into my head. I actually think about what he said.

A storm? I know he doesn’t mean a physical storm, like the ones that rage on the earth’s surface from time to time. Therefore, a metaphorical one. Like a conflict. A battle maybe. No, more specific than that: a rebellion. I have felt it, too. Have even commented on it. If not out loud, then in my head, to myself. How it is a wonder that everyone puts up with my father’s tyrannical politics, his cruel and unfair treatment of the people that support his way of life. Not a wonder—a miracle. And miracles simply don’t happen these days. Not anymore. They are a thing of the past, of legends, of stories. Which means it is bound to happen eventually. From time to time we hear whisperings of secret groups of radicals, plotting and scheming in hidden caves, using secret handshakes and passwords. My father dismisses them as casually as he swats pesky flies from his shoulder.

I have felt it, too. So why haven’t we talked about it before? I try to open myself to the possibility that I am scared, like Roc suggested. I know right away that isn’t it. It’s something else: I don’t believe my own feelings. And why would I? Things have been the same my whole life. Things will never change, can never change. Can they?

I feel Roc’s eyes on my face. I look at him. There is a twinkle in his eye, like he knows I’ve worked it out.

I say, “I’m not scared.” You know, just to set the record straight.

He winks at me. “I know,” he says.

“You what?” I say. “Then why did you—”

“Because I am scared, and I wanted you to think about things seriously.”

I rise to my feet. “What? I do take things ser…What are you suggesting, that I’m not serious enough?” My face is starting to feel hot.

Roc puts his arms out, palms open. “No, I just think that ever since your mom…”—his eyes drift down—“…left, you’ve been in a funk, a haze, not really as engaged as you used to be. The only time I see light in your eyes is when we’re training.”

“What are you, my shrink or something?”

“There you go—not taking things seriously again.”

I grit my teeth. I am determined not to make another light comment or joke for the rest of the conversation. I hope our talk won’t last too long.

“Fine,” I say. “Okay, so I’ve been in this haze, hating life, no light in my eyes except when I’m beating the snot out of you with a wooden sword…” Blast! A joke—I’ve failed already. Being serious is harder than I thought. Maybe Roc is right, but I’m certainly not going to say that out loud. Pausing, I try to gather my thoughts. Roc lets the joke pass without comment. “So I see this girl, this moon dweller. Roc, lemme tell ya, she was incredible. Beautiful. Even wearing her gray prisoner’s tunic she was stunning. Her hair fell like a black waterfall around her shoulders. Her eyes were intensely fascinating. And her curves, my God, Roc, were they ever—”