Chapter 10

A nother series of gunshots ricocheted through Vala's hearing, jarring her. She staggered up from Janie's body, survival instincts kicking into gear. The rune tracers had obviously connected her to the crime scene and found her in a frighteningly quick amount of time. She had only moments before police entered the apartment building. The stolen rune books in her apartment condemned her alone, never mind any connection they found between her and the murders. She checked that the Masked Man's equi roll was in her pocket, her packed bag remained behind so she could run. With a final glance at Janie's still form, she flung the door open. People clogged the stairs, aimlessly milling and chattering in their fear. Slipping through them, she leapt down the steps. At the back door, she pulled her hood low and took a deep breath.

"Don't go out there." A man peered at her through the chain links looping over his apartment door. "They're shooting anyone they see—" He gave her a funny look and slammed the door with a muffled squawk.

Vala stared down. Janie's blood was all over her new jacket. Dear, kind Janie. Rage filled her. She peeked outside, opening the door by a narrow slit. A military truck rolled down the street for her. They planned to corner her at the front door and this back entrance. It was now or never to run. She forced herself not to sob at the memory of Janie's warm blood flowing over her hands. A dozen police jumped down, loosening their guns.

If she dashed across the street, between the apartment buildings beyond, she could cross the canal. The flimsy pedestrian bridges would keep the trucks trapped on this side and force soldiers to chase her on foot. She was fast and small. She could likely outrun the police, weighed down as they were in heavy tactical gear, in the warren of buildings beyond the canal. Vala took a deep breath and sent a thought out to Corina, desperately hoping that she huddled somewhere, staying safe and hidden.

She shoved open the door and ran outside.

The police immediately spotted her. Four of them broke away from the moving truck, guns falling into position.

"Stop. Stop in the name of the emperor!" A police woman shouted.

Vala made it halfway across the road before they opened fire. She heard the angry whizz of bullets scream past her ears and face, ricocheting off the tarmac. She jumped off the road and ducked into the slender alley between the apartments. Dashing between the trash cans lining the walls, she dared a look over her shoulder. They chased her, a man stumbling against the trash bin she tossed behind her and one of the women falling over him. Vala leapt from the back of the building and headed to the canal bank. More bullets shrieked past, thumping into the mud around her feet with sickening splats.

She ran along the bank, slipping on the edges. Behind her, a policeman yelled but she kept her speed up. The bridge rose just a dozen strides away. Her leg slid upon the muddy bank, and she fell into the canal, sinking up to her knees in the bubbly waters. She could feel the deep edge of the canal beyond her shoes, the bottom descending to levels impossible to swim and sluggish with trash and filth. Cursing, she wriggled onto slippery ground—and a hand grabbed her arm and wrenched hard.

Vala flung him off, using his boots sinking into the mud to her advantage. He toppled into the water, stumbled into the deep end and sank under with a heavy splash. She jumped onto the bridge, running along the shaky wood beams that people used to cross the waterway. A scream followed her and an arm flailed in the water. The man appeared to be drowning. Pity stabbed at her but the two police women thumped onto the bridge after her. What happened to the second man?

One of the women shouted and fired a warning shot close to her feet.

Vala kept running, nearly tumbling into the water. The first woman must have jumped onto the bridge for she felt her heavy body shift the planks under her feet. Damn it all. She ran faster. Sparing a glance down below, she noticed the solitary boot that bobbed against the muddy shore in a widening stain of blood…a severed hand drifting like an autumn leaf on the gray foam. A violent shiver thudded her into realization. The monster . There was something terrible and hungry living in the waterways.

From the canal burst a creature she could not have imagined still existed. It leapt high from the fetid water, droplets shooting from the emerald scales of its chest and finned arms that were tipped with long, black claws. Its deep green face still retained the large, bulbous eyes, chin, and extended neck of humans. But the nose jutted forth longer than seen on people and the remainder of the body twisted, sinuous and curved, like the tail portion of a shark.

" Antediluvian ," she breathed in fear and wonder, staggering back. The humanoid fish dweller of the ocean was supposed to be extinct. But a very real monster leapt upon the last woman, its wide mouth ripping off her head with a thousand black fangs. The fountain of blood that shot upwards made Vala hideously ill. The monster had attacked the police, fortuitously so, but she would not stick around to see if it favored her for lunch.

She leapt off the bridge onto the bank. A heavy splash informed her that the Antediluvian had retreated to the water, dragging its prey into the murky waters below.

Vala raced past the cluster of shanties surrounding the banks and jumped through the space between the apartment buildings rising beyond. She rounded a brick wall and thumped into a lanky, thin body. A body robed in the black and red colors of an Academy Professor.

"You took a while," trickled a familiar, sickening voice.

She leapt backward in fright. "Heep?"

He spared a look over her shoulder at the canal and her bloody jacket and hands. "I do hope that blood is not your own."

"Why are you here?" She gasped.

He gestured to an exquisite car parked in the middle of the broken tarmac. The metal shone with sky and fire and the sides sleekly wrapped around black windows and huge tires in luxurious curves. She wondered what in the world an Academy professor did in his spare time to afford such a luxury item.

"As your guardian, I was given your rune plants to monitor. You must realize," he strode to the vehicle, robes heavy and limp around his bony form, "I'm here to rescue you."

The car doors swung upwards with a press of a button.

She froze. "I'm not coming with you."

He scoffed. "You have no choice. By now, every bus stop, dock, and train station in this city has law enforcement looking for you. All the highways have checkpoints in place. You will not escape unless you accept my assistance. Now hurry, I haven't got all day."

She looked across the pavement at him, feeling a world apart. "You've been waiting here a while, haven't you. You could have arrived sooner. Janie died because you took your time."

He spared her a look of mild guilt. She wondered that he was able to fabricate the emotion at all. "I knew you would evade the police. I am sorry about your roommate but we are always unprepared for casualties of circumstance."

She thought he lied but refused to give him further satisfaction of knowing how much Janie meant to her as a friend. "Oh, I see. You just wanted to make me run to you."

Heep did not reply but a smirk played round his features. She hated him for that. The Masked Man could help her. Provided he still cared enough to be involved in her perpetually messy life. Maybe her prison stint had scared him off or perhaps he had no intention of fighting the entire Imperial police task force. She gritted her teeth. Either way, she knew how to survive on her own. Janie had died because they had been friends. Wherever she was, Corina was at risk. She must survive on her own. Trust no one and never contact Corina again. It was the least she could do to save her.

She stepped back. "You've mocked and humiliated me since the first day I worked at the Academy. Now, you suddenly pretend to care? How do I know you won't just turn me over?"

She watched him through the window as he slid into the driver's seat, his knees high and knobby in the low-slung car. "I won't take you to the police. Come. My car will get you past the checkpoints." He gestured to a gold imperial insignia resting on the dashboard.

She crossed her arms. "I can escape the city on my own." She did not need him or the Masked Man to protect herself. Besides, she had money. Plenty of people would accept a bribe in return for helping smuggle her away on a canal boat. Once she got to the Ringold River, there were barges where a stowaway would never be found. As long as she stayed on water, it would be that much harder for the police to track her runes through the Dynn.

"Maybe you can. But if you never see me again, you will never know why you create fire when you open the Dynn. I have the answers you so desperately want." His thin voice drifted from the car, muffled by the thrumming engine.

She kept her voice sarcastic to mask her curiosity. "Why would you know about my lack of abilities?"

"There are many things you don't know." His eyes sharply glittered within the depths of the car.

She trembled with fear and adrenaline. If she fled now, she would never learn the truth and she needed to know how she had killed her parents. Too much had happened and no one ever gave her answers, not even the Masked Man. Now Janie was dead and Corina forever lost to her. She did not have much less to lose. Her life, perhaps, but it had held little value to her before. Beyond comfort in staying alive, she was uncertain what else remained for her to look forward to in her future.

"That was not an answer," she tried to sound brave. "Why should I trust you? You don't even like me."

"That is true. But did you ever wonder how you managed to get out of a life sentence after seven years? I am an Imperial advisor, after all. I put a good word in for you."

"Why?"

"Get in and I'll tell you." He shrugged. "Or walk away. They will find you and you will die. There are limits to my influence even now. I can rescue you but not if they get to you first. And let me tell you, they WILL find you, no matter how far you run. They have your rune plants. It is only a matter of time."

"Damn it all." She sniffed back her tears as the same, old helpless fury surged within her over the thought of never being able to control or even influence her future. She flung herself into the car and slammed down the door.

"Excellent decision. Poor word choice." Heep spun the car around in a squeal of tires.

He drove fast and badly. She found herself bracing against the seatbar at a few turns, cursing under her breath. But he had been right about the bus stops. The first three they roared past held soldiers. Fear slithered through her gut.

Heep glanced at her. "Can you take off that jacket? I don't want stains on my leather seats."

She slipped out of the warm garment, her heart thumping at the sight of Janie's blood. She clasped it to her, trying to retain some memory of her friend. "Okay, done. I'm in your car and I'm listening."

The professor gripped the steering wheel and peered upon the road in concentrated silence. Dingy buildings rushed past in a gray stream—people tottering on broken sidewalks, beggars holding out buckets, a stray dog sniffing a wall—transformed into a swift blur under the heavy, thunderous skies.

"Describe a market short to me." His glance slid to her before focusing once more on the road.

She shrugged in reply, then rapidly clutched her seat as the car shrieked round a corner.

He adjusted his speed, pressing buttons in the elegant metal dashboard. "What kind of answer is that? Attempt to use that brain of yours and try to impress me for once."

She glared at him. Even now, in the act of rescue, he loved making her feel stupid. "I know what a short is."

"Then enlighten my awaiting ears."

She swallowed down her angry retort. Why the Helel was he quizzing her on runes now? "Traders often short runes, or trade against them, to avoid potential losses such as cargo sunships fallen at sea or a political rival gaining a stronger-than-predicted electoral lead. It's essentially a contrary exposure to market dynamics. Say all the traders in the exchanges around the world expected the runes to act upon a certain future result in the Dynn. If that future turns out to be wrong, then the markets will fall and the runes will wither and die in the Dynn. But if a trader bought the runes that predicted the correct future, they stand to make a crazy fortune since those runes will grow to be powerful. Small shorts grow and die every day but really big ones are exceedingly rare. Their market event can grow a whole forest in the Dynn and change the world's future. Maybe they happen once in a lifetime…maybe even less. "

He pondered this with a heavy frown. "Hmph. I ordered all those rune books to your cell and frankly, I expected a better answer. I mean, you had nothing else to do but study all day, every day, for years ."

She absorbed his words, horror replacing any original offense. "I…don't understand. The books were from the prison library."

Heep stomped on the gas and the vehicle accelerated with a silky, powerful roar upon the highway. "Why in the world would a top security island prison have dozens of rune books? No, I sent the books to you. Solitary confinement ensured you had peace to study."

"You…you…" Sudden rage exploded within her. Heep was the reason she had lain screaming night after night in that terrible cell, unable to see daylight for weeks, talk to anyone…do anything . She wanted to scream her disgust for him but no words came to her lips. She just sat there, stunned.

"I can imagine how you feel but it was for the best. I arranged for your release and I ensured you landed that janitor's position in the Academy when no one wanted a murderer on their payroll."

She got the impression that Heep was extremely pleased to finally be revealing how he controlled her. She felt black hatred for him but kept her face still as he continued.

"I was at your crime scene. They had to demolish the house. The place is still off limits since the government wasn't sure just how much of the Dynn was damaged by your stupid fire act. You were a true danger. Prison kept you from killing anyone else until I was able to sufficiently prune your runes. There were enough protection runes around Lielroth Island to prevent the world's best rune workers from breaking out and the ocean provided a successful deterrent for the more aggressive prisoners. I should know. I helped design the latest model."

She took several deep breaths, her rational mind breaking through the searing hate. Heep had done all this? And what else? "Do you really think I tried to kill my parents on purpose?"

"It doesn't matter what your intentions were. They're still dead." He grimly looked ahead.

She suppressed a sob at the cruel remark. What had happened that night was beyond terrible, but it was not her fault. She was not a willing murderer although she had killed them all the same. Heep was wrong. And HE was pruning her rune plants? She had always assumed the government had trimmed her runes as they did with all convicts to ensure their future deeds were less…well, evil. But Heep hated her. He likely took a heavy, displeasing hand to her rune plants as well…her future . Large, angry tears whelmed in her eyes and her stomach ached. She felt so helpless, her body hurt.

The highway, now thick with slowing cars, ended at a causeway bridge. Beyond the narrow rise of factory buildings and shops, she glimpsed slivers of the harbor, waters glimmering like oil under the damp skies. They came across a checkpoint but Heep used the special access lane, designated for certain, important people. The police glanced at the insignia on the dashboard and waved him through.

She breathed deeply, calming herself, as blood pounded under her nails. Heep expected an outburst from her but she would remain calm. He had to provide her with answers.

They raced over the causeway bridge and turned onto a side road lined with brick retail stores and manicured trees. The sidewalks thronged with people. Ovgarod's docks had a life of their own. The entire city came to stare upon the fleet of Imperial sunships, dine and shop, and enjoy the sights and thrills of the world's greatest harbor.

"Professor Heep," she kept her voice as neutral as possible, "What does a market short have to do with my inability to enter the Dynn?"

Heep pulled the car into a parking lot and choked the engine's thrum. "I will tell you but we must hurry. I bought you a ticket on a sunship to Slyva. You need to leave before the Noventury happens."

At least he had kept to his promise to help her escape. And the ocean was the best option to keep her safe from the police and anyone else tracking her runes.

"Why do I need to leave before the Noventury?" She was less clear on why that event had anything to do with her.

"Stop repeating what I say. You're not deaf since I last checked," he muttered. "The emperor's power has reigned supreme for nine hundred years. His sun magic grows the hordes of runes that control his future…and his future is the empire's future. But on the day of the Noventury, this Friday , there is to be an eclipse at noon."

She thought about why this news was important for her and failed to recall anything of note. "So?"

"This is not just any mere eclipse. The four moons will align directly between our world and the sun, cutting off sunlight for well over an hour across our continent. The first black eclipse in ten thousand years. His solar power will fail during that time and, starved of sunlight, all of his rune trees will die in the Dynn. As they die, their value will plummet across the world's Exchanges. Do you know what this means?"

"A market crash…like, an insanely big one," she whispered in awe, comprehension hitting her fast. Joe had suggested such a thing when they last spoke. Only, she had not connected the dots. She felt stupid for not realizing the importance of the eclipse for Luiximor's runes earlier than now. Certainly, all the traders must know and be ready to trade on Friday with prepared strategies to help their rune positions withstand the effects of the eclipse. She wished to be at the Exchange, helping with the trades, not that such a dream could ever happen. "How will the emperor survive?"

He killed the engine. "I'm getting to that. When his rune plants die, his power as the world's greatest rune holder will end. The markets may never recover and the Empire will be at risk as our enemies seek to destroy us. Fortunately, the Emperor is well aware of the eclipse. We advisors have spent the greater part of the past century planning the trade strategy that will protect the emperor's runes from dying. I don't need to mention how utterly secret our work has been. Further, his sister's marriage to the Thevian Prince ensures a powerful family ally against any other encroaching power.Of course, should you breathe a word of it to anyone, you will face consequences beyond your worst imagining, not that anyone would believe a word out of your mouth anyway."

She was fairly certain she could imagine the consequences just fine. Torture of every unimaginable variety. "My lips are sealed. But, I still don't get why I matter in any of this."

He sighed as though annoyed to expend more words upon a highly obvious subject. "For the emperor's plan to work, he needs a complete and utterly dependable rune event that is the equal opposite of his power…and that must fail. That event is you. You are the emperor's great short. And, since a short is the opposite of what it is shorting, YOU cannot enter the Dynn simply because the emperor CAN."

She sat in utter silence, the shock too profound for any rational thought to emerge. The emperor's need for a glorious, powerful future had been the reason she was cursed, damaged beyond repair. A great wall of dark hatred rose within her mind against Luiximor. Out of the million people on the planet, whyever had he chosen her ?

Heep continued as if divining her thoughts. "Do not think it is personal. The emperor needed a short strategy and your runes have the exact, opposing fit to his runes. Where he is powerful, you are weak. His greatness is your failure. Darkness and evil are drawn to you as good, pleasurable things encircle his reality. He will survive the Noventury and continue to live forever because your existence will save him. Through using your runes, he can prevent the death of his rune plants and save the empire undue chaos. Simply put, you were created for this future and you cannot escape it."

She despised Heep, herself, and everything in between. "Why are you telling me all of this? Why are you helping me escape?"

Heep grimaced. "The guy who died…Titus? He has a powerful friend who will do anything to avenge his death. I need you to stay alive and not ruin a century of my work because of some barfight you caused last night. On the ocean, you will be safe…at least until the Noventury is over. What you do after is of no concern to me."

She opened her mouth to say something then shut it again with a snap. If she boarded a sunship and headed across the ocean, then, after the Noventury, at least she could be free and far away from Ovgarod. Perhaps it was the best way to escape the city. A loathing thought occurred to her that she should trust Heep after all. She stared at her bloody hands and thought hard but answers eluded her.

Heep sighed. "We have talked enough. Your sunship awaits."

As if in a dream, she stepped from the car. The stiff wind slammed into her, salty and cold from the ocean swells. Thunder muttered overhead and lightning flashed in answer. More rain was coming but then it always rained in Ovgarod. She felt Heep's hand on her shoulder, directing her away from the car and towards the harbor avenue. His fingers clamped tightly upon her but her mind raged so that she barely noticed.

The throng hit them like a tidal wave. So many people—far more than she remembered from moments before. Together, they pressed through the crowds, Heep's hand held her even as she stumbled with haste. The crowd was thickly packed from storefront to street edge, jumping from the cleared roads back to the sidewalks. Police waved their batons and ordered folk to "Move back!" Some kids climbed the lampposts, gaining a vantage point over the sea of bobbing heads. Everyone's attention directed to where the street turned and the black waters of the ocean began.

Beyond lay the harbor filled with thousands of gleaming sunships that hovered in the air like monstrous blimps. Their solar engines roared within the steel bellies, the expelled power sloshing the harbor waters, causing the pavement to shudder under her feet. Horns blared forth again. A flutter of energy and excitement ran through the pressed crowd.

She shuddered. Something felt suddenly, terribly wrong. "What is happening?"

"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't think he would be so quick."

"Wait, what are you talking about?" His hand no longer clutched her shoulder. She turned and saw his straw head of hair bobbing away into the throng. "HEEP! Come back!" She screamed, her heart pounding with dread.

A wall of bodies shoved her backwards, towards the cleared pavement. Everyone roared. A cavalcade swept into sight. A line of black limousines, sleekly flashing under the dark skies, rolled down the avenue. Imperial flags fluttered and gold insignias glittered upon the car doors. Sheer panic darkened her vision. The emperor had come. Emperor Luiximor. A single thought rose stark and clear within her mind. He must not find her.

But she was at the crowd's edge, fighting elbows and stomping heels as the wriggling, thriving mass pushed her forward. Unable to retain her footing, she staggered into the road as the first limousine roared past. A police officer yelled at her and she leapt back. The black vehicles rushed by, tinted windows concealing the occupants within. Flags snapped and car horns blasted. She shrank against the unyielding people, her heart threatening to tear her chest open.

Only several more cars remained when, in a thrilling screech of tires, the cavalcade halted. A heavy gasp ran through the compacted bodies. For a long moment, a multitude of eyes stared upon the idling cars waiting for something, anything, to happen. A limousine door swung open and Luiximor, the sun god emperor, stepped forth.

He was dressed in a meticulous black business suit and his long, silver hair flowed around him like a frosty waterfall. Guards stood behind him, their suits punctuated by swords and a row of knives over their breasts. He adjusted his cufflinks, staring upon the crowd with a coolness that was both arrogant and detached. She shrank against the bodies, every nerve firing as his gaze approached her. She would blend, he would not notice such a small, ordinary young woman ? —

His eyes fixed upon her, calmly and then with growing interest. Tilting his head, he analyzed her with a half-smile both secretive and familiar. No, no, no, this could not be happening, she thought, desperately looking for a way to escape. He began to walk towards her, guards flanking him. The crowd murmured and rustled as he passed them, shoes firmly rapping upon the road.

She had to get away, her mind screamed, but her feet were heavy, her body transfixed.

The emperor approached, giving no heed to the police that held the people at bay. Each step echoed in her mind like a bell of doom. If Heep had spoken truthfully, this sun god was responsible for everything terrible that had happened to her. An overwhelming desire to kill him despite his immortality swept over her. She resisted the urge only with the knowledge that she would most certainly die first. A god with the energy of the sun stood before her . The sheer power emanating from his frame overwhelmed her anger and she crumpled to her knees, eyes falling to the pavement, her mind and body frozen.

His black loafers stopped before her. A cold, strong finger hooked her jaw, pulling her chin upward. She met his eyes. For the briefest moment, his gaze burned deeply into hers. So deeply, she felt sure that he could see every dream and terror of her heart. Then she realized with a start that his eyes were not silver. Not silver at all. Those questioning irises were of the most brilliant sky blue. The same eyes that had met her gaze in Sandy's…and stared longingly upon her in that small room in Hotel Isa. Her heart twisted hard within her chest. Impossible.

"So, this is Vala Flowers, the one who can speak to dragons," and his voice sounded elegant and clear, "I am honored to finally make your acquaintance."

The crowd stirred and rustled at the spectacle—their emperor, a god , speaking to a young woman in muddy boots and blood-splattered hands.

His fingers cupped her chin, firmly and yet with tenderness. "We have much to talk about. You will come with me."

Turning, he strode back to the waiting car and the door closed shut upon him. Two guards approached her. She staggered upward as if in a dream, her thoughts storming with questions. The Masked Man was the emperor?

"Miss, please get in the car." One of the guards beckoned to an open door in a different vehicle.

Her feet moved forward as her head spun with wonder and fury at her ignorance. As the Masked Man, he had played her, using her emotions to break her down…make her weak . She should have known better. Now he had trapped her, just as she sought to escape. She needed to use all of her brainpower to survive whatever game he had in store for her.

"Miss?" The guard was persistent and the way beyond him, blocked by additional security and the pressing crowd. There was only one possible option.

She ducked inside, the leather seats cold upon her hands. The guards joined her; their impassive stares fastened upon the clustering people outside. With a smooth lurch, the car sped forward. She found herself rushing back into the city, past the Mid Levels, into the Upper district with its mansions and terraced gardens, to the tip of the mountain and the imperial palace itself.