The Rise of Onyx Read online

  “Unhand me now, peasant!”

  Her eyes widen at the insinuation he makes, but her mouth doesn’t utter a sound. But at that moment, Griffin becomes as confident as he ever has.

  “Let me go. You have no business torturing me. I have done nothing to warrant such an interrogation.” He intensifies his gaze, suddenly emboldened by his time on Earth - or perhaps his desperation has strengthened him.

  She begrudgingly lets go, tossing his arm to his side with palpable frustration. “Stay away from my children. Stay away from my family. And most importantly…” She steps uncomfortably close to Griffin, and he winces at the rotten smell of her breath. “Stay away from me.” Turning on her heel, Griffin is once again alone. But he has a sinking feeling that he most likely won’t be for long. Unfortunately, however, this encounter had held him up long enough to allow Constance to move farther down the path and out of his sight.

  Just wonderful. Now I have no idea where she is or where she’s going. Now what do I do?

  Griffin looks around in frustration, simultaneously upset that he lost his target, but also that he’s still stuck in the open, where he could be discovered yet again. Finding a nearby structure, he decides to hide in there until he can figure out what to do next.

  They can’t be too far away, I bet I can find them. I just have to keep looking. Yes, that’s it - I’ll just keep looking.

  He tries to ready himself with some deep breaths, but the stress of his mission and the expectations that surround it are starting to get to him. Sitting down against the wooden wall of the structure, he rests his head in his hands and hopes that he’ll figure out what to do before it’s too late. Letting down Onyx and Luna is not an option he wants to consider. Unfortunately, reality rarely, if ever, follows his preferences. And Griffin is just about to find out how very true that is.

  ✷✷✷

  “Evander? Are you all right?” He turns around to meet Brielle’s kind gaze. The younger sorter smiles at him, but concern remains in her eyes. “I’m no expert on emotion, and I know you don’t have a capacity for it any more than I do, but you look upset. Just a guess”. She shrugs her shoulders as if to punctuate her point, and her calm exhales mingle with the purple fog of the Upperworld.

  “Oh, Brielle… yes, I’ll be just fine. I mean, I am fine. Trust me, I’m not the one worthy of worry.”

  She tilts her head to the side, and gently tugs Evander by his sleeve toward a nearby tree, out of the main traffic and earshot of the busy pathway. “What do you mean, exactly? Someone is in trouble?”

  Evander opens his mouth to speak, and then shuts it. His hand rubs the back of his neck nervously. Trying to figure out how much should be revealed, and who it should be revealed to, often left him more perplexed than the actual problem at hand. He always theorizes that it’s just a part of being a record-keeper, as if his own thoughts and experiences were locked away in their own drawer inside his head.

  “Evander? Earth to Evander! What’s wrong with you? You’re completely out of it.” She snaps her fingers in front of his face, and his immediate surroundings come back into focus.

  “I’m really sorry, Brielle. There’s been a lot going on, and there’s just so much to consider.”

  She nods, and then recognition floods her face. “Oh my pod, is it Griffin? Is he in danger?”

  “No, not at the moment. He seems to be doing just fine, for the most part. You can come to the Grand Hall and keep an eye on him via the live feed, if you want.”

  She smiles but shakes her head. “Thanks, but I don’t think I should. Sometimes watching those live feeds scare me more than they help me - you know, after seeing what happened with Luna…”

  Evander nods, understanding Brielle’s worry, since Luna had been through so much and much of it was such a clear example of the worst Earth had to offer her.

  “So what were you so concerned about?”

  Evander looks around her, avoiding eye contact with every fiber of his being. “Brielle, I really don’t want to worry you. I can assure you, we are on top of things. Don’t burden yourself with it, really.”

  She nods, but remains standing resolutely in front of him. Her hesitation to move and continue going about her day was the last straw for Evander’s resolve. Against his own better judgement, he allowed her to break him.

  “If you really must know, I suppose I can tell you. But not here. Come with me back to my record keeping office, and we can talk there.”

  Brielle’s small smile creeped across her face, and she nods enthusiastically. “Thank you, Evander.”

  “You’re welcome, as long as that’s truly what you want.”

  “It is. I feel… so completely wrapped up in these happenings, even though I haven’t been completely involved in them, I feel connected somehow. You are all, my friends.”

  “I should have thought so. I apologize for hesitating. But you’re about to see why I did.”

  CHAPTER 13

  “You still haven’t told me where we’re going.” Finn’s voice, as soft as velvet but as strong as a springtime mare hits my ears amidst the warm spring breeze. I smile back at him, trailing slightly behind me as I pick up my pace.

  “We’re almost there, just keep moving.” I hear his throaty laughter and feel my laugh explode out of my throat. Something about him, and the way he responds to life and the unknown, has always enchanted me in the best way. Maybe that’s part of the reason I never could get him out of my head. And it was just recently when I finally decided to stop trying.

  His clammy palm gently squeezes mine, and I lead him to my favorite spot in the whole world. Or, at least the world as we know it.

  “Okay, this is it.”

  I pause to take in the scenery - that is, the view, and the boy looking at it with me. The two of us are standing under a tree at the top of the hill, overlooking the entire compound.

  “Wow, this is… pretty amazing. We’re so far away from everything, but also, so close at the same time. And the sky… it feels so wide open.”

  I smile, and then nod. “That’s pretty much why I love this spot. Sometimes I bring a good book and some lunch to eat while I spend a few hours reading. It’s heavenly, really.”

  He smiles at me, and then shrugs. “How in the world do you manage to get time for that? Pa always keeps me busy, whether it’s helping in the yard, or watching my sister if Ma needs me to. There’s usually no time for anything.”

  I smirk at him, and then lean a little closer as if to tell him a secret, even though we’re completely alone and no one could hear me anyway. “That’s just the ticket - I don’t tell them. because then, that’d give them a chance to give me some mundane task to do.”

  He laughs out loud, bending back in a full-blown stroke of hilarity. “I will never understand where you get your bravery, Constance. It’s so… genius. But you’re also asking for it, you know.”

  “What?” I tilt my head to the side, and wait for his explanation.

  “Yeah, I mean, you don’t wait for permission to be given. You just… take it.”

  I pause for a minute, deciding how much I should tell him. “Well, it’s more fun that way.”

  “That is certainly true, I suppose.” I watch as his face crinkles into a broad grin, and then he looks back out to the compound beneath and stretching out in front of us.

  An uncomfortable silence descends on us out of the blue, and I shuffle my feet nervously trying to figure out what to do next.

  “You know, the view is better from the tree.”

  “You climb that tree?”

  Now I’m the one laughing incredulously. “No, no, I just sit under it. Come here, I’ll show you.”

  I don’t even hesitate to grab his hand and lead him toward the very inner sanctum of my favorite spot. I pat down a section of grass next to me and pull him down onto it. He nearly loses his balance in the process though, and almost lands on top of me.

  “Oh my, sorry, Constance. I didn’t mean to…”

>   “You don’t have to apologize to me, Finn. I brought you here, so it’s my fault if the grass was slippery or something.”

  “It wasn’t slippery, I just…” He shrugs, suddenly realizing how useless that topic has become. “Nevermind, it’s just nice to be here with you, Constance. To see everything from a… new perspective.”

  “It is nice, isn’t it?”

  He nods, and the silence creeps up on us again, until I decide to break it as unceremoniously as possible.

  “Don’t you wish we could just escape it all?”

  “Escape what?” He turns to face me, and I try not to get lost in his deep, shining eyes.

  “This whole lifestyle. It’s ridiculous, how we work, and work, and have families, until we die. Don’t you want more from life than that?”

  He sighs, looking out onto the compound again in the late morning air. “I suppose? I’ve never given much thought to it. But I see what you mean - it’s quite dull, when you put it that way.”

  “Isn’t it though! Believe me, I know. I’m already a commodity in the system, apparently.”

  “Whatever do you mean, Constance?”

  I bite my lip in what I hope seems seductive, but I’m actually just nervous about how he might react to what I am about to admit. “There’s been… an arrangement made for me.”

  “Really?”

  I try to read the look on his face, expecting shock and repulsion, but instead, I sense something more akin to… disappointment. Was I imagining that part? I must have been. I had to have been.

  “Yes, it’s true.”

  He runs his hand through his hair. “Who is it?”

  I sigh. Of course he’s asking that. Maybe he’s curious… or dare I say, maybe a little jealous? “It’s Silas Brewster.”

  He shakes his head. “That’s… something all right.” He throws a small pebble down the hill, and we both watch it slowly pick up speed as it goes.

  “It’s unfortunate, is what it is.”

  “How so? Aren’t you happy to have been given a match?”

  The sarcasm in his voice is undeniable, but I think he is doing his best to be polite, at least on the surface. “No. I’m really not. Devastated, actually.”

  He turns to face me, and I swear his eyes are starting to sparkle again. “Really?”

  “Completely. Silas is little more than a fat pig. I’ve met fruit flies with better personalities than his.”

  Finn laughs out loud, no longer trying to hide his reaction anymore. His smile fades as soon as it appears though. “I’m so sorry to hear about your situation, Constance. It’s… upsetting, for sure. Have you talked to your ma and pa about how you’re feeling about it?”

  “Of course! But as you can only imagine, once I’ve been traded for livestock, there’s no going back.” I pause to lower my voice a bit more, as if to remind him how serious this is. “They own me, Finn. And there’s nothing I can do about it. Don’t you see? You get to have some say in who you end up with. I don’t, and I never will. I’ll be Silas’ personal child producer in just under a couple of weeks.”

  He remains silent, looking off into the distance. “Is that why you brought me here? To tell me this?”

  I swallow. He’s probably embarrassed and uncomfortable. Or at least, very upset. “No… I mean, yes? No, I mean, not entirely. It just kind of happened.”

  “So you just accidentally told me that you’re taken? Is that what you wanted me to know?”

  I shake my head. “But you don’t understand… I’m not taken, not yet, anyway.”

  “But you just said…”

  “No, I said I will be. Not yet.”

  “Oh. Okay.” He throws another pebble down the hill, angrier this time. “So why am I here, again?”

  I don’t bother answering him with words this time. Instead, I do something I’ve been wanting to do for years. I lean closer to him until a few strands of loose hair fall out of my bonnet. And then I kiss him.

  CHAPTER 14

  Griffin continues walking down the pathway in the direction he saw them going before he was intercepted by the maternal humanoid earlier. These people are so intense… it’s not like I hurt the child, even if it was getting to the point where I was starting to want to, at least a little. But I wouldn’t, of course. I couldn’t. It would change the narrative, after all.

  After what feels like forever, Griffin finally sees a boy sitting under a tree with Constance next to him. He quickly finds a spot to hide where he can observe them without being noticed and changing anything.

  “Onyx, I’ve got eyes on her again. It was a bit tricky after my path was diverted momentarily, but I managed to find them again.” He waits for the connection to get through, as at the moment, he is met with nothing but some crackling static noise. “Onyx? Come in, Onyx? Onyx!” His breathing intensifies, but then he hears the static subside and Onyx picks up the communicator call.

  “Griffin, sorry to worry you. I will have Evander look into strengthening the connection as soon as possible. I’m not sure why that happened.”

  “Oh, okay. But anyway, she’s right here. And… oh. Oh my… I don’t want to get you too high on hope but is this… the moment? She’s… doing something… that I can’t explain.”

  Onyx breathes in sharply, which transmits over the communicator. “Let me pull up the live feed.” The screen swings out in the Grand Hall, and Onyx awaits to see more than he wants to of his mother. But then, he laughs to himself, as he sees that is clearly not the case. A sigh of relief escapes his lips.

  “No Griffin, that’s not the moment we need. No need to bother collecting the time coordinates. That’s not it.”

  “Oh, it’s not? Hmmm.” He scratches his chin. “Well, perhaps you should describe to me, in detail, what it is exactly that I’m looking for?”

  Onyx sighs audibly. “I told you, you need to find the moment that marks the time that -”

  “- the time that the narrative was permanently changed. I know. What I don’t know, exactly, is what that would look like.”

  Onyx’s breath catches in his throat again. “Oh… that. Well, that’s not something I feel at liberty to speak about.” He lowers his voice, and a very bright blushing appears on his cheeks, even though Griffin can’t see him and his face has become very pale since his time on the throne began.

  “And why not? You want me to get the coordinates, right?”

  “Yes, of course, but…”

  “But what?” Griffin places a hand on his hip, even though Onyx can’t see him and his frustrated posture.

  “It’s… something you wouldn’t understand.”

  “Oh really? Try me.”

  ✷✷✷

  “Okay, no one can hear us in here. Can you tell me what’s going on now?”

  Evander checks the door lock and the soundproofing one last time, and then hesitantly settles himself in his well-worn desk chair. Motioning to Brielle to make herself comfortable, she drags a nearby chair in front of Evander and lays her hands daintily in her lap, awaiting the explanation she asked for.

  “Well? I’m waiting.”

  “Okay, so here’s what’s going on. Onyx is being overtaken by the current.”

  “Is that bad?” She tosses some of her hair aside, and then resumes eye contact with Evander.

  “Well it doesn’t sound good, does it?”

  She shakes her head. “What does that mean, exactly?”

  “His body wasn’t made for this kind of stress and strain. He’s already started to break down. It looks to be only a matter of time until…”

  “Until what?”

  “Until… he meets a similar fate as Zephyr did.”

  “Oh, wow.” She looks down at her feet, trying to swallow the news. “But Zephyr lasted for eons… Onyx hasn’t been on the throne for very long.”

  “Perhaps. But Zephyr was a Titan, destined from the beginning of time to serve in the capacity that he did. Onyx… was not.”

  Brielle nods. “I suppose t
hat’s true. So… does that mean you’ll need another replacement?”

  Evander sighs. “I sure hope not. But if we can’t get him off of that throne, we just may need one.”

  “Your plan is to set up a wireless connection for him, correct?”

  “That was our plan, yes.”

  “That won’t work now?”

  Evander pauses, and rests his hand on his outstretched palm. “Well, yes, it could work. A wireless connection to the current would allow his body to exist and recover from the damage that was done, as he wouldn’t need to be in direct contact with it anymore - rather, he would just wear a transmitter that would link it to his life-force.”

  “That sounds fine then.”

  “I suppose that does, yes. But there’s no way to get him off of the throne until we get those time coordinates. And at the rate that he is degrading, we might not get those coordinates until it is too late.”

  “Oh.” Brielle looks down at her feet nervously. “Does Luna know?”

  “Not about him degrading as fast as he is. And she’s not going to.”

  “Why not? I’m sure Onyx would want her to know.”

  “Actually Brielle, that’s just the thing - he doesn’t want her to know, because it would just worry her, and what good would that accomplish? If you have any care for Luna, and any respect for Onyx, you will listen to me, and you will respect his wishes. Understand?”

  Brielle slowly nods, but she is clearly conflicted. “If I were Luna, I would definitely want to know.”

  “But you’re not Luna, and you must remember that Luna and Onyx are part humanoid, and therefore have the capacity to experience emotion - we do not. Therefore, they don’t process matters like this with logic - instead, they are often bogged down by their feelings. To maintain a sharp mind, and to keep her calm so that she can do her job, Onyx knows that she must not know. You will not tell her.”

  “Okay Evander. I promise.”

  He nods in agreement. “Good.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Time slows down to a full stop. It’s only a few seconds at best, maybe. But his lips on mine are everything I was hoping they’d be. He hesitated at first, but then seemed to reciprocate. I force myself to pull away so I can gauge how he’s feeling. I’m met with his bright eyes shining brighter than I’ve ever seen them before.