Ember Rising by S. D. Smith

Author:S. D. Smith [Smith, S. D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780999655344
Publisher: Story Warren Books
Published: 2018-03-08T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirty-One

THE MINER WHO FORGOT

Heather was reeling from her reunion with Jacks. What she had hoped would be an occasion of tremendous joy had proven to be its farthest opposite. Jacks, hardly recognizable as a member of their family with his disturbing devotion to the Akolan administration, had been chosen for what he called “an adventure.” But Heather knew better. She knew that her youngest brother had been picked to be fattened up with special foods and become part of a meal for Morbin’s table. She lay motionless in her bed, dark thoughts descending.

When Jacks was asleep, Father and Mother crept into Heather’s room for a hasty council. She shot up in bed.

“What will we do?” she whispered.

“We knew this day might come,” Mother said, patting Heather’s hand. “It has come for many others. We have a little time.”

“I will go to the Tunneler,” Father said, running his hands through his fur and pulling at his ears. “I will ask that they be brought into the Seventh District.”

“He won’t allow it,” Mother said, her eyes wet with tears. “You have overreached already in asking for Heather to be admitted on trial. To ask for Jacks, or for him and all his class, to be transitioned—it’s impossible.”

“We can’t just let them take him!” Heather said. Her swelling anxiety made it hard to breathe. “Not just when I’ve found him again.”

They sat in silence for a while, each uncertain what to say.

“We didn’t know how to say it, Heather,” Mother said after a while. “And we didn’t want to upset our reunion, which has been so sweet. But Jacks really is one of them now. He’s been trained to be.”

“You can’t think of giving up on him?” Heather asked.

“Of course not,” Mother said. “I’m only saying that he would likely resist any effort at rescue.”

“He’s been so carefully cultivated by the dogmatists in the Sixth District,” Father said, shaking his head. “We tried, Heather. We tried to subtly counter what was happening. But he’s one of them.”

“What if we tell him everything?” she asked.

“He would go to Longtreaders High Command and inform on us,” Mother answered.

“He wouldn’t,” Heather said, her mouth hanging open. “I think it likely,” Father said. “Almost certainly he would.”

Another long silence. Inside, Heather felt the familiar turn of her world as it slid sideways in a sickening shift.

“Let’s try to sleep,” Father said, “and maybe hope will come with the dawn.”

They hugged, clinging together, tight and united in their anxiety and devotion. Heather felt grateful for this moment but couldn’t help but think of the two members missing in this family embrace.

* * *

Heather did manage, at last, to sleep for a couple of hours. And she dreamed.

She was in a dank, dark cavern, as so many times before. But this time she was talking to someone in the dim, slick bottom. She carried on a conversation, one that pleased her, but all the while a voice in her head said over and over, Unsettle the foundations. Unsettle the foundations.

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