Chasm Walkers Read online

  She ran with him, hand to her head as she winced with pain. “It hurts, Ash. What are they doing to me?”

  He gritted his teeth and searched for a craft to commandeer. He needed to get her away from them. Gaze leaping from vessel to vessel, he spotted one. Hovering under full lift, the pilot struggled with the tie line, trying to get the aircraft free of its moorings.

  “Over there.” He pointed, glancing back.

  The knights gained, their mechanica helping them adjust to the uneven terrain.

  Charlotte’s wide-eyed fear told him she did not recall anything from before, and it left them at a dire disadvantage. “To the ship!”

  The cry of a child pulled her gaze, and he turned with her, spotted the doctor clinging to her small boy near an inn opposite them. His heart fell.

  “They’re alive!” She panted, her face filled with relief.

  The lead knight followed her line of sight and shouted, sending three men off the attack. They veered toward the doctor.

  Charlotte did not hesitate, with incredible agility she veered left, scaling debris as she hurtled over the rubble to intercept.

  The knights tracked her across the night, and fired tracers after her.

  Ashton ground his jaw, hit the switch on his arm guard, and followed after Charlotte. Metal sections rose and unfolded from the brace around his forearm, the nickel scraping as it connected and locked into a solid shield. He held it aloft, throwing himself between the tracer lashes and Charlotte. They bounced off his armor, whipped wildly in the night storm, and dissipated in branches of purple light amid the falling snow.

  Lightning burned the sky, blinding him as he ran. Sword swinging, Ashton deflected another lash with his blade and directed it back at the knight as he leapt across a chasm of open air between slips. The soldier went down, seizing with the energy cracking over his body. Up ahead, Charlotte ran, arms waving, shouting for Lilah to get inside. A whip of purple light streamed across the path and wrapped around the doctor’s waist. She went down writhing with the child in her arms. Thunder snatched their tortured screams.

  “Stop!” Charlotte cried. Her anguished gaze flared into fury as she whirled, facing off with the charging knights. “He’s just a baby!” Charlotte threw herself in front of them, her palm going up in front, as another lash flew from the lead knight.

  Ashton dove, reaching with his shield as he flew through the air. He deflected the whip of energy a millisecond before it hit her.

  A high-pitched throbbing pulsed out of Charlotte, bursting the nearby windows inward and shattering the glass of the lanterns. The knights staggered and fell to their knees, their shouts of pain echoing along the buildings. The devices at her temples burned silvery white.

  And then he knew. He knew why Arecibo would do anything to have her back.

  Charlotte rose, her back to him. She stood astride the lurching pathway, riding it with perfect balance as the storm whipped it in waves and knocked Ashton down. She coiled, her piercing glare on the thrashing knights. Dark hair whipping in the wind, she glanced over her shoulder at him. Charlotte’s pale blue irises went black as energy crawled down her spine. Her weapon extended with a metal clang and sparks flew from the point.

  “Charlie, no!” He yelled, but the thunder took his words with it. The rage, it frightened him to his core. Please do not let it take her…

  With a furious scream, she pounced.

  11

  The walkway vaulted me upwards, and the mechanica in my thighs pulsed with harnessed strength, launching me at the knights. Left arm extended over my head, baton sizzling with power, I swung in a vicious arc, crashing down on the lead knight with tremendous force, knocking him to his knees. Hitting the pathway, I rolled, coming up with my weapon already slicing in a backhand blow, taking out the one behind me with a bone-cracking swipe to his knees.

  He collapsed, the tracer gun skittering over the side of the walkway and plunging to the sea below. I hit him again and he went still. The smell of burning wood and ozone from the lightning pricked my nose. I turned, ready to fight.

  To my right, Ashton ran in slow motion. Snowflakes fell around him in halting jolts as the lightning flickered down from the churning sky.

  I whirled at a snarl, meeting the blade of the Trembler knight with my baton in a hail of sparks. In a fluid motion I spun, crossing our weapons and opening up his guard. He was still mid-blink as I was already striking up and delivering a shocking glance to his chest with the palm of my hand. Silvery energy flew through me sending him backward.

  Four other knights lurched toward me, their gnashing teeth cracking as they broke into a run, flanking right and left, trying to surround me.

  “Posta Sinestra!” Ashton yelled as he vaulted against the advancing Tremblers. Left Guard. Pulling his sword back over his shoulder and behind his head, he stepped forward in the power defense. Instinctually, I mirrored him with my left-handed stance, feeling the strength surge from the mechanica in my upper arms. I had done this before. We had fought together before.

  I taught you how to wield it.

  Moving in perfect unison, Ashton and I met the forward attack of the knights with twin blows. Lightning flashed off of Ashton’s armor, catching his every strike in brilliant images. A stream of icy vapor escaped my lips and adrenaline raced along my nerves, alighting my mind.

  I faced off with the Trembler, recognizing the ginger hair from somewhere. It attacked with skill, but the nuance of its movement, the slide of a glance, a twitch of a muscle; all of it broadcast the knight’s intentions and I struck faster, harder, with deadly accuracy—the blows from my weapon pushing it backward.

  Ashton lunged, disarming his opponent, but missed a step when his leg broke through a weak plank. He stumbled, the knight landing a jarring hit that brought Ashton to his knees.

  Enraged, I struck, the energy from my baton sparked to the Trembler in front of me, crawling along his helmet and face, lighting him with startling power. He staggered backward, snarled, and advanced again, but I was already leaping, my knees connecting with his chest. I knelt atop him, riding the momentum as he crashed backward. Swinging the baton across my chest, I batted a strike of his sword away, grabbing the tracer gun from where I knew it would be beneath his armor with my other hand. I rose, shot him, and then ran, revving the gun works as I closed in on the other Trembler. Two more.

  Distance to my target, trajectory of its raised blade, Ashton’s defensive strike, all of it flitted through my mind as the two tangled with aching slowness.

  The Trembler threw Ashton across the walkway slamming him against the rubble of the doctor’s office. Embers erupted, whirling in the storm. He scrambled to his feet, his sword tinging in the air as he sliced at the Trembler.

  “Duck,” I shouted, firing over Ashton as he rolled away.

  The Trembler collapsed, quaking in the purple lash of energy.

  Ashton turned, his lip bloody, dark eyes flashing in the storm lights. The wind picked up, flying sideways and hurling snow. Shapes of people running flit in and out of sight. I squinted, pulling on the muscles of my eye, and a muffled whir in my head snapped the terrain into brilliant violet as a lens flicked down over my vision. Movement in the shadows came into sharp focus. The last two Trembler knights joined, then split up again, stalking us in the obscuring flakes to mask their advance.

  “Direction,” Ashton rasped, suddenly at my side. Collapsing the shield on his arm guard, he stepped closer, palm sliding across my middle as he eased me behind him. It was familiar, his touch, and I let him direct my movements. “Can you feel them?”

  “One straight ahead.” The chaos in my head grew; rage and need, the desperate pain of Tremblers building. It was different somehow. Controlled, seething, focused. “The other is…lost.”

  “Keep close. Do not leave my side.” Ashton whipped his blade out to the side, and the sound of the metal slicing the frigid air brought back an image of him and me— our lives in danger, the air hot, flaming seams of the was
teland vapors casting our enemy in shadow.

  I turned, flattening my back against his, baton at the ready. The shift of his stance. The ripple of his shoulder muscles. I moved when he did, went where he did.

  “They split up.” We turned in unison and the dark storm whirled around us, lit by bright flashes from the sky. Concentrating, everything fell away. The cold, the howl of the wind, the radiating heat of the fires behind me.

  Mara’s scream shredded the night. I scanned the terrain and when I saw her, a gasp ripped from my chest. She stood by the walkway, hands out, blocking the still body of Lilah. Jack sobbed while pulling on his mother’s dress. The second knight loomed over them, raising his sword.

  “No!” I tore across the pathways, leaping over crates and fallen stalls, arm out as I squeezed the trigger of the tracer gun over and over. The energy thrashed across the distance, hitting the Knight a moment after he struck Mara down. He fell in a pile of quaking limbs. “Mara—”

  Ashton tackled me and we sprawled against the railing, nearly going over. “He is drawing you out, Charlie.”

  “Unhand me!” Fury burned my chest as I twisted, threw Ashton off, and scrambled to my feet. A figure ran away with his armor clanging in the darkness. A low horn sounded, and the outline of a ship rose above the port, hovering. A lamplight slashed across the railing.

  “Let him go,” Ashton grabbed for me. “Charlie, don’t—”

  “Out of my way!” I slammed my palm against his chest with a silvery burst of energy. He flew backward. I did not bother looking down as I leapt over him, giving chase.

  My world went quiet as I flitted through the dark. The pulse of my own heart was the only sound filling my head. Shaking with power, I tracked the knight through the snowstorm. Lightning and the slash of the lamplight cast my quarry in and out of darkness. I was gaining. My heart beat fast and steady, my breath even, as I closed the distance. Baton in my iron grip, it crackled with energy, the flow passing from me to it and back again.

  The knight scrambled for the far retaining wall. It reached for the trailing ropes dangling below the ship. Lamp beams trained on him, lighting up my target. As I flew at him, the spike of pain from the mechanica at my spine jolted power through my limbs. I hit him full body, knocking him down. I slashed with my baton, breaking his grip on the rope. He crashed onto his back and I pounced, straddling the heavy chest armor, my baton to his throat. The piercing tone tore from me and the knight writhed, flailing. Our eyes locked, his pitch-black ones with mine, and I pressed harder. The rage flooded out of me, giving me strength.

  I saw the tracer lash a moment before it hit me. Thicker, brighter than I remembered, it lashed agony across my skin. Screaming, I tumbled from the knight, twisting with pain, unable to breathe. The Trembler scrambled away, and all I could do was lie, immobile, staring up at the vessel. A pale face glanced over the side, his image pulling a strangled moan from me.

  Arecibo stared down at me with a spark of excitement on his face. Frustration and the despairing cold of failure squeezed my chest. I watched helplessly as the author of all my pain, all my rage, drifted out of reach.

  Ashton ran to my side, scooped me into his arms. He rocked me back and forth in the snow holding me to his chest. “I am sorry…so sorry…” he whispered over and over. “I had to. I had to save you.”

  A sob tore from me, and I squeezed my eyes shut, my body trembling. “I hate you.”

  12

  The storm ebbed, leaving a frosty breeze in its wake.

  Mara’s pale face appeared ghostly in the dying fire of the destroyed buildings. I brushed snowflakes from her eyelids and wiped the blood splatter from her chin with my skirt.

  The others had moved Lilah, taking her to the midwife’s cottage with Jack. With so many injured or missing, they left Mara, like all of their dead, lying in the snow. I smoothed her golden locks with trembling hands. Rage fell away like dark scales from my eyes, leaving me with a sorrow that nearly seized my heart. I did not know if it was the cold or the adrenaline finally burning away, but my whole body quivered as I knelt by her side. Burns from the tracer lash throbbed red on my forearms and the cool of the drifting flakes soothed the pain.

  People moved in a stupor, picking up debris, hugging each other, crying softly. No one came near me. I felt their stares, heard the muttering, but I did not move. If they wanted to hurt me, blame me for this tragedy, they had every right.

  The crunch of snow nearby pulled my gaze, and I looked up to see Ashton sinking next to me.

  “Why did you stop me?”

  “They were luring you to him,” Ashton said. “The way they moved, herding your path…something was off.”

  “I do not care.” I shook my head. “Arecibo deserves to die for what he has done to me…to those men.”

  “I did not risk my life and others so that you could run back toward Arecibo.”

  “He will pay. No matter the cost, Ash. Mark my words.”

  “Revenge always proves to be its own poison, Charlie. This will not end well if you pursue him.”

  “Arecibo and The Order will never stop hunting me. From the moment they put my family in their sights, we have had numbered days.” I held up my shaking fingers. “The Trembling Sickness, the mechanica, and the years they stole. Am I to let him take the rest of me without a fight?”

  He said nothing, merely knelt at my side, his hands on the sword laying across his thighs. His bloodied lip held a purple tinge, and the shiver that rocked his body reminded me of my dream. Moments passed in silence as the emotions within me tangled and pulled me into dark thoughts. “You were with me,” I said finally. “When Arecibo had me. You were there, I think.”

  “Not the whole time,” Ashton rasped, clearing his throat. “But yes, I was there.”

  “I remember you in the water with me.”

  He nodded, his gaze holding mine.

  “It was the only thing I could think of to save your life.”

  “Tell me.”

  He glanced down at Mara, his lips pressed into a thin line. “Not here.”

  “I will not leave her in the cold and dark. I know…” my voice broke, “I know what that is like.”

  Ashton looked at me for a few moments, a struggle playing behind his eyes, and then he rose, scooping her into his arms. The crimson snow beneath her glistened. I swept the stain away and followed, swallowing against the deep ache squeezing my throat. We went to her cottage, and I pushed through the door, surprised at the mess. I had not remembered the initial blast having caused so much damage. Ashton walked to her bed and laid her down gently, pulling the quilt over her. He turned, his grim expression made even more so by the chill so obviously sapping his strength.

  “Thank you,” I whispered.

  He nodded, his arms limp at his sides. Scrapes left angry marks on his jaw and a bruise shadowed one of his cheekbones. Busying myself with starting a fire, I avoided his gaze. A riot of emotions tangled within me. Relief. Gratitude that he had once again, shown up when I’d most needed him. Deep, frustrating anger at his secrets. And yet somewhere, beneath the anguish and confusion, I knew one thing. Ashton was more to me than I had remembered. More than maybe I should remember. The thought sent a trill of longing through me and I tensed, unsure of my own mind. My own heart, in this moment.

  Mara’s small iron stove still glowed with dying embers. I tossed some kindling into the opening and stoked the fire.

  Ashton did not move. He watched me and his silence filled the room.

  “I said that I hated you. I’m sorry.”

  “You have said it before. Many times.” His sad smile made my chest ache.

  “I have?” I shook my head. I did not know that. “W-when did I say it?”

  “In times like that,” he whispered, nodding outside. “And others, less…public.”

  Lip trembling with all the emotion and all the confusion I had fought for the past week, I faced him, my heart ramming. “W-what are we to each other, Ash?”

&
nbsp; “I told you before that we fought together…” Ashton tried, but the pain in his eyes did not match his words and his voice trailed off at the shake of my head.

  “That is not all.” I searched his face, desperate for some wisp of what I’d forgotten.

  My words seemed to hit him in the chest. He let out a ragged breath. “You have memories of us?”

  “Broken pieces. Moments.” Hand over my heart, I held his gaze. “But you are clearly here, and I want to know why. How is it that your pull on me is stronger than ever? How can you appear amid the most desperate situation and I feel relief…yearning?”

  Ashton’s breath caught in his throat and he stepped back, his eyes rimmed in red.

  “Sometimes there was nothing that separated us,” he whispered, his gaze so intense, it stole my breath. “And other times…other times there was a chasm so deep and so dark I feared I could never reach you again.”

  “The anger,” I said nodding. Hands to my eyes, I rubbed the tears stinging behind my lids. “What have I become?”

  “You are still you, Charlotte,” he said softly. “But what you have endured, that kind of thing, it leaves scars, seen or not. Perhaps it is best if you let those wounds alone. Start anew.”

  The mechanica in the back of my hand gleamed in the firelight. Running the pad of my thumb over the metal and glass, I shook my head. I did not think I would ever heal, ever be whole. “I need to know what he did to me.” I looked into Ashton’s eyes. “What you did.”

  Letting out a slow breath, Ashton nodded. “Very well.” He reached for the clasps at his ribs, released the buckles, and pulled his chest armor off. It clattered to the floor. His linen shirt beneath clung to the muscles of his torso revealing a jagged tear in the material. Stained crimson, it bore through to the skin. A burn from tracer fire.

  “Ash,” I gasped, moving towards him.