Lillien had been right, as always. The closer Ambrose got to the Council Hall, the more shouts he heard. Figures dashed about, some carrying lanterns or torches for light. So he clearly needed to stay away from the town proper if he wanted to get away. Ambrose changed course and pulled parallel with the edge of the town. He’d have to take the long way around to avoid being caught. The entrance to the caves lay several kilometers from the Council Hall, and he only knew that much from hearing others talk about it. There was no way he’d be able to find the caves safely on his own. Which meant the Ambassador had to be his best friend for the next few hours. But where would she be? Probably not still in the Council Hall. Maybe headed back to the caverns once it was noised that he’d been found missing? No, she’d stayed to fight for his freedom. She wouldn’t give up now.
An explosion of red sparks lit up the sky on the other side of the town. The shower seemed to expand quickly and then freeze in the air. Wisps of smoke curled away from the flare, snared by the light wind. No question who had sent up the flare. Ambrose broke into a run again. He didn’t have time to make it to the edge of the time and double back if he wanted to follow the flare. Surely if he could duck behind the bakery and the cobbler’s shop, anyone looking for him wouldn’t have time to really get a good look.
The masses of people seemed to be converging on the source of the flare as well. He had to get there first. Right at the baker’s, straight across the thoroughfare, in between the cobbler’s shop and a warehouse. The trees on the other side of town rushed to meet him. The shouting hadn’t changed, although it got louder as he approached the people searching for him. One foot in front of the other, around one tree and in between two others. The needles on the ground cushioned his footsteps, taking him ever closer to his goal. Surely he couldn’t have much to go now. The Ambassador had to be around here…
“Hey. Hey, I found him!” A coarse voice reverberated off the trees behind Ambrose, sending shivers down his spine. He forced his legs to move faster, air coming only in heaving breaths now. The nights had gotten colder and colder for a long time, the air stinging anything that dared move too fast through it.
Through the trees, Ambrose saw a lone figure in a gold-and-white jacket. Her hair looked white in the pale early moonlight, although something glittered from the back of her head. The Ambassador scanned the wilderness around her for signs of hostility. Ambrose raised his hands above his head and waved at her, the wide sweeping motions causing him to slow down in order to keep his balance. At the other end of the blue tunnel of foliage, the Ambassador locked eyes with him and raised a weapon.
“Wait! No! We’re on the same team!” The Engineer lined up the sights of the weapon and fired, something streaking out of the short barrel. Ambrose froze up, legs stumbling on the hard ground. He almost tripped and fell onto the needles, catching himself at the last second. The dart soared over his shoulder and curved down, hitting the man pursuing him. With a grunt, the man slowed and dropped to his knees before ripping the barbed needle out. With more luck than effort, Ambrose reached the clearing.
“Are you ready to go? The Ambassador returned the weapon to her belt and pointed towards the mountains, away from the town. “We’ve still got a ways to go before we’re safe.” Without waiting for an answer, she took off through the trees. Ambrose groaned and sucked in a deep breath before puffing out a cloud of condensation and following after her.
The rain had long since stopped when Akio finally finished her dusting and polishing, coughing and sneezing and breathing a sigh of relief. The manor seemed to fall apart more and more every year as it slowly recognized that all the honor and nobility had long since deserted it. She made do with what she had to fix the small things.
Akio pushed open the wooden door to her bedroom, careful to only use the smooth part of the wood. It had been splintered once upon a time, just like the rest, but some sanding with a stolen tool had made it more pleasant to use.
She tossed her dusty cloth in a corner and hung her thin apron on a nail wedged between two stone blocks. Sunlight filtered through the cloudy glass in the small window high on the wall. The window sat at about level with the open fields of grain, the rest of the room underground.
With all the rain, the temperature had plummeted, leaving her room a few degrees colder than when she’d left it. Akio crossed to the bed after closing the door and wrapped herself in the tattered blanket. She preferred to think of it as ‘well loved’. Back against the wall, she sat on the edge of the bed and pulled her knees up to her chest, staring out the window at the light. The sun would leave soon, taking his light with him below the horizon. It would flee the moon as she approached until moonlight covered the world.
Akio closed her eyes and pulled in all the warmth she could. Soon she’d have to start layering clothes to stay warm. No more sitting by the window and losing heat unless she wanted to deal with the consequences afterwards.
The door next to her banged open, wood cracking slightly as it hit the wall. Akio’s eyes flew open, head snapping towards the sound. Her stepfather stood in the doorway, his hulking figure backlit by the lanterns in the hallway. She cringed instinctively, waiting for whatever accusation or punishment he’d come up with this time
The duke’s boots scraped on the stones as he stomped into the small room. “You dare disobey my orders! After everything I’ve given you!”
Akio shied away, pulling the blanket tighter around her and trying to make herself as small as possible. She just had to ride out the tirade, like always.
With a gloved hand, the duke reached out and ripped the blanket from her grasp, tossing it on the dirty floor. “Don’t you dare try to hide from me! Repeatedly, I tell you not to waste your time reading books. Repeatedly, I tell you not to associate with those above your station. You are the lowest of the low. There is no one else as low as you.” Akio curled into a ball and looked at the floor. This one hurt more than most.
But the duke only sneered. “And then I find out from trusted sources that not only are you socializing when you should be working, but you choose to converse and even flirt with my servants!” Her stepfather’s hand shot out and grabbed her arm, gloves pinching her skin. He hauled her from the bed and out the door. “This is too good for you. I’ve been too good to you. Those who rebel must learn that they will be crushed. Only then can they start learning the right way to live.”
Akio felt the dragonflies in her stomach again, although this time they were fleeing the darkness that obscured their moonbeam. Her mind raced, trying to figure out what the duke would do with her this time. At least they were on the ground floor. Getting dragged down stairs wouldn’t end well…
Her stepfather turned right and started down a long, bare hallway. The dragonflies grew bigger, buzzing in her ears. Not the basement. Please, anything but the basement. But her mouth refused to move, stuck slightly open. The guard at the door saluted and stepped aside, allowing the duke to pass with his quarry. She stumbled down the rough stone steps, sharp edges tearing at her ankles and the hem of her dress.
The duke wove through the maze of stone pillars to a locked wrought iron door, pulling a key from his cloak and turning the lock with vicious precision. The gaping maw of the cell opened, darkness within broken only by the dim light from shuttered lanterns. The duke swung her around and pushed her into the shadows. Her knees hit the ground hard only moments before her palms. Akio rolled onto her back and scrambled away, pressing her back against the back of the cell. The duke knelt and clamped a shackle over her ankle before returning to the doorway. His figure cast the darkest shadow of them all. This is what a nightmare looks like.
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The duke held out his hand. “Your moonbeam.”
Akio froze. He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t dare. Instinctively, her hand wrapped around her braid, a blue ribbon woven into it. A small crescent moon pendant dangled from the end, a symbol of her connection to Yukima. She’d gotten it from the priest at ten years old, barely old enough to be initiated and make the necessary promises. Since then, she’d never taken it off, not once in those seven years.
Her stepfather snarled, crossing the cell over to her and grabbing at her braid. She pushed his hand away, but he slapped her across the face and caught the silver pendant. With a terrible rip he tore the pendant from her hair, ribbon fraying away into nothing. Several threads of blue floated down and lighted upon her dress. She cried out, but the duke had already locked the cell door behind him. The click of the lock shook her like the midnight bell strike.
“Perhaps now you’ll learn how to obey me. Before the night is through, you’ll kneel before me and beg for mercy.” With a swish of his shadowy cloak he disappeared.
High above, dim light shone weakly through a barred window, refracted and shattered as the rain began to fall again. Akio pressed herself into the corner and wished she could disappear. Her ship slowly sunk within her, soul fading into the darkness below the moonbeams. It would be best if everyone just stayed away. Especially Sora. He had better things to do. Maybe she even deserved to be alone. The emptiness inside her grew until it was a monstrous void, bigger than ever before. So this was what it felt like to lose a moonbeam. Cut off from the goddess, distanced so far that she couldn’t hear your prayers. Alone, with no way back.
The Ambassador ran through the woods at a speed Ambrose could barely keep up with, her feet never tiring as she pounded a path toward the mountains. The blue-topped trees thinned and then disappeared altogether as the rocky wall in front of them grew bigger and bigger. Then, after cresting another hill, the Ambassador unexpectedly slowed down. Ambrose pulled even with her and resisted the urge to fall on the ground and refuse to get up.
In front of them, a cave entrance with a metal portcullis barred the way into the cliff. Two guards stood on the other side, crossbows aimed through the holes in the gate. The Ambassador raised her arms and touched them together at the fists. The crossbows lowered.
“Hail, Engineer! State your name and purpose.” The guard on the left placed his hand on a level in the wall.
“That’s Ambassador to you, Loyalty. And I have our new recruit.”
The guard stared at Ambrose for a moment before shrugging. “He doesn’t look like much. But then again, most of them don’t when they come in.” He pulled down on the lever, and the portcullis raised into the rock above.
“Come on. This marks the start of your new life.” The Ambassador strode through the cave entrance and turned around. “Don’t worry. You’ll learn to call this place home.”
Maybe. But I don’t think anything’s going to be able to replace the house on the hill. Ambrose pulled himself together and stepped over the line into the cave. New life. That’s what this would be. The portcullis lowered behind him.
“Follow me just a little farther this way. I’ll show you the real secret of these caves.” The Ambassador kept up her brisk pace as she made her way into the increasing cold of the cave, boots clicking on the smooth stone. Ambrose forced himself to match her steps. They rounded another bend and stopped right before the chamber. The Ambassador turned to him.
“As Ambassador to the surface towns, I formally welcome you to the world of the Engineers. My name is Peace, and it’s my job to get you started here.” She stepped aside and allowed Ambrose an unobstructed view of the chamber ahead.
The cave defied all description he tried to give it. The walls abruptly dropped away, curved corners opening up to a room the size of the whole town on the surface. In the center of the chamber a golden dome stood proudly, taking up half of the available space. The surface had gold filigree and ornamental bits of copper covering its surface. Each and every piece shone like it had just been polished, complementing the light spilling out from inside. At the base of the structure a pair of tall double doors were rolled open.
“Welcome to Honor Chamber, named for the first Engineer who discovered it and built this place. It’s the first of the chambers and by far the most important. Several storage chambers are located around the edges, but most everything else is down below.”
“Wow… okay.” Ambrose felt like he had to say something, but the words wouldn’t fit together right.
“And in we go! Peace led the way across the slightly-slippery floor towards the dome. Ambrose followed, still staring up at the metal masterpiece. He knew of no way of building that would leave the welds on something so large that smooth, especially if a whole team had worked on it. The connections were so perfect. It looked like magic.
The warm light of the open doorway eventually caught his eye, the color of a bright new lantern just before the moon started her ascent. Peace stepped inside and Ambrose quickly followed.
The inside looked exactly like he’d expected it to. Rooms made entirely out of metal, with rails along almost all of the walls. In the center of the dome a gaping hole in the floor had a free-standing rail around it. Drifting up from below, Ambrose could hear the sounds of hammering and tinkering. Strangely, there didn’t seem to be a way down to the lower floor.
“This is the entrance level. Up here you have a few spaces for meetings and a stock of food. There’s one more level above this one, and many below it. Down there is the tinkering floor, where you’ll spend most of your time. Later today, you’ll find a mentor there.” She looked over at Ambrose. “Or maybe tomorrow for you. It’s the middle of my day schedule right now.”
“Yeah, I… that sounds great.” As much Ambrose wanted to keep looking around, his head had started to remember how tired he should be. He didn’t normally run like that. “Is there somewhere I can sleep?”
“Of course. Quarters are below the tinkering floor. We’ll take the pulleys down.”
“The pulleys?”
Peace motioned toward some alcoves in the wall to the left. “I’ll show you.” Ambrose followed her to the alcoves and looked down at where the floor should’ve been. Only darkness, with a little bit of light way farther down. Peace grabbed hold of a leather-bound strap hanging from the top of the shaft and turned a dial on the end before clicking it in. “This will take you two floors down, right to the sleeping quarters. I’ll be right behind you.”
“I just step off?”
Peace nodded. “Yep, right off the edge. The rope will catch you.”
Ambrose looked down the shaft again while he grabbed the handle. The distance to the light suddenly seemed a lot bigger. “You’re sure this is safe?”
“Nope.” Peace pushed him from behind, his feet sliding on the stone before losing contact with the ground. The handle fell with him, the rope connected to it spooling freely. He lashed out, trying to find something to grab onto, and smacked his hand against the side of the shaft. A stinging pain shot through his arm, bringing him to his senses. He kept his arms and legs almost vertical until the rope started to pull upward. Right as he came to a stop, an opening in the wall appeared. He stepped out onto the stone and fell to his knees, letting go of the handle. A few seconds later, Peace appeared in the opening and gracefully stepped onto the new floor.
“So, what did we learn?”
Ambrose looked up and smiled. “Not to trust you.”
She winked. “Well, that too. Come on, I’ll show you the way to your quarters.” Peace walked past him, offering a hand and pulling him up.
On each side of the wide hallway there were rows of doors, although sometimes other blank passages would run perpendicular and lead to more hallways of doors. She stopped outside a door after taking the first right and then a left. “Number one-nineteen. This’ll be where you stay when you’re not training or eating.”
“One-nineteen. Got it.”
Peace pushed the door inward and it slid aside. “Get some sleep. The mess is already closed, but I suspect an empty stomach won’t be too much of a problem tonight.”
Ambrose had already started a stumbling walk through the doorway. “Sounds fine. See you tomorrow.” He heard Peace laughing quietly, but his tired mind didn’t care. There would be plenty of time tomorrow to get her back. For now, that pillow looked really soft…