Ember

  I’m back home. Not my home with the other guardians. My real home. A home that no longer exists. I look down and confirm that I am a child again. I knew to expect it. I have this dream every night. Every single, sick night. I’ve heard people say they can control their dreams, if they know they are dreaming. And I’ve tried. I try every single night. But nothing ever changes. Nothing ever will change. I will fight it again and again and the dream will always end the same way.

  I loathe these dreams. And I cherish them. Because, at least when they start, I get to see my home again. My ‘playground’, as they call it. And because when I dream, I get to grieve again. I never remember the dream when I wake up, but I always remember how many times I’ve had it when I return. I always remember the grief I’m only allowed while I sleep. Well. While I sleep and when I’m with Sarafyna in Potestia. It faded when we crossed the border. I became more numb. But it’s enough to remind me of my home, and what happened to it. While awake I lean on rage to motivate me to kill the sages. To betray my new country. Even more so since Sarafyna left and the sages’ control has started crawling across my mind again. But here in the dream? Here I have clarity.

  “Ember, are you ready to go?” Dad asks, as he always does. I extend and retract my claws, desperately trying to think of a way out of going through this again.

  “No, I’m sick. Please, do we have to go?” I plead. Pappa enters from the other room and presses his hand to my head. Both men look at me with momentary concern.

  “You don’t feel feverish, and you were so lively a moment ago,” Pappa says. His eyes meet mine and search for something I can’t hide. “Ember, you’ve been so excited for the parade today! What are you suddenly so scared of?” He asks.

  “Have those boys been bullying you again?” Dad adds and I hang my head. Every time. It’s like this every time. They know me too well. They can see fear written all over my face. But they don’t understand why. They don’t understand.

  “No,” I insist. I don’t know if that’s true or not. I don’t remember enough before the start of the dream. But it doesn’t matter. “I really am sick. I don’t want to go today, please!” I beg.

  “Sweetheart, there’s nothing to be afraid of. Your dad and I will keep you safe, promise,” Pappa insists. No. No, you won’t. I’m not afraid of some school children. I don’t want to watch this again. The result will be the same if we don’t go, but I don’t want to watch it. I don’t want to experience it again. I just want to enjoy my home.

  “I can’t. I won’t go!” I insist. My fathers share a look, but both nod.

  “Alright, Ember. We’ll stay home today,” Pappa agrees.

  “Yeah, I don’t much like parades anyway. A whole lot of standing around watching other people have fun. We’ll have a much better time here, together,” Dad says. I sigh in relief. Just a day with my parents. It’s just a dream, but I can pretend I don’t know the end. For a little while.

  I am at the parade, on Dad’s shoulders, watching the floats march by. I always forget. It doesn’t matter. It never matters what I do. The day will play out as it has always played out. My dream doesn’t care that my parents wouldn’t have forced me to go. The dream will always bring me here. Why do I always forget that? My breath catches as the band marches by. The music is loud and energetic and sickening. The band is the last one. The last group to pass before him. Before the ‘hero’. My body trembles and Dad looks up at me.

  “Everything alright, Ember?” he whispers.

  “We have to leave,” I respond as the music starts to fade and the hero’s float comes into view, just a little ways off. They don’t see. Can’t they see? Half the people here aren’t smiling. Half of them are furious. This is not a happy occasion. My body shakes more and I try to climb off my dad’s shoulders. Dad would have let me down, had I done this when it actually happened. But the dream refuses me.

  “Look Ember! It’s the hero! He’s why we have hot water and cold food! He’s the reason the country isn’t overflowing with demons!” Pappa says.

  “Oh trust me, she knows!” Dad laughs, “You should feel how excited she is! I read her stories about him every night; he’s why she wanted to come today!”

  “Oh of course you do, how could I have missed that?” Pappa replies. No! No, I don’t want to see him! I don’t want to be here, please! Suddenly the words won’t come out. The dream has grown weary of my struggling. I can’t protest. I will be here when the hero arrives.

  “Please, he’s not so special,” a human stranger interjects. He is always here, every night. Saying the same thing I would, if the dream would allow it. He still sounds like an ass, even when I know he’s right. “All his accomplishments are fake. Haven’t you noticed he can never articulate how he actually stopped the demon invasion?”

  “Excuse me, that was rude,” Pappa says. “Who do you think you are?”

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  “Don’t let it get under your skin, love, let him throw his fit. We are here for Ember, not some stranger,” Dad cuts in.

  “Well the demons are gone, aren’t they? And what did you do to fight them off? Yell at strangers on family outings?” Pappa says, ignoring Dad.

  “I’m not trying to yell at your family,” the man replies. “I’m just sick of all this worship for a man who hasn’t earned it. You know he chose the title ‘hero’ himself? No one has even actually seen him fight anyone before, and there are a few people with evidence they are responsible for some of his most famous victories over the demonic army! And don’t get me started on what the women he’s worked with have to say about him!”

  “Oh that’s all just hearsay! Anyone can say that kind of thing about anyone! We owe that man everything, show a little gratitude,” Pappa retorts.

  “And what happens to the people who do accuse him? Have you ever wondered about that because I can tell you!” the stranger replies.

  “Why are you even here?” Pappa snaps. “If you hate him so much, why come here to honor him at all?”

  “Love, please,” Dad begs.

  “Oh I’m not here to honor him. I’m here to protest him. Haven’t you noticed, or have you just been looking at the floats this whole time? Look around you. Yeah there are plenty of people like you here, having a good time. But there are more than a few people here to let the ‘hero’ know he isn’t loved by everyone. Plenty of people who hate him,” the man growls.

  Pappa opens his mouth to respond, but an unnatural silence stops him. Oh fuck I hate this part. I hate this part. I can’t watch, I can’t watch, I can’t watch. The band isn’t playing, and the hero, sitting on his padded chair, is scanning the crowd. He’s stopped his float directly in front of us. His eyes catch mine for a single instant and acid runs through my veins. The apathy behind his face leaves me hollow. People are trying to speak. Trying to yell at him. Panicking. But he’s done something to silence all of us. Then, he comes to a decision, and pulls out a whisper sphere. Someone answers almost immediately.

  “Hey,” he says, his calm voice echoing like a shout through the unnatural quiet he has created. “I’m bored.” Three words. Three simple words every child has spoken at one time or another. And all our fates were sealed.

  “Want an extraction?” an answer rings through the sphere. The hero taps his lips in thought, then looks back at the crowd with irritation.

  “Nah, the NPCs aren’t behaving correctly. Let’s do a full reset on this one,” the hero responds. And that’s it. That’s the end of my life. There is silence for a few moments, but the hero sighs and jumps to the ground in a single smooth movement. “I guess I might as well do some recruiting before we do.” He moves too quickly for any of us to react, swimming through the crowd, plucking children like me from their parents and gathering them in the middle of the road. When he gets to me I try to fight. My parents try to fight. My arm screams out as Dad desperately tries to hang onto me. I taste salt and iron as my father’s hand is severed at the wrist.

  He screams in agony, but I can only tell from his face. The world is still silent. Flesh and sinew hangs from his arm, but he ignores it. He and Pappa don’t give up. As a single blink finds me in the road with the other children, I desperately look to get my bearings. To find my parents. They are both trying to push through the crowd. I can read my name on their desperate lips. Dad’s hand is still wrapped around my wrist, taunting me. I want to die. I can’t go through this again. And then the demons descend. The sky demons. The bird men. Or as I later learned, the volu. Not demons from some plane of torment. Just guardians, like I eventually became. Pressed into service for the sage’s entertainment.

  There is so much blood. But no death. Lives are too valuable to waste, after all. A sea of silent red exploding around me like the hero’s fireworks. One of the volu grabs me and pulls me into the sky. I don’t want to go with them. They are rounding up the people below, some as they flee, others as they bleed in the dirt. I struggle. I just want to fall. I just want this man to let me go and let me fall. I close my eyes as we pass the massive obsidian stone, flying slowly past us in the other direction. Toward the crowd below. I can’t look. I can’t look. I can’t look.

  My parents deserve my attention. I keep my eyes closed for as long as I can bear. But I have to see. I open them and retch. The crowds below are being marched to the stone, now resting impossibly on a single point on the ground. The volu are grabbing them and discarding them like garbage. Into the stone. Through its surface like it’s made of black water. Into whatever emptiness the Void Sage has created for them inside. “Dad . . . Pappa . . .” I whisper.

  “Ember! Ember wake up, are you all right?” Lillith asks. She has clear concern in her voice which I fail to understand. What is she doing? It’s still dark out, why is she fucking bothering me?

  “What does it matter to you? Just let me sleep,” I dismiss. I am angry again. I always wake up angry. Always thinking of home, for some reason. I don’t have the energy for Lillith’s shit right now.

  “It sounded like you were having a nightmare. Ember, you were thrashing,” she answers. I look around and see Autumn sitting up in bed, also looking at me with concern.

  “I don’t have nightmares,” I answer. “I don’t dream at all.” Why do I always have to think of home in the morning? There is nothing for me there. I know this. I know it. But I always do. And it always makes me angry. Always.

  “You . . . you were calling out for your father,” Autumn says. I roll my eyes at her.

  “Now I know you two are full of shit. I don’t have a father. I never have. Not one that I’ve met, anyway. Why would I call out for a man who abandoned me before I was old enough to remember his face? Just leave me alone,” I scoff. Father. Bullshit. The only person looking after me as a child was me. And that’s the only person I rely on now. I have no one to call out to. Why am I even working with these women? I should just leave. Go back to work.

  For the thousandth time since coming back to the republic, I resolve to leave and report everything back to my commander. But something inside of me is disgusted by that idea. I don’t understand it, but I want Lillith to win. I want the sages dead. So I roll over, ignoring whatever Lillith or Autumn have to say, and try to go back to sleep.