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  Slowly, the vine started to unweave. She pulled frantically, so close and yet there was still more to undo. Knots upon knots. Almost there.

  Without warning, they fell, flying through the air and crashing to the ground with a thump, bouncing over one another. Sarrin coiled into herself, rolling to her feet. She hadn’t been fast enough; they were surrounded. But not UECs after all. Her eyes took in the scene rapidly: Wild men, pieces of animal hide tied around their loins, tan and leathered skin covered in designs made with dark paint. Each held a sharpened spear, the glinting, dark tips pointed at them.

  They outnumbered them three-to-one.

  “Galiant Idim.” The words rolled unnaturally off the tongue of a tall male, inky designs rolling all the way down his arms.

  Gal swallowed noisily and dragged himself to his knees.

  “You were never to return. You have broken your word.”

  Beside her, Grant signalled, his hand barely moving as he communicated a plan.

  But it wouldn’t be safe. These warriors were strong — she could see it in the way they moved, the subtle and continuous twitches as their muscles readied and rebalanced. She gave subtle shake of her head, motioning for him to stand down.

  Grant frowned.

  She shook her head again. If they were to engage, she guessed, there would be no option for her but to release the monster that churned inside of her. And who knew what it would do — what she would do. Not for the first time that day, she closed her eyes, imagining Kieran had been able to come with them. He would have stuck a big grin on his face and shouted ‘Howdy,’ turning them, however unlikely, into his friends.

  Like he had done to her.

  “It’s a simple misunderstanding,” said Gal. “We were just trying to make our way out of your forest when we stepped in the net. We wouldn’t have even crossed paths, except.” He was still kneeling, and he gestured at the fallen vines around him.

  The leader grunted. “You had to access the forest somehow.”

  “Ah,” Gal frowned. “It’s a long story. Our, um, ship dropped us off here by accident.”

  “Another shuttle malfunction?” the wild man asked skeptically.

  “Urubane, I’m not a threat to you or your people. Please, bring Ruel, she’ll —.”

  “Ruel is not well.”

  “Oh.”

  The one Gal had called Urubane shifted his spear.

  Gal threw his hands up. “Ruel said I could be trusted, right.”

  “We also said you were not to return.”

  “I know. But I’m telling you, accidents happen. I can be trusted, and these people, they’re friends of mind, and they can be trusted too. Just let us go. We won’t even see the village, there won’t be anything to tell.”

  Urubane frowned. “I cannot do that. Our way of life is already threatened.” He lifted his spear.

  Gal shuddered. “Don’t kill them.”

  He sighed, cold eyes frowning down at them. “It is not my decision. We will bring them.”

  “Wait,” Gal said, jumping to his feet. “Are you sure?”

  One of the warriors grabbed Sarrin around the shoulders and lifted her up. She flew a short way through the air — almost as if she was too light for him — and landed on her feet. Around her, the other Augments did the same.

  “There is no choice now. You have brought them this far,” said Urubane, his deep voice rumbling through the trees.

  “I’m telling you, we didn’t mean to enter the forest. We were just trying to get out.” But at a quick signal from Urubane, Gal quieted and hung his head. He glanced back at the others quickly, almost apologetically, and followed the wild men as they led them deeper into the forest.

  Grant’s eyes met Sarrin’s, worried. She shook her head again, and fell into line, the others doing the same. The dark edges of her vision crept in, the trance reminding her that, if she allowed it, it could take over and destroy everything in sight. But that wouldn’t be wise. There was no way to stop her once it took over, no way to tell it who was friend or foe.

  If only Kieran had come.

  “Gal,” Rayne squeaked. She side-stepped her way to the captain, dodging a spear tip. “What’s going on? You know these people?”

  He smiled faintly. “When I was sixteen, my shuttle crashed in these woods. They call themselves the Uruhu. They live here, outside the city walls. They’re very secretive. I was lucky, I think, that I was so young and they trusted me not to tell anyone else.”

  “I’ve never heard of anyone living in the woods.”

  Gal nodded. “I know.”

  The warriors prodded them through the trees until a faint path began to appear. Shuffling on the increasingly worn path, Sarrin marched, somehow a prisoner once again. Maybe that was just how it was supposed to be. At least they weren’t in UEC hands again; these people might even be hiding from the UECs themselves. Perhaps, once they explained, they could work together. And instead of running, instead of counting escape routes, she found herself inexplicably drawn forward.

  A crunching noise sounded far in the woods. She turned her head towards it at the same time as the warriors did. A flash of movement, a dark, rough shape, moving. The texture and colour looked like the hide the man in front of her wore.

  There weren’t supposed to be animals in the woods either.

  Where had they come from? Escaped stock from the luxury meat farms?

  The leader nodded once, passing a similar but unfamiliar signal, and two of the warriors left the formation, running in the direction of the noise.

  She almost went with them, but a tap on her arm with a spear reminded her to stay in place.

  The footpath twisted around a corner, and suddenly they were on the edge of a village. People paused to stare at them, turning from their tasks. Fifty or more. Sarrin’s step faltered. Gal had said village, but this was a sprawling community.

  The warriors herded them past short huts that couldn’t be meant for more than sleeping, and large, open communal areas where folk sat and children played.

  They brought them to a cage.

  Gal entered willingly, easily.

  Sarrin, behind him, stopped. The monster flared. Grant was right, they should have fought their way out, back in the woods, when it was easier.

  She looked over her shoulder, her mind painting the fastest path back to the tall trees that surrounded them. She would run, she could. She could move fast enough to evade the guards, and then escape through the village. In the forest, she would run, in any direction. Away. Forever.

  She took a step, exploding to the right, faster than they could track.

  But a hand grabbed her out of mid-air. Reflexively, she jerked to free it, but the hand held firm. Her breath caught as her eyes went wide.

  Flashes of memory flooded her: the woods, a sleeping hut, a woman with a newborn child. Her eyes locked onto the guard who held her, his hand nearly burning her flesh where he gripped. She dropped to her knees. He held her wrist tight, squeezing the bundle of nerves, pain and everything else shooting up her arm.

  Her own life flashed: Halud in the orchard, her bunk at Evangecore, the hunt, isolation, and endless combat drills.

  His face paled, and he pushed her into the open door of the cage, throwing her with enough force and speed she slammed against the far side.

  “Sarrin, are you okay?” Grant crouched down in front of her, as the door slammed shut behind them.

  She lifted herself up onto her elbows, nodding. But the cage was too small. Two-metres square. Her mind started to whirr. Small spaces were a trap. For her, for them. The edges of her vision started to close in.

  “Sarrin,” Grant said, calling her back into the bright daylight that shone into the uncovered cage.

  “What are they going to do to us?” Rayne gripped the bars and shook.

  Gal went to her, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Rayne, I —.”

  She turned on him, anger in her dark eyes. “This is your fault.”

&nbs
p; He backed away, head hanging.

  Alex strained at the bars, trying to break them open, but it was no use. They were wood, yes she could see, but the wood had been coated in dried sap, making it black and hard. The beams were tied with vines, but a similar coating covered the knots, making them unbreakable.

  She fought to control her breathing, her vision swimming in and out of focus. But she couldn't lose control, not here, not now.

  Escape routes: zero.

  The guard who had caught her spoke to the others, hind hand gestures frantic. His gaze met hers.

  Probability of survival: zero.

  TWO

  SARRIN.

  THE SOUND PULLED HER from an erratic dream, and she blinked furiously in the daylight. They had been four days in the cage, without food or water. She could still run if she had to, but there had been no opportunity for escape.

  Still half in the dream, she flinched as another target flew at her. There were too many, and they slammed into her while she was too weak to dodge effectively. The projections were only light, but in the dream they burned, each hit followed by a neural shock they used to punish her for failure.

  She collapsed under their weight.

  A pair of blue eyes met her. “Sarrin?” It was Grant. He had a hand outstretched as though to shake her, and she flew backwards, her spine pressing up against the walls of the cage.

  The bars soared up to the sky and then cut across on the roof. The criss-cross of beams made perfect squares against the bright sky. It looked too much like the tangent lines on the walls of the holographic training chamber at Evangecore.

  Her body started to prepare, the muscles becoming taught and springy, her vision more acute, her thoughts moving quickly.

  There were five targets in the chamber with her.

  No, not targets. People. Gal and Rayne and Grant and Alex and Luca.

  Her heart rate was too high.

  Grant stared back at her. “Sarrin, relax. But he was not relaxed with his tense muscles and his wide watching pupils. He was already standing up, already backing away.

  “You’re dreaming,” he said steadily. “You’re going to hurt someone.” She looked around at the others, pressed to the far side. Initially she had tried not to fall asleep, but with nothing to do but sit, and no food or water, eventually she had to succumb.

  Monster.

  Beyond the cage, a group of the Uruhu warriors stood, spears in hand. She felt their eyes on her, watching. They had watched all of them, but especially her.

  She hadn’t seen the guard who had touched her, the one with the cozy hut and the newborn child, since the first day. They hadn’t seen Urubane either.

  She drew her legs up tighter to her chest, rolling over on the ground.

  “Sarrin,” Grant said again. This time more urgent.

  She looked up and the warriors had approached.

  “Filthy,” one said, in the odd guttural tones they all seemed to speak in as though they normally spoke something other than the standard dialect.

  Another kicked dirt into the cage. An image flashed in her mind of his knife cutting across her throat.

  The edges of her vision clouded in.

  “Sarrin,” Grant called her back.

  She shook her head, as though it would fling the black clouds away.

  Grant stepped up to the bars, putting himself between her and the guards. “Stand down," he ordered them.

  The Uruhu looked at each other.

  “Back off. Go away,” he said.

  The men didn’t. “This is our land.”

  Grant put his hands on the bars and pulled. “Sorry you dragged us here.”

  “They should have killed you,” said the one.

  “You were sent to destroy us, and they argue your fate,” said the other, waving his hand flippantly at the large hut at the edge of the clearing.

  “Why would we be here to kill you? We didn’t even know you existed until you trapped us in that net and brought us all here. We’re trying to escape them, same as you guys.”

  The Uruhu suddenly paled and stepped back.

  Grant preened.

  But the Uruhu were not looking in his direction, they had their eyes fixed to the ground, heads bowed.

  The door to the large hut opened. First exited Urubane, and then four others, all heavily decorated and heavily marked. Last to come was a withered old woman, leaning heavily on a walking stick.

  Sarrin felt her attention fixate on the old woman, as though she could do nothing to control it. The woman’s spine was stooped, her heavily marked skin wrinkled and sagging, but her body must have stood tall and strong in her youth. The power she exuded gripped her like a solid wave, and had Sarrin been standing, she would have dropped to her knees. She wore stacks of wooden bands, and jewellery made of greying white bone, and as she walked, she held a swaying crystal pendulum in front of her.

  The woman paused, her failing body writhing as she coughed, the hacking echoing through the silence that had descended on the village. Her pendulum swung toward the Uruhu warriors by the side of the cage, and they fell back in the dirt as she watched, the creases at the edges of her eyes crinkling.

  Gal stood. “Ruel?”

  She hobbled toward him. “Galiant,” she said, a faint smile coming to her face. She reached through the bars and cupped his face. “You’ve grown. Twenty-two years. What will they say about you?”

  Gal bent his head.

  Ruel laughed, her voice weak and gravely. “Galiant Idim, destroyer of worlds — is that what you think?”

  Urubane was beside her in a flash, reaching in to pull back her hand. “Careful, Ruel.”

  She raised a single eyebrow. “You think to caution me, young Urubane?”

  He pressed his lips tightly, but continued anyway, hissing under his breath, “These are demon creations, sent by the Others to destroy us. You know how they plot.”

  “We have not yet ascertained their reason for being here,” she said pleasantly.

  “We found them in the woods, near their city,” said Urubane.

  Gal interjected quickly. “It was a mistake, just a misunderstanding.” He caught his breath, looking wary. “Our ship… it dropped us off in the wrong place.”

  “Or the right place,” said Ruel.

  “No, no. Definitely the wrong place. You told me not to come back.”

  Ruel shook her head. “There are no mistakes, only turning points of fate. Each of you is exactly where you need to be.”

  Gal blanched.

  Urubane hissed, “They’ve come for us.”

  Ruel’s pendulum flung out to the side, pointing at Urubane. A pointed wave rippled out from its tip and hit him in the arm.

  Sarrin shook her head to clear her imagination.

  “I have been awaiting your return, Galiant,” Ruel declared.

  “Pardon?” Gal sputtered.

  Calm child. Sarrin gasped, pressing against the bars as the words echoed clearly in her head, strong and powerful.

  You are powerful too. In greater ways than you think. Sarrin’s gaze met Ruel’s, even as the old woman continued to speak to Gal, and in an instant knew the voice in her head was the old woman's.

  Ruel turned from the cage, to Urubane. “Galiant has been our guest here. These children need water. They need food. They need clothes.”

  Urubane opened his mouth to argue, but the old woman held up her pendant at him.

  “You do not have eyes to see they are afraid. Feed them, or they truly will have a reason to want you dead.”

  The warrior set his shoulders and gestured to his men.

  I see the reasons for your arrival, said Ruel. You will not find what you are looking for here. Never mind though, all will work out as it should. The pendulum swung at Sarrin, a ripple shooting forward.

  Sarrin squeezed her eyes shut, unable to dodge before it crossed the small cage. But instead of a punishment as Urubane’s had been, this arrow filled her with a glowing serenity. The dark cloud
s blew back from the edges of her vision, and her heart rate returned to normal.

  Ruel smiled at her, a teasing flash in her eyes, before she turned back to Gal, stroking his face and talking quietly to him.

  Sarrin stared. Even the monster had no answers, had no way to comprehend what she had seen, and felt. She stood, her mind still thrumming with the glow of whatever Ruel had some to her, hoping to speak with her to… take her hand and hold it, clutch it to her chest.

  Ruel met her gaze, smiling, but she pulled her hand away from Gal and out of the cage, turning away.

  The guards pushed food and water and some basic clothes through the bars. Gal took them from the guards, frowning once at Sarrin, before he passed the supplies to the others, who leapt hungrily, chugging the water and tearing at the meagre bread and dried meat.

  But Sarrin gripped the bars, watching the old woman. They were still in the cage, but her claustrophobia was gone, the panic and fear was simply gone. The monster was quiet. What was this place? More importantly, who were these people?

  * * *

  Gal pulled at the thin, dry bread, breaking off a piece before putting it into his mouth to chew.

  He kept his eyes on the ground, refusing to look at Aaron who stood in front of him.

  Aaron tapped his foot impatiently.

  Beside him, too far away, Rayne sad huddled, chewing fervently on the hard bread. She looked terrible, subdued and sunken, and he wanted nothing more than to wrap his arms around her, break them out of this cage, and take her far, far away.

  But, she wanted nothing to do with him.

  “Want to talk about it?” Aaron said.

  “Go away,” he murmured.

  “Come on, Gal.”

  “Go away.”

  Rayne turned to him, her dark eyes glaring.

  Too loud.

  For a time, Aaron had gone. When they were sitting on Cordelia, when he’d go between forgetful moments of relaxation and empowering thoughts of delusional grandeur, Aaron had left him alone.

  Until he’d shown up in the forest and Gal had missed stepping into the trap.

  “So this is where you were that day?” said Aaron. “The day you were late and almost missed the Academy transport?”