Hunt for the Sun Children

Chapter 5 - Rise

The air outside Redbridge was a damp sort of cold, the kind that leaked slowly into your bones and got you shivering before you realized it. Jay had let go of my hand and I was following him of my own free will, but that didn't mean I wasn't hesitant to follow. I glanced back at Redbridge, expecting a Master to appear on the steps, calling after us to stop. Every time I looked, though, the steps were empty. The handtree gate looked like a skeletal weed straining toward the dull sky.

"Let's stay away from the edge of the water," I suggested in my quietest whisper. If Jay acknowledged this, he did so silently. We kept moving over the uneven field, my legs stumbling as we maneuvered in the darkness. The waning moon barely illuminated the ground in front of us.

As the pink lights of Redbridge grew smaller in the distance, I heard waves lapping against the shore. Jay stopped and I halted next to him. We were at the farthest end of the island. My stomach turned uneasily, though being out here in the night air was exhilarating; anything and everything felt possible. We were standing on the edge of the black beyond.

"Here," he said, sitting down in the rocky dirt that would only pass for sand this far north. "No one tends to sneak this far away, and even if they do..."

"The cold water will stop them," I said, sinking next to him. "And no one is going to swim off to the ruins anyway." I remembered my first impression of Redbridge from the ship, how inescapable it looked.

"You just need to know which rules to break," Jay said coyly. I shivered and tucked my hands away in the sleeves of my tunic.

"I like to think all rules have reasons behind them."

"Not necessarily. For instance, why aren't we allowed in the bay?"

"Um," I replied, "because there are snatchers in the water and—"

"The snatcher incident was atypical," Jay countered, and having only been here for a month, who was I to argue? I struggled to think of a reply, but now I was concentrating more than I wanted to on what might be lurking out there in the darkness...

"This is what I meant about questions," Jay said. "You might ask, 'What are the rules?' but the real question should be, 'Why are the rules?'"

"So, why are we not allowed to swim in the bay?" I asked. "Tell me."

"I don't know."

"Then why does this conversation matter?" I asked, kicking the dirt in mild frustration.

"You know, Rayne..." Jay said so quietly that I had to strain to hear his voice over the waves, "at one point, I wanted to be a Healer up on the Zieras, but after asking a few questions, I changed my mind."

I tried to find his eyes, but the dim moonlight wasn't helping me. "I know I should want to volunteer for Healersbay now, but I don't want to be a Healer," I said, trying to instill the words into my bones. "I want to be a Guardian."

"Well, that's at least a step in the right direction," he said with a smile.

"It's not a step. It's a decision." I sat up straighter, granules of sand spilling off my uniform. "I don't want to be a worthless Healer for the rest of my life. So I'm not going to Healersbay. Ever."

Jay studied me in the darkness before finally saying, "I believe you. And I won't tell anyone."

"Do you swear it?" I asked, though I didn't know the worth of his word.

"Absolutely."

We both said nothing for what felt like a long while. I was lost, thinking about the Zieras and everything I had worked for. I just had to hide the flesh casting, to banish it and all of the guilt along with it. I would lock it away with my father—somewhere deep inside me—where it couldn't hinder me.