Oriel~Book One

Chapter Two~Hail

His name is Adam. Ezekiel Youngworth’s grandson and only heir to Blue sector government power. I study his picture closely. There’s something oddly depressing about his picture. It’s one of the standard citizen identification pictures that everyone is required to have. I have one myself. He has dark eyes, I can’t help but notice. Everything about him is white and black. Like shadows.

“What does this have to do with me?” I blink and tear my eyes from the flimsy photo paper.

“You were given that eagle for a reason Tessa.” Witherton taps his fingers nervously on the desk.

“So,” I set the picture down, “I kill him, right?”

“God damn Tessa!” My father’s voice shakes the entire room, and I shrink back. “We aren’t sending you on an assassination mission. Leave that to people more experienced, more responsible.”

                My eyes feel like heavy clouds holding back a year’s worth of rain. People are scared of me. I am tough, built to last, and built to conquer. My father deems otherwise. He makes me feel as though I am nothing. I will never achieve anything. Just a cloud.

“Sir,” I swallow the little girl inside of me, “what is my mission? I am ready.”

“Better Agron,” Father sits behind the mahogany desk in white work robes, “This is highly classified material. No one is allowed access to this other than you, Witherton, and me. Do I need to repeat myself?”

No daddy. “No, sir.”

                He nods. Leader Agron, as he is called by the other Rebels, is the focal point of the Rebellion. Not even close to a genius, but a true revolutionary with incredible ideas. Witherton is the brains. He could easily take Agron’s place, but doesn’t look the part of leader. Father on the other hand is a big man, both in frame and voice. He is a good head higher than most other men, built of angles and sharp edges, and holds his graying head of hair with pride. Jonathan looks like him.

“Adam Youngworth, along with many other government children, attends a military training academy up north. He is extremely close to his grandfather, and attends Radical meetings and holiday balls. At the academy itself, the children are trained to become the killing force behind the government.” Father pauses, and glances at Witherton, “Witherton has a colleague whose daughter recently passed away. She was born with a rare type of cancer even high level officials of the Radical government couldn’t cure.  She was seventeen, but her condition was kept as a secret. You are going to take her place. A late arrival to the academy.”

                He thinks I’m like mother. A cloud. Breakable. He’s sending me to safety, to a school for the privileged. He slaps a thick file onto the desk space in front of me.

“You’re name is Rachelle Emmison. Born March seventeenth to James and Myla Emmison. Favorite color green.” He points to the file containing my new life, “The rest of it is in the file. You leave tonight.”

                He stands up and heads for the door. I stay on the chair, uncomfortable on the scooped wood. Everything inside of me is breaking very slowly. Like a clock that is mistakenly became damp. The coils unwinding and threatening to unravel completely. The room I sit in is glowing with candlelight, and smells like old books and dying embers. The one window in the room is covered by a black tarp. No one can know of this office or the Rebellion existence. No one can know of my mission.

“Of course Leader Agron.” I stand up abruptly and turn to face him as he opens the door, “May I ask who assigned me this mission?”

                He stops and for a brief second he becomes my father. His shoulders sag and the hands he holds in violent fists relax. It lasts only one second, but it is evidence enough for me.