REVOLUTION: A Rebel Among Monsters ✔

Two••Meet My Boyfriend

The Jorco breeze was far from cooling. Instead it suffocated, coating one's skin in masses of sweat, doing little to refresh.

But Melaynia Roya, contrary to most Ceruleans, enjoyed it. Born and raised in the tropical city, she knew better than to expect relief—especially when the sun never set.

She learned to live with it and embraced it by going on daily walks. Her family only had one crystal carriage, and her parents used it for all their farming needs. So she got accustomed to walking everywhere pretty fast.

On her way to Quincy's house she stopped a few times to capture landscapes in her mind, to reproduce them later at home, with her colored quills. Geography was her passion, and another reason she took strolls around town. How she'd love to visit all continents in depth, sketch their mountains and volcanoes, draw their people and learn their dialects. Sadly, with her impending death, she doubted she ever would.

Her continent, Socorro, was vast. She hadn't visited it much, and only voyaged out for the dreaded Sacrificial Ceremony, on the middle continent—Monster Island.

The Eldian Lair.

It buzzed with tourists from around the world, government officials, and upper-class students, all ripe with excitement and pleasure; but she'd felt little pleasure in visiting. After all, that was where they took her sister.

Chills raced down her spine as she recalled it all. Valnia's acceptance, her parents trying but failing to conceal their sorrow, her own tears impossible to stop.

Every able inhabitant was to attend the Ceremony; and when one was selected, his or her family stayed in a suite at one of the hotels on the island. A treat for most; a chore for Melaynia.

It took time to heal. Most days, she was certain she hadn't healed. But she sought comfort in her drawings, drowned her sorrows in her studies. Cerule fascinated her, and many a time she'd imagined the Forbidden Side, wondering what it had been like before being deprived of sunlight.

From what she gathered in the books that dared shed light on it, it used to have four continents and a big island in the middle, mirroring the Inhabited Side almost to perfection. Until yesterday, she spent a lot of free time picturing these places, making maps, creating names and fictional people. But she'd never uncover the truth—everything about the Forbidden Side was a well-kept secret.

Too many secrets on this planet.

Passing a few small houses, she hurried her pace, hoping none would warn her parents of where she headed. Not that she wasn't authorized to see Quincy; but she had a feeling once word got out of their trespassing together... Tomus and Valeyria Roya wouldn't take kindly to their relationship.

And neither would the Eldians. Melaynia was always wary of them, benevolent or not; but she seemed to be the only one. Her conspiracies about them—too many to list—were ill-received by most teens her age, so she kept them to herself. Though now and then... she'd share them with Quincy.

"Creating crystals in their secret lair." She averted her gaze as she swayed by a couple lounging on their front lawn, drinking an afternoon digestif. "Forbidding us from touching natural crystals, forbidding us from visiting the dark side or asking questions about it." Her fists bunched as her strides turned into stomps, her sandals slamming into the dirt road. "They have plans, and one day, I'll prove it."

If I'm not eaten first.

She looked up; the magical black Sky Clock indicated it was late afternoon. She sped up, preferring to reach Quincy before his parents returned from their most recent archaeological research trip.