Chapter 5 #2
Mace lifts an arm, as if to show me the direction, and we pick up at a quick pace. We run through more tunnels with walls of unadorned metal. The silence that surrounds us is suspicious.
‘What do you think this entire area is for?’ I say, panting. The muscles in my thighs are burning.
‘Does it matter? The point is that we find our way out of it as quickly as possible,’ he says.
‘What a good little soldier you are, never questioning orders.’ Mace narrows his eyes at me, which tells me that I may have hit a sore spot. ‘Then how are we sure that we’re not running back deeper into The Citadel, instead of finding our way out?’
Mace looks over his shoulder again and that frown deepens, a feat that seemed impossible moments ago. I nearly stumble, but it’s not because he intimidates me – he doesn’t – but because my left shoe is nearly glued to the floor for a second.
The further I go, the stickier the ground becomes and the harder it is for me to move forwards. ‘Mace?’ I call, but for some reason, this is the exact moment when he decides to get chatty.
‘But for your information,’ he says, still running, ‘there are dozens of tunnels that reach out from underneath The Citadel into the Disputed Lands. They serve no other purpose than as exits for the teams who go on raiding missions?—’
‘Mace!’ I call. He stops as my shoe gets stuck to the floor, and I notice with mounting horror that the ground is coated in a sticky, dark substance, like the stuff that was on my jumpsuit earlier.
‘What is this?’ I say, pointing down.
Mace shrugs. ‘The tunnels go on for miles and miles, haven’t you been listening?
And they’re only used for raiding missions.
It’s not worth expending the resources to clean them regularly.
’ He draws a hand over his face. ‘Oh. That substance is corrosive. And the composite your soles are made of are more prone to … melting than rubber.’
Oh, brilliant. Simply brilliant.
‘I’m sorry for your shoes, but obviously, none of us knew what we were about to get pulled into when we went to the Ball. If I’d known, I would have taken my bean.’
‘What is it with you and this bean?’ It isn’t the first time someone’s mentioned a bean. Allen did, right before we were thrown down the chute.
‘Allen prepared a special ART, that isn’t connected to the others, that runs its own system.
So that we could keep in touch during the mission when Stella scrambles the signals for our Citadel-issued ARTs.
And he made a bean for each of us that we’re supposed to put in our ear, which allows us to speak to each other. ’
‘There was a bean small enough to fit in your ear?’
‘Yes, in the ear canal, to be precise.’
‘So why didn’t you bring it with you?’
Mace scowls at me, which is becoming the new normal when it comes to the facial expressions he directs at me. ‘We thought the Test Mission was weeks away.’
‘It was a bean. How hard could it have been to slip it in your pocket?’
‘Are you lecturing me?’
I sigh and make a move to take off my shoes.
‘What are you doing?’ says Mace. ‘I just said that the mud is corrosive.’
I throw my arms in the air. ‘What am I supposed to do?’
Mace rubs the bridge of his nose. And then, he turns his back to me. ‘Hop on.’
Ever the self-sacrificing hero. ‘You know, you don’t have to keep rescuing me.’
‘Apparently, I do. You want to burn your feet? Be my guest.’
For a moment I’m speechless, and before my brain can tune into the conversation, my body does this weird little sprint and I jump on his back, anchoring my arms around his shoulders. He grabs me by the thighs, hoisting me up, then jogs down the tunnel, while I try to find a comfortable position.
I can’t.
I’m too hot, and my legs are spread wide, and I have the feeling that I’ll topple down any moment. ‘Hook your hands in the front,’ he says, ‘and lean forward.’
I feel the vibrations of his voice deep in my belly, and it gets worse when I do as he says, plastering my breasts to his back.
I can’t see a thing in front of us, and this will probably give me motion sickness, so I shimmy upwards, trying to look over his shoulder.
I end up laying my cheek on the hot skin of his neck.
He stiffens underneath me. ‘Stop wiggling so much,’ he says. ‘Or I’ll drop you.’
I suppose the position is odd enough, without us having odd conversations, too, so I keep my mouth shut, soaking up the feel of his hard body pressed to mine. That knot of heat in my belly never vanishes.
Mace feels increasingly tense, but it must be the strain he’s putting himself through so he can carry me.
I’m determined that this situation will be an exception.
That I’ll find ways to carry my own weight during the mission.
This is the chance of a lifetime – and I’ll take it with both hands.
I’ve never even been to this part of The Citadel, so I try to focus on the landscape.
The walls start shimmering with faded projections.
The first one is of a man wearing a uniform not unlike the Commanders’.
He wields a halberd and the word ‘Strength’ lights up in glittery, red letters above him.
On the next panel, there’s a pale woman with blonde, long hair.
She holds a magically generated bow and arrow already notched.
She’s looking at an invisible target, while the word ‘Justice’ lights up above her.
‘Hey, Mace? What do you think these are?’ I unlatch my arms to point over his shoulder, and an image a few panels down the tunnel lights up.
This one is of a slender, fit-looking man with short-cropped curls. His hands are folded over his chest and they glow with a gentle, silvery light. The word ‘Resilience’ lights up above him.
‘I don’t know,’ Mace says. ‘They look like images of past members of Central Command to me.’
‘The last one looks like a Healer, though.’
‘He must have some weapon-wielding ability, too,’ says Mace. ‘Only Warriors can rise to the rank of Commanders.’
Of course. One of the basic principles of The Citadel. Every single Commander comes from the Warriors’ Quarter. ‘Sure,’ I say, rolling my eyes. ‘But why isn’t he holding his weapon like the others?’
‘Maybe they took a lot of pictures, and in this one, he just happens not to be wielding his weapon.’
‘What if they’re not Central Command, though?’ I muse.
‘They are the First Commanders,’ Stella butts in.
‘Oh, there you are,’ I say. ‘Hello, Stella.’
‘These are the Founders of The Citadel.’ Stella ignores my mild sarcasm. ‘The last one you saw, Michael Wellington, was indeed a Healer.’
‘This can’t be right,’ says Mace, but before I can poke at him for thinking to know better than even Stella, another image lights up.
A gorgeous woman with bronze skin, full lips and untamed locks is staring directly at us. Her arms are spread, and domes of glowing, blue power surround her hands. The word ‘Loyalty’ is written in the same glowing blue above her picture.
‘Who’s that?’ I ask.
‘That’s Franka Ursa,’ Stella replies.
‘What Quarter did she belong to?’
‘That information isn’t included in this block,’ Stella says.
I snort. ‘Of course not. The juicy stuff never is.’
Oddly enough, the Founders were never mentioned by name in our history books. What they did when they established The Citadel and the laws that they put into place were painstakingly detailed during history lessons, but their actions were attributed simply to ‘the Founders’.
‘Let me guess. Only Central Command is privy to this information?’ I ask.
A telling silence on Stella’s side ensues, but I can’t look into it further, because Mace stops abruptly.
‘This is it. I can’t carry you anymore,’ he says. He points ahead of us. ‘I can’t jump with you on my back. And I think we’re close to the exit. Do you see that green glow ahead of us?’
The glow he mentioned is indeed there, making up the form of a door frame.
But between it and us spreads a dark pool of the tar-like, sticky substance.
It must stretch at least fifty feet across, and it’s as wide as the tunnel.
A few rocks pepper the smooth surface, like little stepping stones.
And the substance stretching between them is the charming corrosive liquid that the entirety of the tunnels is coated with.