Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Adrian
“When the darkness comes, you must not stumble. Stand firm in the light and go forth with hope in your heart, as you are the gods’ chosen.”
– From the Rite of the Culling
Iwoke up to a small beige folder slipped underneath the door to my quarters. The contents only contained a single piece of paper with one word upon it. Textiles.
I rolled my eyes. Leave it to Tiberius and his fellow high and mighty supervisors to be so formal and unnecessary.
Tossing the summons, envelope and all, onto the kitchen counter, I strolled from my quarters.
I shut the door tightly behind me and adjusted the collar of my gray jumpsuit as I made my way down the hall to the stairs and the elevators below.
Textiles was level six. I'd memorized all ten on only my second day in the Underground. I hadn’t told Tiberius that, of course.
I didn’t want to risk allowing him to derive any sort of satisfaction from the completed task.
He wanted me to embrace my role here, to accept the importance of what he, and all the other supervisors, did in the Underground.
He wanted me to embrace the Underground as a whole, likely because he was convinced I would be spending eternity down here just as he had.
But I had no intention of wasting away buried beneath mounds of dirt and stone for the rest of my uncertain future.
And I had no intention of giving up on returning home.
I stuck my hands in the pockets of my jumpsuit, fingers running along the edges of the note I’d crafted the night before upon the stationary every supervisor seemed to have stowed away in their apartments.
I muttered a silent thanks to Bria for teaching me how to read and hoped my clumsy hand had done well enough in replicating the letters to form the words I needed to get back to Sanctuary, to one person in particular, one person who would know what to do with the information.
I climbed into the elevator with the rest of the morning shift making their way to the various levels below and pressed the button for level six.
The elevator hummed to life, lights flickering only briefly overhead before plunging us into the darkness below.
A few got off on the second level, more on the third, and even more after that.
I waited patiently until the ping which told me we'd arrived at level six, textiles. I pushed past a man in dirty miner’s coveralls to make my way into the illuminated tunnel beyond.
The entry to the textiles level was more vibrant than any I'd seen so far.
A dazzling array of multicolored silks and lace and cotton hung from long wooden rods set against the walls as far as the eye could see.
There were finished products from beaded ballgowns to plain tee shirts to tufted comforters arranged in row after row, all awaiting assignment and delivery.
Three textiles workers, in their burgundy jumpsuits, were walking to and fro with a clipboard, jotting down the numbers on the tags attached to each item and listing it according to where in Sanctuary it was heading.
I would bet my life that even I could guess where the motley assortment of faded, scratchy tee shirts was headed as opposed to the selection of elegant ballgowns and fitted jackets.
I sighed, averting my gaze as I made my way into the main workroom where men and women in the same burgundy jumpsuits were seated at rows upon rows of sewing machines, desks littered with buttons and beads and zippers and anything else they might need to craft the various textiles of Sanctuary.
I walked up and down the rows, pretending to examine an article or so every now and then.
When I approached, the textile workers eagerly held up their pieces for my inspection, practically glowing with pride at the finer work they were doing.
I just smiled and nodded before moving along.
I kept my steps slow, my expression placid, like a supervisor just going about her rounds for the day.
But I allowed my eyes to dart around when no one was looking, searching for a certain shade of blue.
I found it soon enough, piled upon a stash of items already in a massive cloth-lined cart, ready for delivery topside. Perfect.
I approached the cart, looking as disinterested as I could, nodding at the textile worker who was finishing up cataloging the items to be delivered.
He gave me a lopsided grin and a half salute before striding away to the next cart on his list. I waited until his back was turned before reaching into my pocket and extricating the note.
I glanced down at the words upon it one final time before slipping it into the pocket of the royal blue double-breasted velvet coat.
Then I dropped my hand back to my side and turned to leave before anyone noticed.
“It isn’t going to work,” a hushed feminine voice warned.
I whirled to find a young woman standing in the corner behind me.
She pushed off of the wall she'd been leaning against, unfolding her arms and stepping into the low light.
Her skin was a dark ebony, like the color of chocolate, and her brown eyes were bright despite how narrowed they were in my direction.
She cocked her head to the side and her various dark braids slid over her shoulder.
“I’m sorry?” I asked, doing my best to keep a calm, cool affectation as I spoke. Whatever she'd seen, perhaps there was a chance I could convince her it wasn’t what she thought it was.
But my denial caused her to frown, both corners of her lips pulling downward in an expression that seemed suddenly familiar to me. I blinked.
“Do I know you?” I asked.
“Maybe,” she answered with a shrug, stepping forward. “But I doubt it. We didn’t exactly run in the same circles in Sanctuary. I’m Zya. I was a Second Ringer. I got Culled over a year ago.”
Zya. The name was familiar and, a moment later, I remembered why.
She was the one those snooty elite had been talking about at the House of Valin party the week after Darius was culled.
She was the one who hadn’t said a word to the gods or otherwise before walking straight into the void before my best friend.
I stared at her face, knowing it was one I would never forget.
“The note you slipped into that coat,” she said then, nodding in the direction of the cart beside me and redirecting my attention to the reason she'd begun talking to me in the first place. “Whatever it is, whoever it’s meant for, it won’t get to them. It won’t work.”
I frowned, brow furrowing.
“How do you know?” I asked, giving up all pretense of pretending I hadn’t done exactly what she was accusing me of.
“You think you’re the first person to try getting a message back to Sanctuary? You think you’re the first of us that’s had a difficult time adjusting, leaving our families, our friends, behind? Forever?” she raised a brow and my cheeks burned.
“No but—”
“It isn’t just against the rules. It’s impossible.”
I crossed my arms and glared at her, but she held her ground.
For the first time since I'd arrived in the Underground, I’d come across someone who hadn’t shrunk away from my uniform or the brands on my arms. Someone who talked about Sanctuary the way they were supposed to.
Someone who missed what they'd left behind, who maybe hadn't given up on finding it again.
“Don’t believe me?” she asked, quirking a brow. “Try it. See what happens. But don’t say I didn’t warn you, Viper.”
Then she breezed away, heading back into the fray of the busy textile level.
I whipped my head to the side, letting my gaze follow her as she slipped into the crowd.
Viper. She'd called me Viper. I clenched my fists at my sides and resisted the urge to punch something as hard as I could.
I was not a Viper. I never had been and I never would be. Dante had made sure of that.
With a growl of frustration, I stormed away from the delivery carts and made my way back through the tunnel to the elevator at the end of it. I was done with textiles for the day, Tiberius and his orders be damned.
***
The next morning I woke to find a familiar scrap of paper sitting on my kitchen counter right on top of the little beige envelope from the day before.
When I leaned closer and recognized my own handwriting, the hastily scrawled name in the top corner, Milo, I began to shake.
Feeling suddenly ill, I ran to the bathroom, desperate to put space between myself and whatever horrible magic had touched that letter since I’d stuffed it into an ornate blue coat the day before.
Zya’s words came back to me all at once, the meaning frighteningly clear.
It isn’t just against the rules. It’s impossible.
I locked myself in the bathroom and slumped to the tile. Head bowed forward, I tucked my knees against my chest and sobbed. Reaching Sanctuary wasn’t going to be as simple as I thought. Reaching Sanctuary might actually be impossible.
I remained on the bathroom floor for what felt like hours, crying until my eyes were red and raw and my chest was a gaping void of feeling.
My hope waned before it returned. I drifted alone in my misery, jumping from hopelessness to determination and back again.
When the day’s summons came, I ignored it.
I left that beige envelope on the floor in front of my door, unopened, and dressed slowly before making my way down to the first level outside.
I hadn’t made the conscious decision to return to that place.
My feet just simply seemed to carry me there of their own accord and, before I knew it, I was in that strange temple.
It was more of a shrine to gods and heroes than anything else but it could have been a temple just as well. I wouldn’t know what one looked like.