Shadow Heart Read online

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

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  Fragments

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  1 − 2 − 3 − 4 − 5

  6 − 7 − 8 − 9 − 10 - 11

  12 − 13 − 14 − 15 - 16

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  Open Wounds

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  17 − 18 − 19 − 20

  21 − 22 − 23 − 24 − 25

  26 − 27 − 28 − 29

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  Corridor Prime

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  30 - 31 − 32 − 33 − 34 - 35

  36 − 37 − 38 − 39 - 40

  41 − 42 − 43 − 44 − 45

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Copyright

  For Quinn

  1

  THE DISCIPLINER'S OPEN PALM connected with her jaw, and her fingernails dug deeper into the soft wood of the chair as she braced for the next blow. A whimper threatened to escape from her throat, but she ground her teeth against the pain and stubbornly stared fire in the man’s direction, ignoring the unpleasant tingle from his repeated blows to her face. He glared back with an intensity that would make most children cower, but she did not know fear. He had purged her of that long ago.

  “What have I told you about respect, Elizabeth?” the Discipliner asked.

  “What have I told you about calling me Elizabeth?” she retorted, and earned another hard slap across the face.

  “Insolent girl,” the Discipliner spat. “I’ll never break you of that pride. You have failed in almost every area where the other children succeed. Strength. Bravery. Obedience.”

  “Weakness!” she said, eyes flashing defiantly. “They aren’t strong or brave. They can’t even think unless you tell them how.”

  “That’s the way all good children should be…all good soldiers. One day, if you’re lucky, you will test into the Great Army. But if not, the matron and I will sell you to the highest bidder.” He reached down and stroked her cheek, a simple gesture that scared her more than any physical abuse ever could have. “You’re going to be a beautiful woman, Elizabeth.” He sneered. “For my part, I hope you fail.”

  “I’ll kill you first.”

  “Don’t fool yourself. You will never be strong enough to kill a man like me.”

  “Maybe not,” she grinned. “But I will be smart enough. Fast enough. One day you will be afraid of me.”

  The Discipliner hissed through bared teeth and reared back to strike her again, but a hurried rap at the door made him pause. “Yes?”

  “Downstairs, at once,” the matron’s voice came through muffled from the other side. “Something is happening in the streets. Soldiers on the march. Gunfire. I need you to stand watch.”

  The Discipliner’s hand fell slowly—reluctantly—back to his side, “Looks like you get a pass, my dear. For now.” He moved to the door and she breathed a long sigh of relief. The Discipliner heard her, and snickered, “Just because I’m done here, girl, doesn’t mean you are. I’ll make a soldier of you yet. Computer, play beta training program.”

  “No!” Liz jumped up from the chair and bolted for the door, hoping to escape as he opened it. But the Discipliner slithered through the crack and slammed the door in her face. She pounded on the weathered wood as the monitors came to life. “Please, I’ll say anything you want! I’ll—” The familiar screech drowned out her plea and sent her in retreat to the corner of the room, hands pressed tightly to her ears. Despite her attempts to shut it out, the screech brought her eardrums near the point of bursting, emptying her mind of all thought except the pain. It was her worst nightmare: an enemy she could not fight and could not flee.

  Then, as suddenly as it began, the screech transformed into a deep, soothing voice, “Soldiers are the rulers of society. They are the guardians of order, the light of justice. Everyone wants to be a soldier. But only a few are strong enough…brave enough…obedient enough.”

  “No! Stop it!” Liz rose to her feet and stared at the screens, bombarded with images that flashed so fast she could barely tell what they were. Still, she was aware of them, somehow—as though she could feel what they represented and the message they were designed to teach her. It made her brain feel fuzzy, and she hated it. The first two times the Discipliner had subjected her to this, she had believed herself helpless. But now she embraced her anger and let it deepen, nurturing it into a relentless fire that could consume every doubt and fear in its path.

  I don’t have to listen to this anymore, she thought. I don’t! She picked up the small chair and flung it against one of the walls, destroying several of the monitors in a shower of sparks. The voice droned on overhead, “…soldiers are powerful…they are resourceful…”

  Resourceful, she repeated in her head, surprised she understood. That means I can do anything I want, if I can just figure out how. And what I want is to get out of this room.

  She caught sight of a large shard of glass on the floor in front of the shattered monitors, and bent down to pick it up. The sharp edge nicked her, but she did not let go.

  Soldiers are strong, the words echoed in her mind. Soldiers do not fear pain.

  Liz turned to the door with the piece of glass and smiled. Once a boy had locked himself in a room on the first floor. Rather than wait for the matron and a key, the Discipliner had taken a thin plastic object and inserted it between the door and the frame, forcing it open. The same concept should work for her as well.

  The glass cut into her hand a little more as she shoved it into the crack. She twisted it a couple of times, ignoring both the pain and the blood that covered her hands, until the lock finally released. She was free. Liz dropped the glass and wiped her slick hands on her jeans, then ventured into the dark hallway where—luckily—there was no one to be found.

  As she crept farther down the hall, thunder roared outside, along with another sound she did not recognize: intermittent bursts of a strange popping noise.

  She made it to the elevator and then back down to the first floor without seeing anyone, but once there she saw the matron and the Discipliner standing by the entrance, arguing. She balanced her desire to escape against her curiosity. Knowledge is power, her mind intoned. A soldier gains knowledge whenever he can, however he can.

  Careful not to be seen, Liz crept closer to hear what the two adults were saying.

  “…can’t just throw him back out into the streets, he’ll freeze to death!”

  “He’s a stray, Karla. We have to go through normal protocols. Until then we’re not allowed to shelter him. You know the rules. Older than two, no Systemic designation, it’s to the slavers or the Great Army’s pyre.”

  “I’m not sending him back out into the freezing rain,” the matron said. “They may call me heartless, but even I am not that far gone. I know you have skills for occasions such as these. You employed them once before. Now I need you to do it again.”

  “That was a special case,” the Discipliner growled. “Sanctioned by a member of the hierarchy, and done the moment she was born. This boy is already six years old…what you ask is impossible.”

  “I don’t want your excuses. Just get it done.”

  Liz prepared to hide in case the Discipliner came her way, but her heart leaped out of her chest as a hand clamped over her mouth and its owner dragged her into the closest vacant room. They needn’t have bothered, for her first inclination wasn’t to scream but to despair. She was discovered and now would be punished for sure. Her captor spun her around slowly, and Liz’s mouth fell open. She had grown up around the five caretakers of the Capital Orphanage her entire life, and the woman standing before her looked nothing like those adults. Long golden curls fell down past her shoulders, shining in the low light as if they had a glow of their own. Liz had limited contact wit
h the outside world, but knew immediately this was probably the most beautiful woman she had ever seen.

  The woman made a graceful motion for quiet as she silently shut the door. Liz’s instincts placed her on the defensive, but she knew that if it was a choice between being caught by the Discipliner or by this radiant stranger, she would choose the latter.

  The woman knelt before her and lit a candle, bathing both of them in warm light. As she looked upon the woman’s face more closely, Liz couldn’t help but blurt out, “You’re beautiful.”

  She grinned at the comment but did not seem surprised. She wore her beauty like a garment and displayed it proudly. Like a soldier wears a weapon, Liz thought.

  “Thank you,” she reached forward and pushed a frayed blonde curl back behind Liz’s ear. “You’re very beautiful, too.”

  Liz’s eyes widened. No one had ever told her that before.

  “But look what they’ve done to you,” the woman went on, tracing the tender spots of Liz’s face. She reached for her bloody hands, lacerated by glass, and stared at them in horror. Tears misted her eyes, and Liz shook her head in disgust. Tears are for the weak. A soldier does not know sorrow. A soldier does not cry. Still, she couldn’t help but wonder who this woman was to care for her so. Or maybe she was just upset that she had gotten blood all over her beautiful hands. Liz hoped she had hands like that someday.

  “What’s your name?” Liz asked.

  The woman pursed her lips in brief hesitation before answering, “My name is Aurora.”

  “Aurora?” Liz repeated, dumbfounded. “But that’s my name. Or at least, my last name.”

  “Yes, I know,” Aurora said. “That’s the reason I’m here.”

  “Don’t you want to know my first name?”

  “I already know it, Elizabeth.”

  Liz winced, “I don’t like to be called Elizabeth. That’s what the boys call me when they tease me. My friends call me Lizzie.”

  “That’s a shame,” Aurora frowned. “Elizabeth is such a good name. A strong name, one that you might want to use again one day.”

  Liz doubted that would ever happen, but she didn’t want to be rude. “How did you know my name? Do you know me?”

  “I know your name because I gave it to you. I’m your mother, Elizabeth.”

  Liz paled, the breath stolen from her lungs. Her mother? But that couldn’t be true. She was an orphan, and orphans had no parents—at least, that’s what the matron and the Discipliner had told her. But when she looked in Aurora’s eyes, she saw the same brilliant blue that shone back at her from a mirror. The golden curls of hair were prettier—cleaner—than her own, but with a good wash hers might have that same glow. Even Aurora’s full lips and high cheekbones were familiar.

  Her doubt became wonder, and then almost as quickly, despair. “But then…why would you leave me here? I don’t belong if I’m not an orphan. Have you come to take me away?” Her eyes alighted at the notion, and she even acknowledged a willingness to forgive her mother of the past if she would save her now. But the answer just drove the blade of sorrow even deeper.

  “No, Elizabeth. I’m sorry, but I can’t take you with me. I have to flee the city, and to succeed I must be a ghost. I won’t make it if you’re with me.”

  “You’re leaving me to save yourself?”

  Aurora recoiled as though Liz had slapped her, “It is not that simple. The road I must take is a dangerous one, and if we are found together your father will find you. And that...that must never happen, Elizabeth. You will be safe here.”

  “Safe?” Liz felt a lump rise in her throat. I won’t cry, she assured herself. Soldiers do not cry. But there was at least one hope, “My father is alive?”

  “For now,” Aurora replied, voice dripping with venom. “But put away any thoughts of seeking him out. He knows nothing of you, Elizabeth. He thinks you died when you were born. You could walk up to him on the street and to him you would just be another filthy gutter rat. Pray, for your own sake, that it stays that way.”

  Liz gazed upon her mother and realized that the word beautiful could no longer describe her. There was no light in her eyes, no compassion on her face. She was wretched, cruel, and dark. “I wish I really was an orphan,” she said, staring straight into the icy depths of Aurora’s eyes. “I wish I had no mother.”

  “I suppose I shouldn’t feel guilty, then, that I spent the past six years wishing you had not been born. You were the reason I was cast out of favor. Consider us even.” The lines of her face turned harsh, consuming what remained of her beauty. “It was a mistake to come here. I thought I might see something of myself in you, something that would make all I have gone through worth it, but all I see is…him. I must go. Do not follow me.”

  As her mother turned to leave, Liz could hold back no longer, “Did you ever love me?”

  Aurora paused with her hand on the doorknob, and sighed, “When they placed you in my arms there was nothing in the world I loved more. But then they tore you away, and with it…my soul. Since then I have known only survival. If there is one piece of wisdom with which I would leave you, it is this: do not love; do not desire love. Love is a tempting weakness, and it will surely destroy you. Goodbye, Elizabeth.”

  “Wait!” Liz pleaded, suddenly remembering what she had done upstairs and how much trouble she would be in. “Please, take me with you. I don’t care if you love me. I don’t care if you’re a bad person. I just want to run away.”

  Her mother paused for one moment more, and then slipped through the door without another word. Liz rushed out behind her into the dark hallway, but her mother had already vanished. To succeed, her mother had said, she had to be a ghost. That’s all you’ve ever been to me, Liz thought. It’s all you will ever be.

  But she didn’t need her mother or anyone else to escape. She could do that on her own. The matron and the Discipliner were probably still at the entrance. If she could make it to the back door, then she might have a shot. She turned and plowed right into a wall.

  Liz grunted, barely registering at first that it was not an actual wall, but the body of a man. A strong hand reached down and took hold of her hair, forcing her to look up into his face as he sneered, “What are you doing down here, Dear Elizabeth? And how did you get out of that room?”

  “I broke out!” she declared. “I destroyed your program and used the glass to open the door. I’m resourceful.”

  “Indeed you are,” the Discipliner said, flashing a grin that betrayed his pride. “No child has ever broken out of that room. I suppose there is a first time for everything.” His hand tightened in her hair, and she felt a few strands pull free from her scalp. “But you’re a bit too resourceful for your own good, and obstinate. We’ll have to break you of that.”

  He dragged her down the hallway by her hair, her eyes watering from the pain. She hated that he managed to draw tears from her—and hated even more that she could not control them—but she would not show fear. She knew the room where he was taking her. The other children lived in terror of it, but she would take it over the room with the monitors any day.

  He opened the door and shoved her inside, “24 hours in darkness should do you good. We’ll talk when you’ve had time to think about what you’ve done.” He slammed the door, stealing away all light so she couldn’t even see her hand in front of her face.

  Liz balled that hand into a fist and immediately regretted it, as the scabs trying to form on her sliced palms tore open once again. She felt fresh blood trickle down her wrist, and sighed angrily. So much effort, all for nothing.

  A whimper sounded from somewhere in the room and her back went rigid: she was not alone. At first she didn’t know what to think. The Discipliner had never put her in the room with another person before. Was this some kind of special punishment? Would she have to fight in the dark?

  “Who’s there?” she demanded. “I’m not afraid of you!”

  The whimper came again, and she caught a distinct smell in the room, musty an
d dull like the ground after a hard rain. She knew there was a storm outside, and deduced logically that this person had to have just come in from it. Her unknown companion moved, and she heard the squish of drenched clothing. His breath was staccato, almost as though his teeth were chattering.

  “Who are you?” she asked. “Are you an orphan?”

  At that the whimper broke down into a choked sob, and she knew she shared the room with a child around her own age—a boy, she guessed, whose shivering sobs grated against her nerves.

  Is this my punishment? To be in the same room with someone while they freeze to death?

  “Stop crying,” she ordered. “Crying is a sign of weakness. Soldiers don’t cry.”

  “I…I’m not—I’m not a soldier,” the child stammered. “A-and I’m n-not weak.”

  “Then grow up. Quit acting like a child.”

  “But I am. I’m just six years old.”

  “I’m six, too, dummy. That doesn’t mean anything. There are no children behind these walls, the Discipliner says so.”

  “The…who?”

  “The Discipliner,” Liz repeated. “He trains us to be soldiers. If we pass our OPE we get to stay at the orphanage. If we fail the matron sells us into slavery. Anyway, he was probably the one who put you in here.”

  “Him? He was scary.”

  “To you, maybe,” Liz snorted. “But I’m not afraid of anything.”

  “Are you an orphan?”

  I used to be. Liz’s thoughts returned to her mother, hardly able to believe she had been in her presence just moments before. If there was one way she was exactly like the other children, it was that she wondered what having a family would be like. She daydreamed about feeling safe in the arms of a father, or comforted by the words of a mother. But no longer. If parents were all like that woman she had just seen, she wanted no part of them.

  “I asked you first,” she said.

  “My dad died today,” the child said sadly. “And I think maybe…maybe my mom, too.”