The Last Days of Lorien (2 page)

This time, it gave.

CHAPTER 2

The force of my weight sent me tumbling blindly into the room on the other side of the door. I tripped across the floor, crashing through layers and layers of fabric. I tripped and fell, my head hitting the ground with a snap.

Then I heard a voice. A
girl’s
voice. “Now
that’s
funny.”

As I lay there, I realized that what I’d crashed into was a rack of clothes. Women’s clothes. Now I was lying in a heap of them on the floor. I looked like I’d gotten caught in an explosion of rhinestones and sequins.

Standing above me, a guy in black metallic pants and a collarless shirt was struggling to lock the door I’d just busted through.

“Yeah, funny,” he was saying sarcastically. “I love it when underage pipsqueaks come barging into the dressing room.”

I stood up sheepishly and tried to gather up the pile of dresses I had knocked loose. This really was not how I’d imagined my night going.

“So. So.
Funny
.” I spun around to see a girl with electric-white hair sitting on a low stool in the corner of the room. She was wearing a tiny pair of shorts and was in a crouching position. She was drawing on herself with some kind of makeup pen, marking her bare calves with an elaborate pattern of swirls and curlicues.

“No,” I said.

I probably should have apologized. Or at least explained myself. But I couldn’t. I was too starstruck. All I could say was
no.

“Oh,
yes
,” she said, still drawing on her leg. She leaned down closer to the serpentine markings, pursed her lips, and blew up and down her calf, drying the ink.

It couldn’t be. But it
was
.

It was Devektra.

Most people on Lorien probably would have had no idea who she was. But I’m not most people, and I’d been listening to Devektra’s music for months. For people in the know, she was
the
most buzzed about Garde performer on Lorien. With her striking beauty, her wise-beyond-her-years lyrics—because she was practically a kid herself, only a little bit older than me—and her unusual Garde legacy of creating dazzling, hypnotic light displays during her performances, it was all but certain she was going to be a huge star before long. She was already well on her way.

“What, you’ve never seen a girl putting makeup on her legs before?” she said with a twinkle in her eye.

I tried to regain my composure. “You must be the top-secret performer,” I finally managed to say, stumbling over practically every word. “I’m, um, a big fan.” I cringed as I said it. I sounded like a total loser.

Devektra appraised her legs, then stood up and looked at me like she didn’t know whether to be angry or to laugh. In the end, she split the difference. “Thanks,” she said. “But you know, they lock those doors for a reason—to keep big fans
out.
”

Stepping forward, she threw her arms theatrically around my shoulders and pulled my ear right up next to her mouth. “You gonna tell me what you’re doing in my dressing room?” she whispered. “I don’t need to call security, do I?”

“Um,” I stuttered. “Well, see, it’s like this . . .” I searched my brain for an explanation and couldn’t think of one. I guess I’m a lot better at hacking software than I am at talking to girls. Especially hot, famous ones.

Devektra stepped back and looked me up and down with a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “You know what I think, Mirkl?” she asked.

“What?” the guy I’d practically forgotten about asked in a bored voice. Honestly, he sounded like he was kind of sick of Devektra.

“
I think
,” she said slowly, “that this little fellow’s
way
too young to be here. It looks to
me
like he was about to get kicked out for being underage and snuck in here looking for a place to hide. We’ve got a lawbreaker on our hands. And you know how I feel about lawbreakers . . .”

I looked at the floor. Now I was
definitely
busted. This wouldn’t be the first time I was in trouble for something like this. Or the second. This time, though, the consequences would definitely be serious.

But Devektra surprised me.

A grin spread across her face and she began to giggle. This girl was sort of crazy, I was starting to suspect. “I love it!” she said. She narrowed her eyes and wagged a scolding finger at me. Her nails were glittering in every color of the rainbow. “Such a naughty little Cêpan.”

For the second time in just a few seconds, she’d caught me by surprise. “How do you know I’m a Cêpan?” I asked.

Like the majority of public figures on Lorien—athletes, performers, soldiers—Devektra was a Garde. I was a Cêpan. An elect group of Cêpans were mentor Cêpans, educators of the Garde, but most of us were bureaucrats, teachers, businesspeople, shopkeepers, farmers. I wasn’t sure which kind I’d turn out to be after school was finished, but I didn’t think any of my choices seemed too great. Why couldn’t I have been born a Garde and get to do something actually
fun
with my time?

Devektra smirked. “My third Legacy. The dull one I don’t like to mention. I can
always
tell the difference between Garde and Cêpan.”

Like all Garde, Devektra had the power of telekinesis. She also had the ability to bend and manipulate light and sound waves, skills she used in her performances and which had made her the rising star she was. That was a pretty rare power already, but the third Legacy that she’d just mentioned, to be able to sense the difference between Garde and Cêpans, was one I’d never heard of at all.

For some reason, I felt self-conscious. I don’t really know why—there’s nothing wrong with being a Cêpan, and although I’d often thought it seemed like a lot more
fun
to be a Garde, I’d never felt insecure about who I was before.

For one thing, I’m not usually a very insecure person. For another thing, that’s just not how it works around here. Though Garde are revered as a collective—a “treasured gift” to our planet—there was a widespread conviction, shared by Garde and Cêpan alike, that the Garde’s amazing abilities belonged not to them alone, but to
all
of us.

But standing there, faced with the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen, a girl who was about to go onstage and demonstrate her amazing talents for everyone at the Chimæra, I suddenly felt so
ordinary.
And she could see it. She was Devektra,
the
Devektra, and I was just some stupid, underage Cêpan with nothing going for him. I didn’t even know why she was bothering with me.

I turned to go. This was pointless. But Devektra caught me by the elbow.

“Oh, cheer up,” she said. “I don’t care if you’re a Cêpan. Anyway, I’m just kidding, thank the Elders. What a boring third Legacy
that
would be. My
real
third Legacy is much more exciting.”

“What is it?” I asked suspiciously. I was starting to feel like Devektra was messing with my head.

Her eyes glittered. “Isn’t it obvious? I make men fall in love with me.”

This time, I knew she was pulling my leg. I blushed, suddenly realizing the truth. “You read minds,” I said.

Devektra smiled, impressed, as she leaned back against Mirkl, who looked less than amused. “Mirkl,” she said. “I think he’s starting to get it.”

A half hour later, I stood on the second-floor balcony overlooking the club, watching Devektra perform. She was better than I could have imagined. It took my breath away.

She sang passionately, and melodically, but even though Devektra was known for her lyrics, I barely even heard the words she was singing. She was dancing, too, and dancing well, but that wasn’t the main attraction either. And even though she was pretty much the most amazing-looking girl I’d ever laid eyes on, that wasn’t it either.

All that paled in comparison to what she was doing with her Legacies.

She would wave her hands, modulating the texture of her voice, pitch-shifting it eerily. She could flick her wrist and boost her voice’s volume dramatically; she could even target and shape the volume such that listeners in the back of the club would get walloped with sound while the front of the crowd was merely tickled. With her other hand, she manipulated the club’s already sophisticated lighting system, bending its multicolored beams in skillful, dazzling counterpoint to the sounds coming out of her mouth.

I was transfixed. I’d heard about her performances, but nothing could have described what she was doing. Some things you just need to see with your own two eyes.

Now it was almost over. I had been so absorbed in watching Devektra from my exclusive spot in the VIP balcony that the past hour had flown by like minutes, and as the music began to slow, taking on a baleful tone, and the lights shifted from bursts of pink and orange to long, undulating waves of purple and green, I knew it was coming to a close.

She held the song’s final notes at a delicate volume. Her left hand twirled gently, caressing the air and twirling the sound out into the crowd.

Then her voice rose to a roar. The sound pummeled my chest, so hard I felt like the noise could hollow me out. Then, suddenly, she slammed her fists together and the club’s lights surged into an overwhelming blast just as the noise disappeared, as if sucked out of the room by a vacuum.

I staggered against the railing, blinded.

As my vision slowly came back, I could see the people in the audience below me rocking dizzily on their heels. Like me, they were dazed but satisfied.

“That was incredible,” I said, finally capable of speech. But when I turned around, Mirkl, who had been watching the show with me, not saying a word, was already gone.

Turning back to the stage and dance floor, I saw Devektra already halfway to the front door, with Mirkl and the rest of her entourage silent behind her. They were leaving.

She’d mentioned they’d all be going to another club called Kora for an after-performance party. At the time the mention had felt like an invitation, but it looked like Devektra was on her way out without giving me a second thought.

I bolted down the stairs, down the hall, and through the crowd, desperate not to lose her. I forced my way through, squeezing between people. I heard a few people snap at me as I knocked into them, but I no longer cared about anything except finding Devektra.

I finally spotted her as I reached the entrance. She was standing outside the Chimæra with her entourage, and she turned back to the club and saw me, giving me a mysterious smile. I didn’t know what it meant, but I knew I had to find out.

“Excuse me,” I said, pushing past a couple, making my last dodge for the door.

“Sandor?” My heart sank as I felt someone grab my arm. I knew that voice. There was no point trying to run. It was Endym.

“I
thought
I saw you earlier,” he said.

“Some show, right?” I said, praying Endym would let this slide. After all, he was here too—and he sounded like he’d had more than a few ampules since I’d last seen him.

“Incredible,” said Endym. “Best I’ve ever seen her.”

“So,” I said, hopefully. “Any chance we could just forget you saw me here today?”

Endym smiled back at me. “None at all.”

CHAPTER 3

“If I weren’t so disappointed, I’d be impressed.” Principal Osaria was flipping through papers on her desk outlining my misdeeds, reading out charges as she went. “Charge: Tampering with the Truancy Register. Suggested punishment: expulsion. Charge: absences more than ten per semester. Suggested punishment: expulsion.”

She looked up at me. “Ten’s just a provisional figure of course. We’ve yet to sort through the Register’s data logs to get a precise estimate for how many classes you skipped.”

“Ten’s about right,” I admitted.

“That better not be sarcasm,” my dad said in a tired voice from the monitor on the wall of Osaria’s office, where his face crackled in by remote feed. My mother sat silently beside him. They were at their vacation home on the beaches of Deloon and couldn’t be bothered to make the two-hour trip to the capital to witness my expulsion in person.

“What does this mean, exactly?” my mother asked. As if she didn’t know. I’d been warned before. Cutting school and sneaking into the Chimæra was one thing—but this went way beyond that.

Osaria swiveled her chair to face the screen. “It means that my hands are tied. If it were just one or the other of these charges, I’d be able to exercise my discretion in meting out punishment.” She frowned deeply. “But in addition to the rules he broke at school, he also tampered with the ID scans at the Chimæra. I have no choice.”

“Oh no,” said my mom. She looked like she was about to cry.

“This is a surprise to you?!” My dad was turning red, nearly as mad at my mother as he was at me. “He’s always been like this.”

It was true. I’d always been a rule breaker, I’d always had a way of getting myself into trouble. I wasn’t ashamed of that; I
liked
that about myself. But it tended to flummox the people around me. Lorien was a happy, prosperous and law-abiding planet. The fact that I was always getting into trouble made me practically a freak of nature.

Principal Osario shifted uncomfortably in her seat, put off by my parents’ bickering, and quickly broke in before they could continue. “I must say I’ll be sorry to lose Sandor.” She turned back to me. “Attendance issues aside, you are one of our very best students—and I have to admit that your tampering with the security systems, while illegal and dangerous, shows a certain amount of”—she paused—“
ingenuity.
Now, as I see it, there are two options available to him. If he elects to stay in the capital—”

“Yes,” I said. “I’m not leaving the city.”

“—then we can arrange to have him placed as an apprentice with the Munis.”

My heart sank. The Munis? The Munis were the custodial corps of the city’s workforce. Maintenance work. Most citizens of the capital were conscripted for Munis service by lottery, for year-long terms no more than twice in their lifetimes. There was no shame attached to performing Munis service in Lorien culture, but it was far from my idea of a good time. And entering the Munis as an apprentice was basically signing up to haul trash for the rest of my life. To me, that was a fate worse than death.