The Awakening (The Fempiror Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  “By the time we realized what was happening, we were too late. The Tepish had destroyed our country. We watched the capital city of the Felletterusk Empire go up in flames before our eyes, and we were powerless to stop it. Frantically, we searched across the empire for anyone who survived, but it was just us. We had failed…”

  Failure. He remembered that night more vividly than any other memory in his life. They had been working out a proposition to the city officials to allow them to continue to serve as night patrols and similar duties when they had heard crashing outside. The military headquarters was a short distance from the capital city, but on that night, it had been too far.

  They had run at top speed to the city only to find it completely laid waste. Zechariah had run home to his family and found their bodies inside the burning wreckage of his family home. He had lost everything that night and recalling it for a history lesson was more than he could handle.

  David had been sitting quietly listening and had likely noticed the tear that ran down his face when he thought of the heat and smell of that night. He looked at David and said, “We have a long road ahead of us tonight. Get some rest.”

  To his relief, David did not argue this time. He only nodded. Zechariah was more than grateful.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Mourning

  Beth stood near a fresh grave and a grave marker that would serve until David’s tombstone was completed. Less than forty-eight hours ago, she was getting married, and now her fiancée rested in the ground before her. Her mind turned that day and that evening over and over, and she could only hold herself to blame for David’s being out that night. She was the one who said to meet with her despite the warnings about it not being safe.

  Her father had never spoken to her about David’s request to marry her. When he had come in from talking to David, he told her to go to bed, after which, she assumed her parents had talked about it and intended to discuss it with her, David, and the Taylors the next day. The next day was yesterday, though, and… She wiped the tears away again. She did not know if she would ever stop crying again.

  She looked at David’s mother. Mary Taylor had been giving her angry glances all day. Beth did not blame her. After all, they were out at night together. Beth got home safely and David did not. Mary had every reason to be upset. If their roles were reversed, Beth knew she would feel the same way. When she had worked with Mary on dressmaking, she felt that Mary was appreciative of Beth’s willingness to learn her trade, but now, Beth was sure she would never be Mary’s pupil again.

  Beth felt someone beside her. She turned and saw Abraham. He had been near her during the funeral and now at David’s graveside. She was grateful that Abraham would be there during this difficult time. She had met both of them together, and she knew that as cousins, Abraham and David had been very close friends as well, so he would need her almost as much as she would need him.

  “How are you doing?” Abraham asked gently.

  Beth looked back at Mary. “David’s mother blames me for his death,” she said softly. “Maybe it was my fault.”

  “Don’t think that way,” he said, reassuringly.

  “No, if I hadn’t suggested,” she began, but she could not continue the thought. “If we had only come home earlier… he’d still…”

  Abraham gently placed his finger on her lips. It distracted her from her string of thoughts, where every thought led to the same end. “If only” this or that, then he would be alive right now, and maybe planning for their future. A future that would now never come.

  Abraham withdrew his hand quickly, almost apologetically. It occurred to her that the gesture was inappropriate, and the last thing she needed on the heels of losing one love is the rumor of her other friend being closer than friendship. Yes, Abraham was close to her, but she would not be able to see him that way.

  “The mayor has half the town staying up nights – everyone that can be spared – to try and catch the killer,” Abraham assured her. “By the grace of God, he will be brought to justice.”

  Beth sighed and looked at him. “Maybe he isn’t dead,” she said. She thought she sounded desperate, but it was an honest feeling. “I still feel like he’s with me … in here.” She held her hand over her heart and sighed again.

  She looked at the grave. “This might not be him,” she suggested. “It could be anyone, couldn’t it? I mean, he was charred beyond all…” She stopped short. The thought, no matter who it was, was still appalling to her and made her ill thinking about it. She looked up quickly to find Mary standing directly in front of her. She had been so caught up in her thoughts she had not noticed David’s mother until just now.

  Their eyes locked. Mary looked like she would tear Beth apart if not for the control of civilized people. Her husband, Jonathan, was directly behind her trying to steer her away from Beth. Beth did not try to stare her down at all. In fact, seeing her mantua teacher like this, made Beth as sad as losing her beloved David.

  “It should have been you,” Mary said angrily. To an extent, Beth agreed with this statement, but she did not respond. Beth’s father was right there behind her to defend her.

  “That’s enough,” Patrick said.

  “He’s right,” Jonathan said. “Let’s go.” Mary gave in and allowed Jonathan to take her away.

  “Come on, Beth,” her father said, taking her arm. Beth nodded and turned to go with him.

  Abraham stepped beside her again. “Is there anything I can do?” he asked.

  Beth shook her head. “I just need to be alone for awhile,” she said. She felt bad about leaving him like this, but until she was able to deal with the loss, she would not be able to help him. His parents were standing nearby, and he would need to find comfort with them, though they were grieving the loss of their nephew as well. It would be some time before anyone was back to normal.

  * * * * * * * * * *

  Beth walked through her house into her room, hardly noticing anything the entire way. Once in her room – her sanctuary – she looked around at everything she had been doing when life was still moving the way she had planned. Everything in her life had been in the preparation of being a wife and mother. That was all she had wanted to do.

  Clothes that she had made and that people had given to her hung on a wooden rack along one wall of her room in a variety of sizes from baby to adult. A half completed cross-stitch picture of a house and yard rested on a small table. A painting of her and a male without a head sat on an easel near a mirror. The unknown male was going to be David and she had painted his form with her in the painting but left out his head to disguise their relationship. Now, she wished she had finished it and hoped she would remember his features well enough to complete it soon.

  She walked to her bed and sat next to the ball of yarn she had brought home two days ago now attached to wooden knitting needles and a partial blanket that was very wide and appeared to have used several balls of yarn already. She had started working with it after she had brought the ball of yarn home and had left it on her bed that night when she had gone to sleep. With everything that had happened since then, she had yet to remove it.

  She picked it up and remembered telling him it was their blanket for two. She held it to her chest and cried again. She felt foolish planning for a life she would never have now. He was gone. What was left?

  She tossed the ball with the half-made blanket into the rack of clothes, knocking a few of them to the floor on top of the knitting. She dropped her head into her hands; tears flowed freely as she cried again. She looked up again and turned to her window, but as she did, she noticed the blue and white dress from that night still sitting dirty in the corner of her room. She walked to the dress and picked it up. The dress represented the life she had lost. She made it under the guidance of David’s mother when Beth had a purpose in life. It was the last thing she wore before she lost David. She had planned to clean it yesterday, but then her life fell apart.

  She touched the fabric and dirt gent
ly. His hands had touched this garment as she wore it. She considered wearing it as is, without washing off what remained of his scent, but she knew her parents would never allow it. She would wash it tomorrow, and never take it off again. But tonight, she would hold it close to her and remember that last night with him.

  She turned around on her bed and stared out the window, which faced a house to the north, but from her bed, she looked through it at an angle to gaze across the open distance to the west and watch the last rays of the sun shine down on the fields out past Hauginstown.

  “What happened to you, my love?” she asked the wide-open space outside her window, feeling as if he would hear her if she tried speaking to him. “Where did you go? I can feel in my heart that we did not bury you today. But if it was not you, then where are you now? As long as the hope of your life lives within me, I can never marry another. Come back to me, my love, come back to me…”

  Slowly, she lay down on her pillow, still staring out the window and holding her soiled dress close to her. Part of her hoped that if she kept watching, he would emerge out of the distance and come to her. Her eyes closed of their own accord, and her tears soaked her pillow again.

  “Come back to me…” she whispered once more before she drifted off to a dreamless sleep.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Erim

  David’s eyes opened, and he whispered Beth’s name as if he had heard her across the distance. Slowly the room came to him, and he realized he was resting in Zechariah’s Rastem Safe House room in Cerebdim. His nightmare continued. He felt like he had had no rest at all, as he stared blankly without moving.

  “Get up, David,” Zechariah said. David blinked and turned his head to find Zechariah standing ready to go in his full Rastem gear at the doorway of the room. “Summer nights are painfully short. We must hurry.”

  David sat up and nodded. He was still wearing the dirt stained clothes he had worn since he had awakened at Zechariah’s house, and he wished he at least had some nightclothes. He asked Zechariah about cleaning his clothes before they left, but Zechariah was not allowing time for anything extra. Before he knew it, they had left the safe house, were back in Zechariah’s Levi-Cart, and flew across the open fields again, heading straight for the mysterious city of Erim.

  “How do you know where you’re going?” David asked as the night landscape flew by. David was trying to make out the lay of the land as they rushed along, but the moon was behind the clouds, so it was very dark tonight.

  “I’ve lived in darkness for almost four hundred years, David,” Zechariah said. “Your eyes get used to it after awhile.”

  “So do we see better in the dark than normal people do?” David asked.

  “Do you see any better?” Zechariah asked with a laugh.

  “No,” David replied.

  “Then there’s your answer,” Zechariah replied. “I know where Erim is, though, so we’ll get there without a problem.”

  David looked back across the darkened fields. “So when we get to this ‘Erim,’ then what?” he asked.

  “We petition the council for an immediate meeting,” Zechariah replied, “and then speak to Tiberius to find out the true state of Erim. If he’s still out there, that is. I trust Ildritch to an extent, but Cerebdim is a distance from Erim, and he would only hear what’s going on second hand. I’ve been away for far too long. I feel like a fool.”

  “Why have you been away so long?” David asked.

  Zechariah chuckled. “You are full of questions, aren’t you?” Zechariah asked in return.

  “What else am I supposed to do?” David asked with a shrug.

  “Keep asking them,” Zechariah said, smiling. “As long as I know the answer, I don’t mind telling you. When it comes to why I’ve been gone so long, I went to Hauginstown to try to find evidence of a Tepish build-up. I feel this attack is related.”

  David nodded, shrugged and looked forward again. He found they were quickly approaching a city with modest lighting similar to what he had seen already, but this version lit the streets further adding to David’s marvel of this society.

  Zechariah steered the Cart onto a road leading directly into Erim. They passed by people walking on the sides of the street, staying clear of the traveling Levi-Cart, not even looking at it.

  “If you’re trying to remain hidden and keep your discoveries from the rest of the world, what about your lights on the street?” David asked, thinking he had found a flaw in Zechariah’s logic. “I also noticed you’re flying right into town, without worrying about who sees you.”

  “Erim is a little different,” Zechariah said. “It’s a Fempiror city, remember? But there’s more to it than that. You’ll see.” David felt that at some point Zechariah would have to let him know something he was asking instead of closing him out as often as he did. He said he would answer any questions he knew the answer to, but he seemed to avoid as many as he answered. He implied that the answer would come, but David felt that if the answer were going to come anyway, Zechariah should just answer instead of making him wait for it.

  Erim was a very gray city, literally made of stone in varying shades of gray. It felt like a great shadow in the middle of the night terrain as they flew over the gray stone streets past gray painted and gray stone buildings. Many of the buildings looked brand new, but as David watched them pass, he noticed that there was a lot of wear behind the fresh paint and stone, meaning that this city was very old along with everything in it, but they maintained it well. It still looked much better than Hauginstown could ever hope to look.

  Zechariah stopped in front of a large, three-story, white brick building, in stark contrast to the gray city, with white marble columns flanking the large wooden entry doors at the top of a long series of steps that spanned the center third of the building. The columns held up an ornate triangular roof covering the porch area leading to the main doors, but few people passed in and out of this place. The steps actually led to the second floor of the building, the lower level having no access from the front. A sign placed next to the entrance had the Felletterusk symbols, which Zechariah pronounced “Cunlisk Ydöj Lakär”, and under the symbols was “Council Body Hall.”

  David grabbed his hat and followed as Zechariah confidently strode into the building. David was momentarily self-conscious as he remembered his dirt-stained clothes, and he did the best he could to brush off some of the loose dirt, but it did little to improve his appearance. He considered that his father would be a bit ashamed of him walking into so beautiful a place looking the way he did, but he also considered that his host, Zechariah, was not necessarily allowing him to fix this little problem either.

  As he followed Zechariah’s swift pace through the building, David tried to look at the decoratively paneled walls and floors as well as the lighting, which these Fempiror had hidden more discretely than Zechariah had done in his house. The entry was large and showed several doors leading to other rooms from the main hall. They turned right as soon as they entered to walk up a flight of stairs with golden railings right next to the main doors. He noticed that the opposite side of the main door had stairs going down to the lower level he had seen from the outside, and there were large wooden columns next to each stairway that led to an arch over the door, which had more Felletterusk symbols.

  David asked about it as he tried to keep up with Zechariah bounding up the stairs, and Zechariah told him without looking that it said, “Milkav höv lew virsha” – “Remember who we serve.” He followed this by muttering something about hoping they continued to live by their own words.

  The top of the stairs led to a white, semi-circular area with a set of double doors on the left and another single door set partway around the circle between two paintings out of a total of seven situated on the walls around the semi-circle. Each painting was a simple portrait of a man, and David presumed these seven were the members of the council that Zechariah referred to, but before David could get a good look at any of them, Zechariah had pas
sed through the set of double doors on the left.

  An older man of wiry build immediately greeted them in an office retaining the same white walls with red carpeting. He was dressed in black breeches, stark white stockings, a white shirt, and black waistcoat. His hair was thin and perfectly trimmed, and his face held a very smug expression as Zechariah walked in. He stood from behind a desk and walked to them as soon as they entered, but never took his gaze from Zechariah.

  “Good evening, gentlemen,” he said. “Welcome to Body Hall. My name is Jarvis Aori. How may I direct you this evening?” His words seemed polite, but his tone dripped with sarcasm as if he knew what was coming.

  “Hello Jarvis,” Zechariah said. There was a note of sarcasm in his voice as well. “I’m Zechariah, and this is David. I need to speak to the Head; is it still Karian?”

  “It is…” Jarvis replied, “And may I inquire, sir, as to the subject of your meeting?”

  “Sure,” Zechariah said with a smile.

  There was a very long pause as Jarvis stared at Zechariah waiting for a reply. Finally, he smiled curtly. “And that subject is?” Jarvis asked.

  “I said you could ask, Jarvis,” Zechariah said, “but I didn’t guarantee I’d tell you.” David was notably confused, but Jarvis was not amused by Zechariah.

  “I will have to ask the nature of your business with Head Karian,” Jarvis said, “or I cannot properly announce you.”

  “Oh, my sincerest apologies, Jarvis,” Zechariah said without a hint of apology in his tone, “Tell him it’s about the Tepish.”

  Jarvis’ expression changed. “Yes sir,” Jarvis said. Whatever friendliness he had in his voice before was completely gone now. “Head Karian is in. I’ll see if he’s available.”