Page 2 of Shadowlands Omega

I bite my lip and chuckle a little to myself. I don’t know when I’ll ever have courage enough for that. The ancestors only know how much I’d like to see him up close in person, to feed him, to unfasten his cloak,to command him to his knees…

I jerk upright, feeling overly warm all of a sudden, and tell Zelie to keep stirring. Outside, the chaos of the kitchens…continues. I grin at the wild, wide world around me. The castle lies south of here and I can just see the keep’s crest over the sprawling village. Short houses made of wood and stone line wide, winding streets, drawn in no particular order I can make sense of. If you walk far enough east, you’ll get to Undoline, the next closest village to Orias and where lots of our extended family live. To the north, you’ll get to the ports and the Sea of Zaoul — but only after crossing the clashing forests of Paradise Hole and the Heart Forest, first. And, if you’ve survived the crossing, then and only then will you finally arrive at the southern border of the North Island.

You’d arrive in Mirage City, first.

You’d come to Mirage City, first, and I frown. I’ve heard the rumors. Rumors of dead Alphas waking and walking, of the powerful Omegas known as the Fates and whispers of an impending war between them and the Berserkers of the existing cities — but then I snort. Omegas? Against Lord Yaron? Preposterous.

Yet…

The rumors suggest that the Fated Omegas and their dead army are strong enough to kill not just Berserkers, but everyone. The only ones strong enough to fight them are the Fallen Omegas, their counterparts, and so far, only one has been discovered. The Fallen Earth Omega who has extraordinary powers over plants and dirt, over water, too if the rumors are to be believed. It is said that her magic is helping restore the diseased and rotting woods of Paradise Hole where only death lives and where nothing new grows. The Fallen Earth Omega called Echo lives in Dark City. I can’t imagine I’ll ever get a chance to meet her, or even see her in person, but I’d like to. Maybe, if the attacks on the outer villagers — Alpha farmers and other rural-residing Alpha residents of the Shadowlands — continue, she’ll have to come help us.

I shudder. It’s an alarming thought, but I suppose not one that concerns me much. I’m a Beta, too old to ascend as anything else — not that I’d want to — poor as the dirt the Fallen Earth Omega has so much dominion over and, as Audet likes to remind me as often as she can, not pretty enough to tempt any Alpha. I smile, not bothered by that in the least. I love my family. I love my friends. I love my station and I love the kitchens. I love my life.

Things are pretty good.

“Kiandah? Kiandah! Kiand — oh, there you are!” Having wandered into the gardens now, I turn to the open back door to see Justine’s frazzled expression. Her freckled white skin is drawn in a grimace, lines pronounced around her eyes. “I can’t find anybody. Your mama and papa and Owenna and Zelie are all missing and we’re ready to take dinner up to the keep. Audet says if no one shows up in the next two minutes, she’s going to do it herself.”

“Do not let that woman leave alone with Lord Yaron’s meal! She will get us all fired if she tries to seduce him!” I’m already running around to the side of the low building as I shout over my shoulder. “Let me check the basement!”

“Hurry!”

I skid to a stop in front of the open cellar door. Sounds echo from below, Mama’s voice and Papa’s, too. I take the stairs down. They’re damp under my heels and I nearly slip as I get to the bottom and come face-to-face with a female I’m sure I’ve never seen before and who I know for a fact does not belong in this building.

“Who-who are you? You’re not from here.”

She snorts gruffly and one side of her mouth lifts. She’s a white woman with a mop of blonde hair shooting up in all directions. Her cheeks are so wind-chapped they look like they hurt. Instinct has me reaching for aloe to give to her, but the aloe plant is upstairs in the kitchens and none of that matters anyways because slung across the strips of her black patchwork clothing, she carries the biggest — the only — gun I’ve ever seen in my life.

The length of my whole arm, maybe longer, it’s all shiny and chrome. She drums her fingers across it and lifts an eyebrow condescendingly, her smile looking more threatening than it did a moment ago. I reach for the railing to the stairs, but I’m nowhere near it and fall into a stack of pots. They clang, the stack teeters, then it topples. I mentally curse and reach for the pots, but Mama’s voice fills my ears.

“Kiandah! What are you doing down here?” My mama’s dark brown eyes are filled with panic. She dusts off her apron and comes towards me and I get the sense that she’s trying to block the sight of the room behind her.

I gasp, “What…”

“No questions now, little Kandia,” she says, using my family’s pet name for me. It’s the word forokrain the language of our ancestors. Her voice is gentle, but her hand is harsh around my upper arm as she drags me away from the pots and away from the blonde woman and back up the stairs.

When I reach the soft soil of the gardens, slipping once more for good measure as I ascend that last stair in my soft leather slippers, my mama calls out to our ancestors in a curse. She never curses. “Who left the cellar door open? It must have been your father…”

“Papa’s down there?” I hadn’t seen him. I hadn’t seen anything past…

…the bodies.

White people, a middle-aged man and a young woman, maybe others, because there had been another couple tables shielded by my mother’s body. They were still wearing clothes though their faces were sunken in, cheeks hollow, eyes black. The young woman’s eyes…they’d been open and grey, clouded and lifeless. I’d stared into them, and lifelessly, they’d stared right back.

“Kandia, you’ll forget everything you saw down there, okay? That stuff’s just for us grownups, me and your father, Owenna and Zelie.”

I frown. “I’m thirty-four years old,” I say dumbly. “I’m of age in every possible way. So is Cyprus. Even Audet is twenty-six.”

My mother stutters, her mouth opening and closing several times until she finally settles on, “Just…be off with you! We’ll be up in a moment.” She hesitates, then turns back to me and brushes her hand over the kerchief tying down her wild curls — curls that I share. My Afro is my best feature and I’m proud of it. I get compliments every day I wear it loose, though when I’m in the kitchens, I keep it braided or twisted, which means I keep it back most days. “I love you, Kia.”

I smile, but it feels shaky. I glance down at the open cellar door and I don’t like the way my mama flinches towards it. “Love you, too, Mama. Whatever you’re doing down there…um…be careful.”

“Don’t you worry about that.”

But I do worry. I don’t move.

She doesn’t either. Her strong brown hands fist her apron. Covered in scars and scrapes from a lifetime of working hard for every penny. I have always admired her hands. Like my father’s, they aren’t the hands of someone who was given anything for free. As a result, my hands aren’t quite so scarred.

“I trust you, Mama,” I tell her, looking meaningfully into her eyes.

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