#sunrisingexcerpt

Chapter One

Sole Eigher

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The night Sole’s world changed started with the sharp point of a knife digging into her back.

She had been standing in her backyard when the attack happened, staring absentmindedly at the small, half-wild garden neither she nor her father could ever manage to tame. The night air was cool, heavy with the scent of damp soil from the earlier rain, and her thoughts had long since drifted off to meaningless things. There was nothing in particular that floated through her head, just fleeting reflections of the day.

That was why, by the time she realized a faint golden shimmer had appeared in the corner of her vision, she was already too late.

Before she could even draw a breath, she was forced face-first into the grass. Cold dew soaked into her sleep shirt and chilled the skin of her face. A weight pinned her legs to the ground, sending a spike of pain down her body. Then she felt it. The unmistakable threat of a sharp blade against her spine.

“Don’t scream.”

Instinct gripped her immediately.

“Hrmngh-!”

A rough hand slammed against the back of her head, grinding her face deeper into the ground. In her panic, she inhaled a chunk of dirt.

“I-I said don’t scream!”

The voice was deep and raw, scraped thin like it had gone unused for a very long time. Sole did not need to guess. She knew who it was.

Earlier that evening, when the sun still blessed the sky with golden light, a warning circulated throughout Aohrea. The paper had been nailed to doors, pressed into hands, murmured about in hushed tones among the people she had passed in the streets. When she arrived home, she pulled down her own warning from the door. At the top in thick red lettering read ON THE RUN.

Beneath it was a photo of a man around her age. Stringy auburn hair framing a gaunt, haunted face. His eyes were dull brown; his skin scattered with freckles like splotches of dirt. A deep frown carved his mouth downward. Nothing like a normal, put-together Aohrean.

And beneath the image, a name.

Lyx.

It was plain, like she had always been warned. Curses looked normal, blending in with the crowd. They could be anyone, could come from anywhere. She should have known better than to be outside at night while he was still on the loose.

Chapter Four

Lyx

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A long time ago, Lyx had been introduced to color—though only in the most limited sense of the word.

Those who had taught him the basics of language had never considered teaching him about the shades of nature or fear. Growing up, the colors he had known were given no names, only associations: the pale and dark variations of the scientists’ hair, the many tones of their skin, and the cruel glint of their eyes. The walls that surrounded him were a flat, lifeless shade that seemed designed to bore, matched only by the colorless clothing the children were forced to wear.

For a long while, the only true color Lyx had known was his own, when his hair grew out long enough to fall into his eyes, the red toned strands catching in the dim lighting.

Then a new child was placed in the room next to his.

At first, they communicated through a gap in the bricks, exchanging whispers stolen when there was no one nearby. They spoke cautiously, in fragments, knowing that they would be punished if anyone found out. When the scientists finally discovered them and sealed the gap, the boy on the other side of the wall found another way.

This is why I’m here.

His voice was clearer than any Lyx had ever heard, clearer than even the sound of his own voice in his head, and it echoed not through the air, but directly in Lyx’s mind.

The boy had grown up outside of the Lab. He had known sky and streets and seasons before his power emerged and he was condemned to the four walls that surrounded them. And he took it upon himself to teach Lyx everything he could remember about the world beyond the walls. He described markets and crowds, water that fell from the sky, and the feeling of sun on one’s face.

Most importantly, he taught Lyx about Heidyn.

“That’s where they told my parents they were taking me,” the boy had said, his thoughts heavy and bitter, “Heidyn. But they lied. I’ve read their minds. They don’t plan on letting us leave at all. This is where we’re going to die.”

He had been right about one thing.

Chapter Three

Sole Eigher

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Sole had no idea what she needed to pack to flee from her home.

She didn’t blame Aurty for his knee jerk reaction. She just wished that he had done something different. Maybe she had been wrong, maybe they could have convinced him that they were innocent.

But Sole had heard the stories, read the history books. There was no compassion for those who helped Maldym, no matter the circumstances. It was a crime of the highest degree.

And the next best thing was… what? Fleeing to Heidyn? The place that every Aohrean feared—despised? Run from the pitchforks and into the wolves? It was terrible idea. They had no other choice.  

She kept packing.

When she had shoved enough clothes into a bag, she went back to the kitchen. Aurty was still in his room, so it was just Lyx and the Guard. The Maldym was standing over the collapsed man, watching him with careful eyes. As Sole walked into the room, he jumped.

“Sorry,” he said, eyes darting to her and back to the Guard, “We need to leave. Where’s Aurty?”

“He’s almost done,” she told him, though she had no idea if that was true or not, “I wanted to pack more food.”

Since it’s not just you on the run anymore.

Lyx nodded quietly and Sole skirted around the Guard in the center of the room, digging through cabinets to find whatever she could. She hadn’t given Lyx any of their cured meat so she wrapped all they had in parchment. Their parents wouldn’t mind.

Sole’s body stiffened.

Oh gods, their parents.

The Guard would eventually wake up and contact the others. Wherever their parents were, they would no doubt be captured and interrogated. And if Lyx was being honest about what he had gone through, then there was no telling what happened to whoever the Council deemed to be “Maldym Sympathizers.”

At best, their parents would be carted off to Heidyn. At worst… Sole didn’t want to think about the growing list of horrible possibilities.

Chapter Two

Lyx

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Lyx’s life truly began twenty-one years after he was born, at the precise moment his bare feet pressed into living grass and his lungs filled with fresh air for the very first time.

It was unlike anything he had ever imagined before.

The outside world was too large, too loud, too alive. It rushed at him all at once, an overwhelming spiral of sensation that left him dizzy and unsteady on his feet. Each inhale he took carried a thousand unknown scents along with it. The richness of damp earth, the sweetness of flowers, the salt of the ocean.

Lyx stood at the edge of a thin tree-line, frozen, afraid that if he moved too quickly the world might disappear underneath him. He could have stayed there forever, soaking this new freedom in. 

But the Lab followed him, even here.

Screams still rang in his ears, shrill and merciless. When he closed his eyes, he saw shadows dancing across narrow corridors thick with dust and fear, heard boots pounding against metal floors. Distance meant nothing to a place like that.

He wasn’t sure if it would ever go away.

There was only one certainty left in him: he would never go back.