10- A Bitter Reunion

The safe house feels empty without Oscar, but Aster had no choice but to bring Luca here. Gentleman territory was little more than a pile of ash and rubble and most of Frey was crawling with Enforcers.

The outskirts of the city seemed to have been forgotten, though. Aster and Luca hadn’t encountered a single person in the eerily silent streets the night before.

They had been lucky so far. How long did they have before that luck ran out?

Aster takes a trembling breath, trying in vain to push the anxiety aside. She knows she should be relieved. Oscar’s diversion had saved her life, after all. In the moments before his capture he had been able to convince the Enforcers that Luca had escaped to a different sector of the city and that Aster had never been near The Keep in the first place. Oscar. Grief crashes down upon Aster’s chest, but she forces herself to blink back the tears as Luca stirs.

“Hey,” she mumbles, turning to face Luca. He flinches at the noise. “It’s just me.” Aster rests a hand on his shoulder and the taller boy gives her a mute nod. A tense silence grows between them, and Aster finds herself wringing her hands together. “I’ll get us some breakfast...er, lunch,” she mumbles, forcing a small smile. Luca doesn’t respond.

***

Aster pushes aside a decaying curtain to enter the back room, squinting to see the shelves in the dim light emitted by a crack in the ceiling. The electricity to this sector of the city had been cut a long time ago.

She takes a flashlight from the bottom of her pack and pans the beam across the dusty shelves. They are completely empty. Startled, she takes a step closer. When Oscar had brought her here he claimed there was plenty of food. Had the store room been raided while she was gone?

Absently she runs a finger along one of the shelves, frustrated. When she and Luca had reached the safe house in the early hours of the morning they had collapsed on the floor, unable to go a step further. She hadn’t even checked the perimeter- whoever stole the food could still be nearby. A bolt of fear ripples up her spine, and she turns to race back to Luca.

As she turns, though, Aster’s fingertip snags on the corner of a shelf. Blood blooms from the cut and she curses under her breath. This was all too much. Exhausted and angry Aster aims a halfhearted kick at the wall next to her.

Thunk.

The wall shudders before swinging back towards her. With a yelp she jumps to the side, cautiously approaching the doorway. There is a small pantry tucked behind the hidden door. It’s only a few feet deep, but the shelves are lined with more supplies than Aster has ever seen outside of Gentlemen Territory.

Immediately anger flares in Aster’s chest. How could Oscar have kept these supplies a secret? As she takes a step forward, however, a cloud of dust rises around her. There are no footprints aside from hers in the pantry, and a thick film of dust coats everything inside. Oscar had never set foot in this space… which meant the food he had given her had come from the now-empty shelves. Raiders were as common as rats in Frey, but Aster still finds it disturbing that someone had been in the shop. The crumbling building no longer feels like a sanctuary, but she supposes this is for the better. Those who are comfortable make easy targets.

Aster inspects the pantry. Canned meat and vegetables line the shelves, and in the corner…

Her breath catches in her throat as she bends down to inspect the bottom shelves. A blue pill bottle sits amid cans of tuna, a peeling label describing the painkillers inside.

“Luca, you’ll never guess what I found.” Aster bounds into the main room, kneeling by her friend. Slowly she helps him lean against a wall before running back to the pantry for an ancient bottle of water. “Here, take these.”

Aster tucks the blue pills into Luca’s palm but as she steps away his fingers begin to tremble violently, sending the pills skittering across the dusty floor. Silently Aster retrieves them, wiping away the dust on the edge of her shirt. Once again she goes to hand the pills to him, but this time he snatches his hand away.

“No,” he whispers, voice raspy.

“It’s alright, Luca. If you need I can feed them to you,” Aster says, only half joking. She kneels by the taller boy’s side. “C’mon, after this we need to find The Gentlemen. If we can convince Fallon, er, your dad to help us we’ll be one step closer to rising against Myriad. Just have some water and take these-”

“I don’t want your drugs,” Luca snaps, slapping Aster’s arm with enough force to send the pills spiraling towards the far corners of the room. She takes a startled step backwards, raising her hands in surprise. Luca flinches.

“Oh god, Luca, I’m so sorry,” Aster blurts, dropping to her knees. She throws her arms around him and his body goes rigid for a moment before he reluctantly returns her embrace. “You know I would never… I would never hurt…”

“I know, Ace,” Luca manages, his voice sounding fragile.

“I shouldn’t have brought up your dad. I know you two…” Aster trails off.

“Don’t have the perfect father-son relationship?” Luca finishes with a bitter chuckle.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I should be the one apologizing. You’re right, you know. Without The Gentlemen- without Fallon- we don’t stand a chance. I never should have lashed out at you. I’m just- I’m scared, Ace.”

“I know. I am too,” Aster mumbles, fishing two more pills out of the bottle. Luca takes them without comment.

The duo finish their lunch in exhausted silence.

Thwack

Something strikes the outside of the building. Aster tenses, meeting Luca’s wide eyes. Silently she edges towards her pistol, discarded on the dusty floor. She can hear faint voices outside the window.

“Let’s check this one,” a deep voice murmurs.

“I just raided there yesterday,” a girl whines.

“You sure?”

“Mmm-hmm!” The girl chirps. Aster stills. The voice sounds oddly familiar. Suddenly a loose board covering the window swings open revealing… no one.

If Aster squints, however, she can barely make out a small shadow as it spills across the floor of the shop. A Spector. Hesitantly Aster wraps her fingers around the gun at her side, raising it until the barrel points directly to the invisible form standing before the window. Aster tenses and…

“Wait,” Luca screams, heaving himself awkwardly to his feet as he starts towards the window. Hesitantly Aster lowers the gun. “Charlie?” Luca whispers.

The air shimmers and suddenly Aster can make out a small girl in a very battered pink dress.

“Luca?” she squeaks, eyes wide. Her brother says nothing but crosses the room in two strides, lifting the smaller girl off her feet in a crushing embrace. She lets out a quiet sob, but recovers quickly. “Warrior princesses do not need hugs, pheasant,” she says haughtily. With a chuckle Luca gently sets her down.

“Don’t you mean peasant? A pheasant is a kind of bird, Charlie.”

“You dare contradict me, pheasant?” Charlie grins, rising on her tiptoes with all the intimidation an eight year old can possibly muster. Luca just smiles and ruffles her hair.

A shadow falls over the window as a burly man awkwardly stumbles into the room. He has dark skin and a pair of spectacles that fit oddly over his crooked nose. Aster vaguely recognises him as one of her advisors from when she was still leading the gentlemen. Had that only been a few days ago?

“Theodorus, why are you here?” Aster says, helping the older man through the window.

“You may call me Theo. As for my business here The Baron has tasked me with keeping an eye on Miss Charlotte here,” he explains, his soft voice a blatant contradiction with the cords of muscle and scars covering his body. Theo hesitates for a moment before continuing. “I’m sorry that Fallon took your title, miss,” he says awkwardly. “You were a fine Baron.”

“It’s alright. There are more important things than titles,” Aster says, and for the first time, looking at those gathered around her, she believes these words.

As if noticing Aster for the first time Charlie saunters away from her brother. She approaches Aster, punches her in the stomach, and walks away.

“What was that for?” Aster gasps, protectively wrapping her arms around her stomach.

“You didn’t take me to save Luca. How am I ever gonna be a warrior princess without training?” Charlie asks, pouting.

“Well… your punch form is pretty good,” Aster groans, collapsing to her knees dramatically. Charlie giggles, but the noise fades as she scans the room.

“Wait. Lukey, where’s Oscar?” Luca wraps his arms around himself, staring intently at the floor. Charlie hesitates, her voice dropping to scarcely a whisper. “Is he…”

“No. He’s alive, Charlie. Myriad has him,” Luca chokes out. Relief washes over Charlie’s face and in an instant her grin returns.

“And we’re gonna get him back, right?”

“Yeah. Of course,” Luca says, trying to project confidence into his voice.

Leaving the siblings to their discussion, Aster approaches Theo.

“Did all of The Gentlemen escape?” she whispers.

“Only two didn’t make it. Many more would have died if you hadn’t taken on Tracker and his enforcers,” Theo responds, an odd reverence in his voice. “On our way to the outskirts of the city Charlie found us.”

“Good. I was worried about her getting to safety after I left her to run to the fire,” Aster says with a sigh. “I never should have left her.”

“In leaving her you likely saved her life. Do not dwell on the past, child,” Theo murmurs, resting a hand on Aster’s shoulder. “You are a hero.”

Aster can only shake her head, Oscar’s determined face flashing behind her eyelids. A true hero would have kept him safe.

***

The Gentlemen’s new camp is pitiful, to say the least. Theo leads Aster and Luca to the basement of an abandoned office building where there are no windows to betray signs of life. Fifty people lurk in the shadows, dark save for a handful of pitifully flickering floodlights. Generators hum loudly in the cramped space, and Aster can’t help but feel as if she is in the stomach of some great beast.

She helps Theo distribute cans from the shop’s hidden pantry, but the few cans they were able to carry back are gone in moments, leaving far too many outstretched hands empty. Grief rises in Aster’s throat.

Luca tenses beside Aster and she knows he has caught sight of his father.

“Fallon,” she mutters, turning to face the man towering over her.

“Aster. You should not have come back. Not at a time like this.”

“Actually, there couldn’t have been a better time for us to return,” Luca muses, turning towards his father slowly. Fallon freezes.

“L-Luke? But I thought…” Tears glisten in Fallon’s eyes as he moves to wrap his son in a hug. Luca tenses further, leaving his arms at his sides. Awkwardly Fallon steps back.

“Nothing has changed between us, father,” Luca says calmly, though Aster can feel the suppressed emotion in his voice. “We need your help. If you cannot listen to Aster maybe you can listen to your own son. Aster helped me escape, but the Enforcers captured Oscar.

Fallon’s nose wrinkles at the mention of Oscar’s name.

“You have come all this way for some boy?” he seethes, venom lacing his words. Luca bristles but forces himself to remain calm. “Father, you know Oscar is important to me… but we are here for more than that.” He pauses for a moment, as if expecting Fallon to object again, but the older man says nothing. “The Gentlemen must rise against Myriad,” Luca insists.

“You know we can’t do that. Most of The Gentlemen are injured. We’re barely clinging to life as it is,” Fallon pleas, looking with concern at those around him.

Rage flares in Aster’s stomach and she finds that she can no longer bite her tongue. Though Luca attempts to stop her she takes a step towards Fallon.

“This is the day we decide.” Aster’s voice is louder than she intends it to be, and as it carries through the space several Gentlemen turn towards her. “We either fight now or condemn ourselves to a future of silence. Of fear. I am tired of being afraid,” Aster shouts, this time intentionally. Fifty pairs of eyes meet hers, and in a moment of decision she strides away from Fallon, stepping atop an ancient filing cabinet turned on its side to address the crowd.

A young man calls after her.

“What do you have to be afraid of? You’re immortal. A hero. We are not like you. We may have fought against Myriad once… but not anymore.” he shudders, the bags under his eyes looking more like bruises in the harsh floodlights.

It’s as if time slows around Aster as she takes a shallow breath and turns to face The Gentlemen. Without saying a word she fishes her father’s pocket knife from her belt and draws a line across her palm with its tip. Blood blooms in the cut at once and as it begins to spiral its way across her palm Aster thrusts it before the crowd.

Ripples of shock race through those assembled and Aster feels panic spike in her chest, The Baron’s words echoing at the back of her mind.

Never let them know. You are weak. Powerless. Without my lies you are nothing.

Aster pushes the words away.

“I know you will not forgive me for how I have led you. For how I have lied to you… but you must understand that I do not fight because I am immortal.

I fight because I don’t want our children to grow up in a world where they are taught to hide from Enforcers before they are taught to walk.

I fight because good people- our people- are dying in cells, fuel for a power-hungry tyrant. I fight…” a tear rolls down Aster’s cheek. “I fight because I am so damn tired of being afraid.

I don’t want to live in fear anymore.

I know I cannot ask you to fight by my side. I have caused too much pain to ask for your trust. But I will ask for this: Stand against Myriad. Do not let him mistake our silence for compliance. And perhaps we will fail. Perhaps our corpses will litter the ground of his Keep… but our screams of defiance will live on. We cannot keep waiting for salvation. We are Frey’s salvation. We are Frey’s last chance… Frey’s only chance.”

Aster’s words echo into silence.

After a moment she steps off of the overturned filing cabinet, absently taking the bandage Luca offers for her palm. A part of her had hoped some grand speech would change these people’s minds.

She should have known better.

Tears map constellations across her cheeks and as she turns to Fallon his mouth is set in a grim line.

Aster passes him slowly as she moves towards the door, determined to keep her head high despite the walk of shame before her. As she passes he murmurs something into her ear.

She squeezes her eyes shut, willing the tears away. She takes another step before his words sink in.

“I will fight with you.”

“What?” She pivots back towards him, but Fallon has already taken her place atop the filing cabinet.

“This girl has no power and yet continues to cheat death. Forget immortal… she is barely mortal. Trapped somewhere between our human fragility and something greater. And yet, she is willing to die. Not for herself, but for us. Not in spite of her fear but because of it. Because she does not want us to live in fear any longer. Will we, The Gentlemen of Frey, stand beside her?”

Fallon turns towards Aster and raises a single hand to his chest. He removes the pin from his breast and gently presses it into her hand. With trembling fingers Aster takes her father’s medal. She holds it to her chest for a moment before slowly extending it over her head.

“Who will stand beside her?” Fallon booms.

One at a time fifty arms join Aster’s in the air- a warrior’s oath.