Angela Knight - Unbound

Where was David anyway?

Craning her neck around, she spotted him, standing with his arms crossed in a green tent serving as security central. He made measured assessments of his soldiers, who winged out along the edges of the amphitheater. Never before had there been such an ominous presence of them during the Rites.

She was sitting just seven rows below David, so when his jaw clenched and his brow furrowed, she couldn’t help but feel that maybe he’d sensed her eyes on him. And that he was deliberately avoiding her.

The Rites began with chimes, the symbolic call to worship. The sound of low, serious bells reverberated off the great trees shielding the amphitheater and then shot into the open, starry sky directly above. The congregation hushed.

Atop the center steps appeared three Ofarians robed in black. They descended to the stage in rhythmic motion and took their places behind three bronze urns filled with water. The first Ofarian, an elderly woman, swept the water into the air and heated it into a swirling, stationary mass of steam. The second, a middle-aged man, used his voice to lift the water from his urn and churn it in a midair cyclone. The final Ofarian, another older woman, sent her water surging into the air, only to freeze it with a crackle.

A children’s chorus shuffled into a balcony on the amphitheater’s left side. Griffin ascended to the stage and took his place in front of the ancient, enormous redwood tree around which the stage had been built. He looked like a leader.

The high, sweet voices of the children began to sing a song their ancestors had brought from the old world. It celebrated the beauty of the stars and the glory and goodness of the Ofarian people. They’d sung this song by rote for well over a century, and it had become nearly meaningless across the generations. But now the audience shifted uncomfortably under the words, as though hearing them for the first time and finding them as hypocritical as Kelsey did.

She understood why Griffin had kept this location for the Ice Rites this year. Too much upheaval at once might have backfired; he was letting his people use this place as an anchor. Everyone held memories of this forest and amphitheater. Every time Kelsey came here she flashed back to her first Rites at age six, remembering her awe at what the Fragment could do.

She remembered seeing David, too. As soon as he’d been old enough, his parents—also soldiers—had positioned him along the perimeter, teaching him how to observe.

Even Wes and Emily Pritchart had formed memories here. Kelsey had read Wes’s disturbing, rambling letter. In it, he mentioned this place, the redwood in particular. How he’d hid inside the open, rotted part of the trunk—as most Ofarian kids learned to do at a certain age—and Emily had tattled on him.

Strange that even though the letter had been addressed to Emily, the whole thing had been twenty pages of nasty preaching and vindictive speech aimed at no one in particular. Except for that short paragraph when he specifically mentioned her, and berated her for the redwood tree incident.

Delivery successful.

She’s been communicating this way with Wes for a while, David had said.

If the two Pritchart siblings had been crafty enough to pass each other messages through the trash, maybe that letter was more than a manifesto. Maybe it meant something even more horrible than an assassination warning.

More chimes resonated through the amphitheater and everyone rose to their feet, singing yet another hymn whose significance had shifted. At the top of the center steps, Gwen appeared in a long black robe, bearing the Fragment of Ofaria in her hands. All eyes turned to her. All eyes, except for Kelsey’s.

Hers found David.

As Gwen began her slow procession down the steps, Kelsey nudged her way past her parents, ignoring their questions, and into the far aisle. She took the steps by twos to the top, and ran around the back of the amphitheater.

She shoved aside the flap to the green tent. David swiveled around, hand on his weapon, eyes fierce.

“Kelse—”

“No time,” she whispered urgently. “I think the Pritcharts might have hid something in the redwood.”

David much preferred Kelsey’s anger over her panic. He’d never known her capable of fear, but now terror streaked across her face.

“Sam,” David said to the other man in the security tent. “Take command.”

“Yes, sir.”

David grabbed Kelsey’s arm and steered her out of the tent and into the cold, black forest. In the residual light glowing from the amphitheater, her face looked ghostly pale. She began to babble about the communications between Wes and Emily, and the cryptic mention of the tree and the Rites in the letter. David gripped her arms, feeling her shake under the thick of her coat.

“We thought of that, too,” he said when she took a breath. “We already checked the tree. It was empty—no hiding kids, no foreign objects.”

“Check it again.” Her voice rose. “I just have a feeling.”

And as she said it, David did, too. It burned on the back of his neck.

“Wait here.” He spun, boots churning in the dead leaves, and sprinted around the amphitheater. The land sloped sharply downward, reminding him of the last time he’d chased after Wes Pritchart’s mess. Only the wide, black shapes of the great trees, creating holes in the night, told him where not to run.

The children’s chorus crescendoed into a familiar tune, meaning Gwen had reached the stage and now faced the audience. She would be lifting the Fragment above the people’s heads, praying in Ofarian. She would be setting the Fragment on the pedestal before she called down the starlight.

The feeling of dread built up inside David with every pounding step.

His toe struck a tree root. He went flying. No time to get his hands out. Not enough light to know what lay below. He hit the ground. Hard. A tree trunk abraded his cheek. The wound on his chest, mostly healed but not entirely, screamed with a new pain, and he knew he’d ripped something open.

Then small hands were on him, pulling him up and rolling him over. Patting him down.

“Jesus, Kelse,” he panted. “I told you to wait up there!”

She blinked rapidly, as though just realizing she’d chased after him, and replied in a shaky voice, “You might need me.”

“That’s what I have soldiers for.”

She didn’t move. Their quick, hard breaths came out white, mingling in the cold air. She touched his head, her fingers coming away red. No time for being doctored. He shoved to his feet, ignoring the wave of unsteadiness passing through him.

They’d found the bottom of the embankment, where the great, serrated trunk of the redwood thrust out of the ground, and the back of the stage jutted up against it. David reached into his vest and pulled out a small flashlight. Flicking it on, the beam of light struck the bottom of the redwood, where time had eaten away a hole big enough to fit at least a couple of kids.

He fell to his knees, stuck his head into the hollow. He sensed Kelsey next to him, crouching low, peering up. “See? Nothing.”

“There,” she said, pointing.

He followed her finger with the flashlight. The far side of the trunk that abutted the amphitheater structure had been chipped away. He saw it now: a fresh line running perpendicular to the ground, small enough to have been missed during a cursory check. He crawled inside and pressed against the chipped seam. A sizable chunk of the trunk fell away.

Access underneath the stage.

Holy fucking shit.

Pressing his ear radio, he murmured, “Capshaw under the stage. Possible security compromise. Prep but stand down until my word. Over.”