Jodi Meadows: Phoenix Overture

Humiliate myself, or help a potential new friend find a way to defend the Community against trolls?

“Yeah,” I said. “We’ll go right now. It’s in the old city.”

“And your brother?”

I wished I’d never brought up Fayden. Older, stronger, more useful . “I think he’s already there, in the old city. I don’t know if we’ll see him. Anyway, I know where the glass is. You should be able to figure out whether it will work by looking at it, right?”

Stef nodded.

“Good. Then let’s go.” I waved him down the path, away from the Community.

The sun beat through the thinning canopy, making sweat drip down my face and neck. Insects buzzed and birds called; the woods grew noisy with thirsty wildlife as we walked. Just before we broke through the woods, Stef stopped and faced me, his expression twisted with amusement.

“It finally occurred to me,” he said. “You didn’t tell me your name.”

“You didn’t ask.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I’m asking now.”

“My name is Dossam.”

“Sam.”

“No, it’s Dossam.”

Stef shook his head. “Well, I like Sam better.”

“ Well , it’s not your name.”

“I’m the one who has to say it.”

“And I’m the one who has to answer to it.” I bumped his shoulder with mine, cringing as a burst of pain flared. But I smiled, too, because he was smiling.

“I think we’re going to be great friends, Sam.”

In spite of the way my day had started—and the wreck of the last couple of weeks—I believed him.

MOUNTAINS REACHED IN the distance, cradling the sky in their curves and crests. The volcano spewed smoke into the air, but everyone said it would be ages before it erupted again. Maybe so. Still, the smoke and ash that poured from the crater every day was certainly ominous.

Stef and I trudged into the old city, its ruins heaps of twisted metal and burned rubble. Since the Cataclysm and the volcano eruption a generation past, only shreds of the city were left, but still, every day, people like Fayden went to scavenge for anything that might be useful.

It was well after noon by the time we took to one of the cleared roads, and I began leading him down the familiar path to the concert hall.

“What do you think happened here?” The cracked pavement crunched under Stef’s boots.

Great walls of rubble rose on either side, no doubt carefully sifted through during some early scavenger’s quest for valuable, useful items. Now there were only unidentifiable pieces of plastic, wires, and palm-sized bits of metal with glass screens—though most of the unbroken bits of glass and metal had been torn off and repurposed.

“What do I think happened where?” I couldn’t see the domed peaks of the concert hall yet, not with the crumbling steel towers and collapsed bridges in the way.

“Here.” He gestured around the falling city. “During the Cataclysm.”

I shrugged. “I think the same thing everyone thinks: earthquakes, floods, volcanic eruptions. It’s not a stretch. Just look around. Buildings shook apart. There’s a seam of volcanic rock running through the lower areas of the city.”

“Right, but what made the Cataclysm?”

“I don’t know. Trolls?” A troll had certainly ended my world.

“And how did humans build all of this if they had to compete with so many large predators?”

“Are you saying there weren’t trolls before the Cataclysm?” Didn’t he ever stop thinking and questioning things? As far as I could tell, our lives were short, brutal, and would never have enough music. Knowing the past wouldn’t change our present, and our time would be better spent surviving our reality.

Stef shrugged. “If there were, humans had a much better way of dealing with them than we do.”

“They had electricity.” Fayden’s voice behind us stopped us both, and I cursed the chatter that had distracted me from hearing his approach. “Dossam, aren’t you supposed to be somewhere?”

I turned to face my brother. “I’m not going.”

“Ah.” My brother glanced toward the Community, hidden beyond the heavy veil of trees. Streaks of dirt ran across his face and throat, staining the collar of his shirt brownish gray. He carried a knife in his belt, and a sling; sometimes, wild animals and worse ventured into the old city. “What brings you here,” he asked, “besides pointless questions about the old world?”

I crossed my arms and did my best to avoid looking in the direction of the concert hall, toward the center of the city. “Our own business.”

Stef glanced between us for only a heartbeat. “Sam is going to help me find something.”

“Sam?” Fayden swiped at a trickle of sweat coursing down his temple. “Who’s Sam?”

“Dossam. He wants to be called Sam.”

“I do not—”

Stef waved away my protest. “Here’s the short version: I almost crushed Sam to death with my troll trap, and then he offered to lead me to some colored glass to help draw trolls toward it.”

Fayden’s jaw went slack and he turned on me. “You know where there’s colored glass?”

I heaved a sigh and glared at the cloudless sky. “Can you just leave us alone?”

“Not until you tell me why you’re not in the Center right now volunteering for Janan’s quest.”

“Why would I want to go on Janan’s quest?”

“Because he’s our leader? Because he trained hundreds of warriors to protect the Community? Because he made this valley safe enough to grow crops and families?”

I let sarcasm flood my snarl. “Great job he’s done, too.” The valley wasn’t that safe. Mother and a dozen others were proof of that.

“Janan can’t help the drought, or hunger and plague that come after that. It’s not his fault.”

No, it wasn’t. But still. “How many quests has he been on now, with promises that everything would change when he returned? Four? Five? Whatever he’s looking for, it doesn’t exist.”

Fayden threw his hands into the air. “You’re insufferable. Is this what you do all day? Complain about Janan and come up with ways to shirk your duties?”

“So I’m guessing you must be the brother.” Stef put on that smirk I was coming to know, and he studied us. “You don’t look alike.”

No, we didn’t. Fayden looked like someone who worked with his hands, trekked through the forest, and braved the most dangerous areas of the old city. I was considerably softer, with untamable curls on top of my head, rather than my brother’s—and my father’s—cropped haircuts. The only thing Fayden and I had in common was our brown complexion, inherited from Mother.

Stef let out a long breath. “Maybe we should go, Sam.”

I didn’t break my glare from Fayden.

“So where’s this glass?” Fayden asked after a moment of uncomfortable silence. He’d kept my gaze. Neither of us could look away.

“We’re not selling it.”

Fayden cocked an eyebrow. “If you knew about that kind of glass, you could sell it and move away from Father.”

“It’s for my trap,” Stef reminded him. “We’re catching—and killing—trolls.”

My brother grew quiet, his features softer. He broke our stare to look at Stef. “Will it work? The trap?”

“Maybe if I get the glass.” Stef motioned down the road. “Can we go?”

Fayden faced me again, his expression a mask of curiosity. “You don’t want the glass for yourself?”

Why couldn’t he understand that I thought stopping trolls from hurting more families was more important than my personal wealth?

Because Fayden was like Father: hard, practical, and he didn’t let sentimentality get in his way.