Dark Sun Rising Read online

  He must have felt her eyes on him, because he lifted his head. “What’s up, buttercup?”

  Mel gave a bark of laughter, and bumped his shoulder. The tension leaked out of her, and she felt her breathing come easier.

  “I hate hospitals,” Gabe said. “Especially this one.”

  “I know. But they loved it here.”

  Mel had few memories of her parents, who had passed away years ago, but the memories she did have were in this hospital: walking these halls, saying hello to the doctors and nurses, buying soda and candy in the cafeteria. Visiting patients in their beds. Watching faces bleak with pain change to relief and happiness. That’s what Mel remembered of her parents. That was the power they had.

  “More than us,” Gabe said.

  “Nothing more than us, Gabe.”

  That was one thing she knew for sure: her parents had loved her and her brothers the most. She knew in her heart that was the truth.

  “Mel, you can come in now!” called a nurse, pushing the button to open the automatic doors into the ward. “Bed three. You know where it is.”

  Mel and Gabe headed to bed three. But as they arrived, they found Isis Trevino waiting for them, looking put-upon in her white lab coat, her arms crossed. Mel just about turned and walked out, preferring to take her chances at an Urgent Care, but Gabe pushed her forward.

  “Hi, First Healer!” he said jovially.

  Isis was a gray-haired woman with green eyes that hid behind pink-tinted, wire-framed glasses. Her skin was pale, and sometimes had a slight yellow tinge. Mel had always wanted to ask her why that was, but assumed it was a private matter.

  “You should’ve called me ahead of time,” Isis said, pointing to the bed. “I would’ve sent someone to the house.”

  “That’s not necessary,” Mel said.

  “That was soooo necessary,” said Gabe.

  Mel shot Gabe a look, but he ignored her as he threw himself into a chair.

  “So what happened?” Isis asked.

  As Mel told Isis about the attack, the doctor poked around her neck wound—and, to Mel’s annoyance, her Kale pendant. Isis hemmed and hawed as she studied the sun pendant, then released it and placed her unnaturally warm hands on Mel’s wound.

  “This wound is deep. Any deeper and your spinal cord would’ve been severed.”

  “Really? How is she even walking around?” Gabe said.

  “I guess I was lucky,” Mel responded.

  Narrow green eyes met Mel’s. “Yes, you were. Very lucky.” Her tone was… odd.

  “Can you not tell my grandmother?” Mel asked. “I’d like to tell her myself.”

  Isis gave a tart nod, then began filling a syringe with anesthetic. Mel had to lie on her side, facing the wall and Gabe, as Isis stuck her with the needle. Mel felt the numbing, cool liquid push into her body almost immediately.

  “I didn’t mean to offend—” Mel began.

  Isis cut her off. “I’m not offended.” She began cleaning the wound. “And I won’t be attending this year’s Agora, so you don’t have to worry about me speaking to anyone about this.”

  “I wasn’t—wait. But we’re hosting,” Mel said, flabbergasted. “Won’t the other clans be offended that our First Healer won’t be present?”

  “Your grandmother has made arrangements with Clan Mayme. And besides, our finest nurse practitioner will be there, so it’s all taken care of.”

  Mel wished she could turn around and roll her eyes at Isis, but she was stuck looking at a grinning Gabe while the doctor stitched her neck. He gave Isis a thumbs-up.

  “They won’t even want me to touch them, let alone care for them,” Mel said.

  “Their loss,” said Gabe, then added with a wicked smile, “especially since you’ve got that healer’s touch.”

  “I hear that touch is what Cori O’Shea’s been after for ten years,” deadpanned the doctor.

  The two of them cracked up at Mel’s expense.

  Mel was too tired to fight. She just lay quietly and tried not to fall asleep, as she knew that once she did, it would be hard to get up again.

  “I don’t have Yulie’s Paste,” Isis said as she’s finished up. Yulie’s Paste was a homemade healing solvent that descendants used to stave off pain and infection. “But I’ll write you a prescription for antibiotics. It’ll do the job just as well. Painkillers will do the rest.”

  Mel couldn’t help but suspect the lack of Yulie’s Paste was just a bit of payback for Mel asking Isis not to tell her grandmother; the doctor was not above being petty. But she didn’t say a word.

  It was five a.m. by the time they’d picked up the prescription and returned to Mel’s. The sight of the bloodstain on the carpet made Mel feel a whole new level of exhaustion, and Victor being passed out on her couch didn’t brighten her mood. She fought an overwhelming urge to wake his ass up, but instead went to bed and fell asleep.

  ****

  The next morning, Mel felt like a disaster. What was worse, she looked like one too. Her nose, although not too swollen, had bruised to a nice purple.

  And she was pissed.

  A man had broken into her home, and she was furious about it. She thought back to his pale, harsh, angular features, his thick black hair that hung over his forehead, the tattoo of a black bird peeking out through his shirt sleeve. None of it was familiar. And then there was the knife with the intricate handle. It felt like a bad omen; it felt personal. And Mel wanted nothing more than to know who that man was and what he wanted.

  Still, she was pleased to note that at least the uneasy feeling she’d been harboring for the past few days had disappeared—if only because her anger and frustration left little room for anything else.

  They arrived at Grandma Mari’s house at nine fifteen. The morning sun felt warm on Mel’s arms and hands as she stood waiting by the truck. She gingerly felt the wound on her neck—it ached whenever she turned her head—and she knew she was going to have to take a painkiller soon. She’d already taken one when she woke up.

  Victor had run up to fetch their grandmother and uncle, while Gabe made room in the truck’s bed for what was sure to be a large amount of luggage—most of it from their grandmother. But Mel took advantage of her injury to stand and wait, appreciating the beauty of the day—one of the prettiest days they’d had all summer. She hoped the weather would stick.

  Victor and Tío Jorge emerged, laden with bags, followed by Grandma Mari with two bags of her own. “Brotha!” Victor called. “Help Grandma!”

  Gabe ran over to help, but Grandma Mari shooed him away. “Leave me alone,” she said.

  Gabe exchanged a look with Victor as if to say: What can you do?

  Grandma Mari took in Mel’s pale face and hollow eyes with a slight pursing of her lips. She raised an eyebrow before piling her luggage into the truck bed.

  “I was attacked,” Mel said tiredly.

  “I heard,” said Grandma Mari. She fussed a little looking over Mel’s wound, and offered to get some Yulie’s Paste from one of her bags, but Mel declined, saying they had to get on the road.

  The truck was more than roomy enough for the five of them. Mel sat in the back, sandwiched between her uncle and grandmother, her brothers in the front with Victor driving. After they’d exhausted themselves talking about the break-in, the conversation steered to what they were looking forward to this Agora.

  Victor was looking forward to the games. He’d been chosen to participate in both Decerto competitions: the hand-to-hand combat and the weapons combat. The other games he’d been chosen for were the Aenigma, a puzzle game; Libero, a weightlifting game; and Impedimentum, a race through an obstacle course. He hoped to win it all in Libero, but that would be a challenge, since Libero was dominated by Clan Ivor almost every year.

  Victor also made it very clear he was not participating in Ambulant Laboriosum, the Laborious Walk, which was more of a trial than anything. Very few descendants competed in Ambulant Laboriosum—usually just one for each clan.
r />   Gabe wasn’t participating in as many games as Victor—just the two Decerto competitions, Aenigma, and Impedimentum—and he made it equally clear that he would not participate in Ambulant Laboriosum.

  Mel was looking forward to seeing her cousins, Thrash and Charlotte, whom she hadn’t seen since the holidays, and her friend, Sapienti Hemanth Reddy of Clan Janso, who usually brought interesting artifacts and books from India that Mel found fascinating. Last year he had gifted her a small round stone, and she had brought it with her because she knew he would ask her if she still had it. In fact, Mel was excited to see all the people she hadn’t seen since last year. She was especially looking forward to the food, which earned a snort from Gabe, but it truly was something she enjoyed. She was only mildly interested in watching the games. She declared that she wouldn’t be caught dead wearing Kale black and gold once the competition started.

  And of course she would not be participating in Ambulant Laboriosum.

  Tío Jorge wondered aloud when the three headstrong adults he’d spent so much time training had turned into sugar, which prompted a high-pitched “Sugah!” from Victor and Gabe.

  Mel’s grandmother retold her Agora stories of when she was younger, much to the Mendez siblings’ delight, even though they’d heard them all before. There was the time she had defeated Janice Bartley of Clan Mayme in hand-to-hand Decerto: “Janice was twice my size with hands like shovels! Her feet like irons! But I took her down just the same. Oh my! She was furious for days, wouldn’t even look at me!” Then another about how she almost lost her leg participating in Ambulant Laboriosum: “I was bit by a damn snake! The bite grew infected. It hurt like hell, but I finished—I reached the end. Fifty miles! In Alaskan terrain!”

  It was noon when they finally arrived at the Agora site. This year’s Agora was hosted by Clan Kale just outside of Uvalde, Texas, on a stretch of land Mel and her brothers were greatly familiar with. It was owned by her family, and had been for generations. Normally it was available for any member of Mel’s family for vacations, but recently Tío Luce and Tía Alice had been living there full time, providing upkeep and overseeing the planning of the Agora. The building itself was massive, with two floors housing bedrooms, a gorgeous kitchen, and a grand patio. The outside was in a cream adobe style with light wood trim, and behind the house were hundreds of miles of wooded terrain.

  Mel loved the house, but nine times out of ten, if she was there, she was deep in that forest. She’d spent many summers at the property with her brothers, uncles, and cousins Charlotte and Thrash. Mel’s cousins were a couple of years younger, closer to Gabe in age than her and Victor, but that didn’t save them from the miles of hiking, camping, and survival games Tío Jorge designed for them.

  Mel saw that they weren’t the only early birds. There were already plenty of people walking from the designated parking area.

  “Hey Victor, follow that car—everyone is parking over there,” Mel said from the back seat.

  “Nah.”

  “What? Why?”

  “I’m not parking in the grass.”

  “You are aware that you’re driving a truck, right?” When Mel got no response, she added, “So what are you gonna do, just hold up traffic?”

  Victor looked in his rearview mirror at the line of cars behind them, then out the window toward the garage, which was blocked by a catering truck that was in the process of being unloaded.

  “Take your time now,” Gabe said with a smile. The car behind them went around the truck, then sped off in front of them. “No rush or anything.”

  Victor lowered his window and spoke to one of the many workers unloading the catering truck. “Excuse me! Excuse me, ma’am! When are you going to be done unloading that truck?”

  There was a collective groan from the back seat. It seemed no one was in the mood to wait for Victor to figure out where he wished to park.

  “Okay, I’m just going to get out right here,” Mel said. “Grandma, are you and Tío Jorge—” But the two were already stepping out of the truck. Mel followed, then leaned back in. “Don’t drive off till we get our bags.” She whipped the door shut. She could hear Victor’s outrage through the door.

  “Mel! Grandma! Tío Jorge!” someone shouted.

  It was Charlotte, coming from the back of the house. Her light-brown hair was tied back in a knot, framing bright brown eyes, a small nose, and full lips. She wore light makeup, as usual—only a small dust of blush on her cheeks—and looked great in a sleeveless, dark-gold wrap-around dress with metallic gold and black stitching along the seams. Simple black sandals completed the outfit.

  “Hey!” Mel said. “Wow, you look amazing!”

  “Thanks!” Charlotte hugged the three of them in turn. “God, it’s great to see you guys! Why are you stopped here? Isn’t Victor going to park?”

  “Victor is having a bit of a conundrum,” Grandma Mari said. “He’s not certain where to park.”

  “Oh!” Charlotte knocked on the passenger-side window. “Just follow those cars farther down,” she said when Victor rolled down the window. “Everyone’s parking in that field next to the family memorials. Oh, hi, Gabe!” she added, waving. Then back to Victor: “If anyone gives you any shit, tell them I sent you.”

  “All right, we’ll do that,” Gabe said with a smile. “Come on, brotha, let’s go.”

  “Wait!” said Mel. “Let us get our bags first.”

  She and her uncle hurriedly unloaded their luggage as well as Grandma Mari’s, and the truck pulled away.

  Charlotte led them around the house toward the back. “Oh my God, Mel! Dad’s got a nice spread set up for everyone. It’s nothing like last year.”

  Last year’s Agora was in Vermont, and the campground the Maymes had chosen had proven to be too small to handle the two thousand people who attended. Trying to take a shower was a hassle, using the bathrooms was downright disgusting, and the food… well, there just wasn’t enough to go around. People had to venture into the small towns nearby, and that brought attention that no one wanted to deal with.

  “There are twenty-five hundred people coming this year! Dad says it’s the biggest Agora since the Exhaustus!”

  Grandma Mari shook her head. “There were quite a few Agoras after the Exhaustus that gathered over five thousand descendants, so I would say that’s grossly inaccurate. And before the world was drained of celestial powers, Agoras would gather tens of thousands. The first, held in Ancient Greece in the heart of Janso territory, gathered almost thirty thousand.” Apparently sensing she was dampening Charlotte’s spirits, she added: “Still… this is definitely the largest Agora in hundreds of years.”

  At this last remark, Charlotte’s face lit up. “Oh yes, definitely! Will you be giving the commencement speech, Grandma?”

  “Yes,” Grandma Mari said with a smile. “I’ve been waiting seven years to be given this honor.”

  “Seven years to be given this honor again,” Tío Jorge added.

  They came around the house into the back yard. Acres of wide open green field had been transformed to house thousands of people. On the other side of the field stood a huge group of tents forming a half-circle in clusters of seven colors. The white of Clan Mayme, the red of Clan Moors, the blue of Clan Ivor, the orange of Clan Tam, the purple of Clan Janso, the green of Clan Ferus, and the gold of Clan Kale. Mel knew from experience there would be an eating area within the half-circle. In the middle of the field was the area where the games would be played, with bleachers set up beside it.

  Mel and her family got in the sign-in line. At the moment it was manageable—a reward for showing up early—but later on the wait might be a couple of hours. Another reason to be early was that the boarding was first come, first serve. Families that showed later might not be able to board together. Of course, depending on which families, that might not be a bad thing, Mel thought.

  While they waited, Mel admired the area near the house that had been set up for the Opening Ceremony. Banners with the clan s
ymbols adorned poles, tables, and chairs. Mel allowed her gaze to rest on each banner in turn.

  Clan Janso’s colors were purple and silver, and because Janso was believed to shift his body into an eagle, their banner featured a silver eagle on a purple field. Those who favored Clan Janso boasted that he was the most competent of all seven Originals—the leaders who originally created the clans—and undoubtedly led the other six with his keen mind. Mel found most members of Clan Janso to be intelligent and reserved, but some were a bit conceited. In the early days, Clans Kale and Janso were often at odds, and even enemies at times. The Sapientis of Clan Kale had succeeded in driving out these old attitudes centuries ago, but Clan Janso had been slower to let go of the bad blood. Fortunately, Hemanth Reddy, Sapienti of Clan Janso—and Mel’s friend—didn’t tolerate those old attitudes. Things had been more settled between the two clans since his ascension.

  Descendants of Dusma Mayme wore white and tan, and their banners featured a tawny owl against a white field. Mel felt a sense of kinship with Clan Mayme, and had often wondered how many of her ancestors were Maymes. Probably several. The Maymes were notorious for not competing in any games but one: Aenigma, a puzzle game that they were quite successful in every year. If they didn’t win Aenigma, they called the whole Agora a failure.

  Clan Moors wore red and gold, and their banner featured a gold lion on a red field. They were proud fighters—and very poor losers. When they lost, there were always a few upended tables or thrown tankards, chairs… whatever a disappointed Clan Moors descendant could get their hands on. Mel didn’t much care for their Sapienti, Rudolph Kelser. He had a very subtle way of showing his disdain for her refusal to compete, and Mel was sure he believed she had no honor.

  The orange banner with a tiger represented Clan Tam. Those in Clan Tam were well trained in swordsmanship, and had the most winners from weapons Decerto. The Tams never got too angry or too excited, and they behaved the same regardless of whether they won or lost. Mel thought that out of all the clans, the Tams were the most relaxed. In fact, their Sapienti, Zhu Li, usually played the role as peacekeeper among the Council of Clan Elders.