Breaking Magic (The Legacy of Androva Book 5) Read online

  As if it weren’t enough that we asked for our own deaths. Worse, we had to ask nicely. How hideous was that?

  No, Garrett replied, no one had ever escaped. Yes, people had died trying, and so had their units. No, we didn’t know what happened to the life essences. No Exta had ever seen the Time of Assignment.

  Presumably the Opta took them. Swallowed them? Inhaled them? There was no way to make that image less disgusting.

  There were no Opta Breeders, and the childstations were for Exta only. Our knowledge of life on Imbera did not extend beyond our short lifespans, but the Opta appeared to stay the same. We changed with every year we were alive. Yet they never did. It seemed slightly creepy.

  Eventually I stopped asking questions. And every day it was the same pointless routine. Eating, working, sleeping, dreaming. Especially dreaming. Of all the things I did for no purpose, that was surely the worst.

  Good dreams just made the crash back to reality more awful. Bad dreams stayed with me like a crawling hand on the back of my neck.

  And always the Gatherings, a never-ending cycle of degradation and death for the Exta. Waiting in my future. In Garrett’s future.

  I began to think that an early binding might be easier. I could break a couple of rules, get myself punished, and it would be over within a week.

  I kept going because of Garrett. I owed him that. He’d seen what was waiting for him years ago. He’d requested the death of his older brother the day before he met me.

  I was so mixed up. I was jealous of the dead brother that came first. I was furious that Garrett was going to leave me. I hated that I cared about him. I resented every single useless emotion.

  Eventually even Garrett wasn’t enough to keep me there. I waited until I was given an indoor work assignment. I was going to insult the first Opta I came across and then accept the consequences.

  Garrett, to my frustration, seemed to know. He kept looking at me, and I could sense his disappointment. It made me more determined. I went to great lengths to avoid being alone with him.

  The day before my new assignment was due to start, my luck ran out. The sun was in the sky, and it gave him the free time he needed to track me down.

  I was hiding in one of the caves we didn’t use very much. There was no one around because only a fool would stay underground in the daylight. He took my arm and dragged me firmly behind him, away from the unit and out towards the edge of the island. I protested, but he ignored me.

  My feet scrabbled at the rock, but I couldn’t get my footing. I had no choice but to go along with him. Eventually we were at the edge of the island.

  He pushed me in front of him and waited, arms folded. The rocks were sharper and narrower here, and I couldn’t get round him easily. Stubbornly I remained silent.

  “Cal…” he said carefully.

  “It’s Callax,” I corrected, ten years old and full of stubborn pride.

  “Callax,” he repeated. It sounded wrong in his voice, and I regretted making him say it. Regret. Another stupid emotion. I wouldn’t be feeling anything when I was dead, and it couldn’t come soon enough.

  “Don’t do this.”

  “You can’t stop me. You…” The anger rose, choking off the words in my throat, and I tried to push past him.

  I didn’t see him do it, but he knocked my legs out from under me, and then I was in the water. The shock of the cold temperature stole the air from my chest. The current tugged at my lower body. I clawed at the rocks, trying to climb out.

  “You want to die?”

  His strong hands were pushing down on my shoulders, and I sank below the surface. The cold seeped inside my head, muddling my thoughts. Instinct made me kick upwards, but he held me steady. My lungs burned.

  Just about when the panic took over, he let me surface. I gasped for air like one of the big flat fish the ocean units caught when they were having a lucky day.

  Garrett’s face was expressionless. “Why are you breathing if you want to die?” he asked.

  Suddenly I was pushed under again, and this time I really struggled. Let me up! I need to breathe!

  When he finally allowed me to resurface, I tried to escape, choking and spluttering and pushing at the hands on my shoulders.

  “Your death, Callax. If you want it, it’s there. Close enough to touch. All you have to do is take it.”

  The third time under the water, terror exploded inside my head and my chest. I thought he was actually going to kill me. I decided that I didn’t want to die after all. My movements were uncoordinated, the lack of air taking its toll.

  My vision started to grey out. The rocks under the water looked like they were glowing. My lungs were agony. The icy water flooded into them. Then I was hauled back onto the rock.

  I rolled onto my hands and knees, coughing and throwing up and breathing, taking in gulps of air so sweet that I could almost taste them.

  He watched me without saying a word, until I sat up and wiped my mouth. My hand was shaking slightly.

  “Callax,” he began.

  “No… don’t call me that.”

  “Cal then?”

  I nodded, embarrassed.

  His face softened very slightly. “I’m sorry, Cal. But I can’t let you throw your life away. You have eight years left. The world might change by then.”

  “Seven and a half years.” The half years were important when your life was this short. “And you only have one and a half.”

  “Five hundred and sixty-one days, if you want to be precise,” said Garrett firmly. “And I’ll make the best of every single one of them.”

  I hadn’t known he paid such close attention. I realised that I’d never asked. All of my questions had been about me, in one way or another.

  We sat next to each other, looking away from the city, towards the horizon. The sun was starting to sink downwards, turning the sky and the water blood red. A couple of Flyers showed up as black silhouettes in the distance.

  “What should I do?”

  “Stay alive as long as you can. Learn as much as you can.”

  “But what’s the point of staying alive? Just to serve the ones who are going to kill us?”

  He sighed. The sun was making his blond hair look like it was on fire. It was at odds with his tired expression.

  We were rock and water, he and I. As different to look at as you could find. His hair yellow and straight, mine black and curly. My dark blue eyes showed every emotion, while his grey ones were like window shutters. They darkened when he was angry, but that was the only clue they ever gave to how he was feeling.

  “Don’t give up. I felt like you did when I saw my first Gathering. Lots of us do. I understand.”

  He drew up his knees and rested his chin on top of them.

  “But one day things will change. It might be too late for me, but they will change, Cal. If you die before your time, you might miss it.”

  I scoffed. “They won’t change. If you go through life hoping for the impossible, that just makes you crazy.”

  “What’s wrong with a bit of hope? If you’re determined to have none, I might as well push you back into the water.”

  I flinched away despite myself, and he laughed, but not unkindly.

  “The thing about hope, Cal… it gives you a purpose. I was so angry when I first met you. I didn’t see the point of living. But you wouldn’t let me switch off. Looking up at me every day like you trusted me to change the world for you.”

  I ducked my head. I didn’t want to be reminded.

  “I was stupid.”

  “No. You were innocent. But you taught me how to hope again. Whatever they look like, the Opta are older than us, Cal. No other creature on this world lives forever, and neither will they. I’m not a Thinker, and I don’t know much, but I feel it in here.” He pushed against his chest.

  “Try it for me. Let’s make our lives the best they can be. The way you used to when I first met you.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’m ten now, Garre
tt,” I said with a long-suffering sigh. “I’m not a child anymore.”

  He started laughing again, properly. The thing about Garrett was that for all he could be proper and serious, his laugh was incredibly infectious. I couldn’t help joining in.

  Somehow he made it work, though. I started to look forward to things again. There were moments when I was glad to be alive. Not many, but enough. Our whole unit was better off because of it.

  Unfortunately, this only made the time go faster. I tried to ignore it, pushing the foreboding out of my head. But there came a day when it had to be faced.

  Garrett was one of the oldest boys now. For a few months he was basically in charge of our unit. He knew the most, he was the strongest, and he was definitely the wisest.

  But then the balance tipped.

  “NearBound… NearBound…” the whispers started. When we were close to our eighteenth birthdays, we stopped being people and became NearBound.

  If we had authority, we lost it. We wouldn’t be around to punish anyone for disobedience, would we? If we had friends, they kept their distance. Afraid to be near in case imminent death was somehow contagious. Ashamed that their lives would continue.

  It was taken for granted that we would stop working the day before. Our younger brothers were expected to look after us. To make sure we answered our summons so that the unit was safe.

  Like a handover test, I suppose. I would be an older brother myself in a matter of days, after all. I was sick with fear. I didn’t know if I could let Garrett go. I wanted to be angry, not scared. But I was powerless to choose my feelings.

  We said our goodbyes alone. Garrett would have the usual group send-off from the rest of the unit in the morning, but I knew I didn’t want to be part of that.

  I didn’t say much. I put all my effort into not crying like a little girl leaving the childstation. At the time, that seemed incredibly important. Later, I would curse my silence, thinking of all the things I should have said. He made me promise to stay alive and keep learning. He thanked me.

  At the Gathering three days later, it was not Garrett. My smart, strong, brave older brother was gone. Broken into bits.

  I found my anger then. There was a long, awful moment when I struggled to get it under control. I had to stay calm. The Breaker was quite capable of using my emotions for his own entertainment. The boy Garrett had been deserved better than that.

  “Please. Kill. My. Brother.” I spoke the words as evenly as I could manage. The Breaker was curious, looking me up and down. But there were a lot of Exta on the list that day, and he lost interest soon enough.

  Afterwards, Garrett’s body lay on the stone as if he were sleeping. It would be a little while before his physical body realised that the life essence was gone. Only then would his body finally stop breathing.

  I wanted to throw myself at him and beg him to wake up. But I couldn’t. He’d made me promise to stay alive. I turned my back and walked away.

  Chapter Three - Benedar

  “But… he’s a Thinker. He can’t be my brother.” I scowled at the childstation operator, ignoring the curious gaze of the six-year-old boy standing next to her.

  I couldn’t read the allocation papers on the table next to us, but the boy obviously could. He was holding a book, of all things. When we leave the childstation, we get to take one thing with us. If he had picked a book, he definitely wasn’t a Worker.

  “You don’t get to choose. Don’t you know anything?”

  She looked me up and down, and I flushed. I knew that my colourful clothes pointed to my low status. The Opta dressed all in white. The better the status of the unit, the paler the colours.

  Her tunic was pale yellow. She was a bit older than me, and she wore her experience like a badge of superiority. I wasn’t in the habit of looking at girls. She was the first one I’d been close to since I left the childstation myself.

  She was very clean, and her skin was soft. She was smaller than me. She made me notice my rough hands, and the tear in my shirt. She made me feel stupid.

  “I know that you don’t match a Thinker with a Worker. I’ve never seen it.”

  “Oh, well, if you’ve never seen it…”

  She was making fun of me. Her lips curved in a smile that wasn’t really a smile. My cheeks burned hotter. Her eyes were grey like Garrett’s, and I suddenly hated her for being alive when he wasn’t.

  “You don’t know what it’s like outside, do you?”

  I stepped closer, and her smile faded.

  “The childstation is all you know. All you see. The first Gathering you go to will be your own.”

  I said the last words so forcefully that I nearly spat on her. She leaned away.

  “Maybe we could trade information, since you think you’re so clever? You tell me why I’m being matched with the wrong brother, and I tell you what you’ll look like when you die.”

  Her eyes filled with fear. Not like Garrett’s at all. Then I felt bad. She looked at me for a moment in silence.

  “I don’t think you’re the wrong brother for me,” came a high voice. I looked down in surprise, seeing the boy properly for the first time.

  He had a thin, serious face, ordinary brown hair, and looked a bit shorter than average. His eyes were the most striking thing about him. They were big, dark brown, and fierce with concentration.

  I glared at him. He stared back, then grinned.

  “I like him, Vella,” he said to the girl. “He says what he thinks. And he’s got an interesting face.”

  The girl glanced at me. She obviously couldn’t have disagreed more. I found myself wanting to laugh.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Benedar.” He stood up a bit straighter and held out his small hand. I shook it carefully.

  “Are we done here?” asked the girl, obviously wanting to sneer at me some more, but too scared to actually do it. She held her pen over the allocation papers, ready to discharge my new younger brother to my care.

  “We’re done.” I turned and walked out, leaving Benedar to trot after me.

  I tried not to think about Garrett. The last time I’d seen the childstation was when he came to collect me. It felt like the hole in my chest from missing him was going to be there forever.

  “What’s your name?”

  He was slightly out of breath. I was walking fast, knowing that my unit would struggle to complete its workload for the day without my contribution. It was always tough when we lost one of the older ones. I needed to get back.

  “Callax,” I said abruptly.

  “Can I call you Cal?”

  “No!”

  I sped up, not looking back to see if he was keeping up with me.

  We were repairing one of the buildings near the centre of the city today. The others had spent the morning preparing the stones, sizing them and making them smooth.

  They had just stopped for a hasty lunch when I arrived. We hadn’t lost an older brother for a while, so Benedar would be by far the smallest and youngest in the unit.

  “He’s not going to be much use. He’s an even smaller scrap than you were.”

  Albany said what everyone else was thinking. He had his arms folded, and his reddish brown hair was a mess as usual. There was a big smudge of dirt on one side of his face, hiding the freckles underneath. He looked tired and annoyed. The other boys stared at Benedar with disappointment.

  Dane was the oldest now. He remained silent, his brown eyes watchful. His spiky, light brown hair looked almost grey. It was covered in rock dust.

  Benedar squared his thin shoulders, but his eyes flickered with anxiety.

  “Yeah, well, he’s a Thinker, not a Worker, so you’ll be waiting a long time for him to be any use,” I said flatly.

  “What?”

  “Another Thinker? What about Jory and Zack?”

  “The Thinkers are supposed to stay together. How can you be his brother if you’re never in the same place?”

  “We don’t need another Th
inker! How are we going to keep up with our workload now?”

  I held up my hands in an attempt to stop the flood of questions. “The snippy girl at the childstation didn’t exactly put herself out to explain any of that.”

  I reached for some dried fish and the last piece of heavy, black bread. I was about to stuff them into my mouth, when I remembered Benedar.

  I was his brother now. Whatever I thought about him, he was still my responsibility. No one else in the unit was going to look after him.

  Reluctantly I turned and handed him the food. My stomach growled in protest, as if it had eyes to see what I was doing.

  He tore the bread in half and offered the larger piece back to me. I looked at him suspiciously.

  “It was the last piece,” he said earnestly. “And you need it more than me, because you’re working.”

  I grabbed the bread. “Don’t try to get on my good side, because I don’t have one,” I said ungraciously.

  The other boys were impressed by Benedar’s generosity. Giving up food was not something we did often. Usually only for birthdays. Or the night before someone answered their summons. I had tried to give Garrett my share, but he’d refused…

  I didn’t want to hate Benedar. It wasn’t his fault.

  “Hey, Callax, give the little scrap a break.”

  “At least he won’t eat much, will he?”

  “He doesn’t know why he’s here either.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  We all turned incredulously to face him. He stood firm under the weight of our collective gazes.

  “What did they tell you then?” I asked sceptically.

  He shook his head. “They didn’t tell me. But I could still put the pieces together.”

  “You’re a scrap. You can’t link yet.”

  It was Jory. He had emerged from the back of the cave. Zack, his younger brother, wasn’t with him. Zack was probably asleep. Even by Thinker standards, he was physically weak.

  Jory was still one year away from his own Gathering. We hadn’t expected to get another Thinker until then.

  He rubbed a hand over his close cropped black hair and looked at Benedar.