Chapter 17

Emmalee

As a child I rarely lied. I had no reason too. After the canisters fell, I found myself learning to hide the truth.

I’m still doing it.

MINUTES LATER

The truck started moving again. Only this time Char Twiller was riding in the back with the rest of us.

No one spoke. I know I didn’t want to be voicing any of my thoughts at the moment. There was so much to absorb.

I knew about the rumours. Okay, only what my father had told me. Considering the information Char had just revealed, my father had told me diddly squat.

Had my father known that there was more to the rumours than talk of the Larcore searching for someone they thought could destroy them? Had he lied to me?

The thought sent a chill through me. If my father had, it would change everything. Make me doubt more than I wanted too. Especially what had happened to Jake.

The idea that my father knowingly allowed me to live with the heartache over Jake’s death for seven long years? Now that was simply unthinkable. But, should I believe what I’d been told? Had my father?

I mentally shook my head. To believe anything that treacherous Shipley bastard said would only turn my world upside down. I didn’t know if my heart could take the betrayal. Better to focus on something else.

Barty’s-a-shit, I still couldn’t think of Carter as anything else now, I was still hurting too badly, was sitting next to me. I could hear his shallow breathing and the way he kept sucking the saliva from around his teeth. He was nervous, maybe even scared, and I knew why.

Me, Barty’s-a-shit, my brother, my sister, and even Stevron. We all fit into the rumour puzzle.

I wondered if we also held the tiny fragments that the newcomer Char had suggested was missing. I was worried that we did.

I was blind and only days earlier I had experienced my first contact with the Far Beyond.

That wasn’t all. I could hear what Char had described as ‘the fyre egg song’. Or some kind of equivalent. That’s the reason our salvage crew was the best in the territory, and why the fyre eggs we collected netted a higher yield and a much higher selling price than any other salvage team.

No one else knew about my ability but my father, and he’d sworn me to secrecy. Well…almost nobody.

My father told me I had a rare gift and that if people found out, they’d try and exploit me. And stupid me, I’d given Barty’s-a-shit some pretty good hints over the past years. He didn’t know exactly everything. Just that when it was time to go salvaging, I’d often say, ‘the eggs are singing to me’.

Barty’s-a-shit had often replied, ‘I don’t care if they’re sending up sparks of fire, as long as you keep finding them’.

I’d always assumed my ability was because I was blind, or, some alteration caused by the canisters, that gave me the ability to hear the faint rhythmic bleep, bleep, pause…bleep, bleep, pause of the Sapphyre Wings in their fyre egg cocoons.

The imperceptible hum that pulsed within me and drew me toward their nests. I could detect them from miles away, even if they were deep underground or submerged in cave sumps. Depending upon how faint the blurred sound was, I could tell whether the eggs had just been laid or if they were a couple of days old. The blurrier the sound, the fresher the eggs. And fresh was always better.

The eggs we salvaged took up to five weeks to hatch. That was three weeks longer than most eggs that were salvaged by other crews, making the ones we harvested a far hotter commodity. Therefore it was essential that the fyre eggs we collected be transported to the closest fyre arena as quickly as possible where they were immediately bartered and sold.

Other salvage crews regularly didn’t make it back in time, rendering their entire salvage expedition useless and unproductive. Well…not entirely worthless. The Sapphyre Wings were a basic staple of the Larcore diet, and only the most unsavoury or desperate crew boss would ever trade with the Larcore. But I knew those underground trades happened. Probably more often than I could hope. It cost a boat load of money to run a successful salvage operation. For many the yield was well worth the risk.

With my ability to secure the freshest laid eggs it meant my family’s salvage crew on average retrieved a far higher yield of eggs than any other salvaging operation.

Was I the cause of the attack on that village? Was I the reason I had inadvertently drawn attention to my family? Had our high yield finally raised suspicion? Was it my fault all those people died?

I didn’t like to think that way. My heart had other ideas, though.

©Legend of the Sapphyre Wings by Janet Merritt