The Sankari Legends Book One: The Scars We Hide

Everything turned to chaos once we got back to Edil. Alia and I were immediately whisked away to the infirmary the moment we arrived. Sabin and Megan left after passing their own check-ups, leaving the two of us at the mercy of the healers. My head was still spinning, and I felt sick to my stomach but I managed to hold down what very little I had in it.

The next few hours were a blur of bandages, IV drips, nurses, healers, Alia cursing when they woke her up… the list went on and on. The entire time I tried to stay focused and pay attention, but my head hurt and honestly I really just wanted to sleep.

Eventually everyone left us alone, leaving only Alia and I in the room. We talked quietly for a few minutes before the medicine finally kicked in and I had no choice but to fall asleep.

My dreams weren’t happy. Through them, I relived the torture I’d experienced the past couple of days, as well as everything Brittany had shown me with her takot powers. But that wasn’t even the worst part of it. The worst part was when the fires of Satama entered my dreams.

That night is one of the few things from my childhood I remember clearly. There was fire—lots of it— and people screaming in the streets. My family had gone over to the Raiders’ house for dinner, but as soon as the first of the attacks started, my parents rushed us to our house so we could all get down in our raid bunker. But everything went wrong.

Somewhere along the way, Alia was separated from us. I don’t know what happened to her, and I’ve never really had the chance to ask, but all I know is one minute she was running right beside me and the next she was gone. Unfortunately, with everything that was going on, my parents didn’t realize she was gone until we got back to our house. By then, it was too late.

I remember going into the house right behind my parents, and almost immediately being grabbed up by a stream of water and tossed behind the couch. A few seconds later, my mother’s face appeared above me.

“Alec, I want you to stay here,” she said. “And stay very quiet, no matter what happens.”

She bent down and kissed me on the forehead.

“I love you sweetheart. So does your dad. Remember that, okay? And tell your sister, when you see her again.”

With that, Mom was gone. At that time, I didn’t realize that was the last thing she would ever say to me, even though now I understand she knew it would be. But right then, all I heard was the snap of her signature water whips as well as the heated whoosh of Dad’s flames. I wanted nothing more than to get up and watch my parents fight, believing as any ten year old would that my parents were invincible and nothing could possibly stop them, but I did as I was told and hid behind the couch, even when the window behind me was shattered in by a rock thrown from the street. I don’t know how long I stayed back there, but at some point I realized that the sounds of fighting had stopped and was replaced with sounds of talking.

“Come on, Mr. Parker, I know you don’t want your family hurt,” a girl’s voice said. “So just tell me. How do we get into Einoth?”

“Leave them out of this,” I heard my dad say. “I’m the one you want. Fight me, not them.”

The girl laughed. “Oh please, you’re in no shape to fight right now. Besides, I’ve turned on the gas in your kitchen. Any tiny spark of flame and WHOOSH. There goes your house.”

I don’t know why, but at that moment I dared to peak over the edge of the couch. What I saw almost knocked the wind out of me. There were my parents, beaten to the ground. Dad was lying in a torn up mess on the floor, one eye swollen shut and massive cuts on either of his cheeks. He was looking at Mom with a desperate expression in his good eye.

Mom was on her knees with her back towards me, her head pulled back by her long brown hair. A girl no more than a few years older than me was holding onto her hair with one hand, and a silver dagger with the other. In the flickering lights of the street fires, I could barely make out the girl’s shoulder length hair. It’s obsidian color blended into the dark of the room and hid her face from my view, but I remember her voice clearly enough, and the fact that she had the dagger pressed into my mom’s neck hard enough it was already drawing blood.

“I’m not telling you anything, you little brat,” my dad said firmly.

“Very well,” she said. Then with one quick motion, she pulled the dagger across Mom’s throat. She let go of her hair and Mom’s body fell lifelessly to the ground.

“Mom!” I screamed, which was probably not the smartest thing to do, since Dagger Girl had yet to see me. But I’d just watched my mother be murdered. I had a right to scream if I wanted to.

Dagger Girl immediately spun around to face me. Her bangs were hanging in her eyes, so I couldn’t see them well, but she gave me a feral grin when she saw me.

“Aw, one of the Parker-spawn,” she said. “Good, just what I needed.”

“Alec, run!” my dad shouted to me.

But I was frozen in place. Even if I had wanted to heed my dad’s warning and get out of there, I don’t think I could’ve.

Dagger Girl was moving towards me, her dagger swinging in her hand by her side, dripping with blood. She was going to use that on me, I realized. But still I couldn’t move.

What happened next happened so fast I still have trouble processing it all. Right before Dagger Girl reached me, my dad grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her back. Surprisingly, she resisted his pull. On instinct, she spun around and stabbed him. He fell to the ground right beside Mom.

Neither Dagger Girl nor I moved for a few seconds. We were both staring at my lifeless parents, her in irritation and me in complete disbelief.

“Frick,” she muttered under her breath. “I wasn’t supposed to kill him.”

She seemed to have forgotten I was still there, so I jumped over the back of the couch and stared at her.

“You killed them,” I stated, loud enough to be heard over the din of the streets, but not to the point where I was shouting. “You killed my parents.”

She turned around and looked at me again. “Oh, it’s you,” she said, as if she had forgotten I was there. “Well, I guess I could take you in his place. Maybe your family up north will pay the ransom for you.”

I didn’t pay attention to what she was saying. Instead, I clenched my hands into fists and glared at her with all the hatred and emotion that was boiling up inside of me.

“You. Killed. My. Parents.” I ground out.

“Yeah, so sorry, whatever,” she muttered. “Can we go now?”

“YOU KILLED MY PARENTS!” I finally screamed, throwing my hands out in front of me.

I’m still not sure what happened after that. I remember screaming as a huge blast of fire shot from my hands and the girl swearing loudly as she ran out of the way.

Before that night, I’d already known about my fire elementest powers. Out of our friend group, Sabin and I were the first to discover our powers, so we’d both already started training and learning how to use them. But I had never used my powers to the extent I did that night. As fire filled the room, I realized the mistake I’d made too late. Dagger Girl had turned on the gas from our stove and had allowed it to leak through the house. She’d done this to prevent my dad from using his fire powers, but I didn’t think about this until a sudden explosion threw me backwards through the window at my back. I landed hard on the ground with the breath knocked out of me and my energy completely drained from over exertion of my powers. In a few seconds I passed out cold.

I woke up in the Edil infirmary, my head still spinning from all the dreams. As I pushed myself into a sitting position and fought to get oriented, I glanced over and saw Alia, still asleep. Her hair was still loose from its braid and was spread out around her pillow. I tried not to think about how much it looked like our mom’s hair.

Alia had a peaceful look on her face, which I was glad of. To say we’d had a rough past few days would be the understatement of the century. Seeing Alia with such an expression on her face after what we had just went through reassured me that she would be all right. Of course, this was Alia. If anyone could bounce back, it was her.

It also bothered me, though, because I hadn’t seen Alia look this peaceful since we’d been reunited a few days ago. Even in her calmest moments—when she didn’t look like she was about to take someone’s head off—there was always a look of… well, regret, in her eyes. I couldn’t understand why it was there, but I was worried about it nonetheless. It didn’t take an IGS to tell that Alia was carrying a heavy burden on her shoulders.

“Will you stop staring at me?”

I jumped, startled at Alia’s exclamation. She hadn’t even opened her eyes yet. How did she know I was staring at her?

“Did you forget about my telekisenses?” she asked, still not looking at me.

“I can sense you looking at me, doofus.”

“Good to see you too,” I muttered, turning my eyes to look around the room. I hadn’t paid much attention to it earlier, since I’d been too focused on making myself stay awake so the medics could do their thing faster and then leave.

Alia chuckled lightly as she opened her eyes and sat up.

“Ugh,” she groaned. “I don’t like that medicine.”

I smirked, knowing full and well what she meant. They hadn’t put Alia under any anesthetics fortunately, otherwise I would’ve been having a conversation with a three-year-old at the moment instead of my grouchy sister. I remembered when Alia had been little, she’d had a surgery to remove an extra tooth. I hadn’t been there when they’d put her under, but when she had woken up, she’d asked about me. So Mom and Dad had brought me in to see her. Let’s just say that loopy only began to describe her.

At least the IV drips had been taken out sometime while we were asleep, though I wasn’t sure why. Neither of us could’ve been very well hydrated when we first got here. Of course, the healers at Edil were often praised for being some of the best in Sankruus, so I guess that’s probably why.

The healers wouldn’t heal everything. Any fatal wounds they would heal to the point that it was stable and the victim wouldn’t die. For minor wounds, they would normally just heal against infections. Anything else just had to heal on its own. It wasn’t that the healers didn’t want to heal every little hurt they could (I was friends with a few of them, and knew they would heal everything completely in a heartbeat if they were allowed), but healing powers took a lot of energy, and at a military academy, that wasn’t something that could be wasted. So the healers had to be conservative with their energy, which left Alia and I both looking like a couple of mummies who’d been dragged down the road a few times each.

“How are you feeling?” I asked.

“Like five day old spit,” Alia muttered. She looked over at me, her eyes soft despite the serious expression on her face. “What about you?”

“I’ve been better,” I admitted, not missing the fact that we were carefully avoiding the subject of what had happened to us.

Fortunately, two people walked into the room right then, saving us from having to continue talking.

The newcomers were both wearing the light blue shirts of the IGSs. The bigger of the pair was a tall guy who was maybe a bit older than me, with light brown hair and a mischievous glint in his eyes despite the concerned look on his face. I’d seen him a few times around the academy, but his name escaped me.

His companion, on the other hand, was hard to mistake. She was short, maybe five foot five inches at best. Of course, she couldn’t have been any older than fifteen (a first year student, by the looks of it), so there was hope for her at least. Her black hair fell freely around her shoulders, but was pushed out of her face so that her green eyes shone brightly when she smiled at Alia and me. I definitely recognized her, but I admit I didn’t remember her name either.

Alia saved me on that part.

“You’re Sabin’s younger sister,” she said to the girl. “Nicki, right?”

“I was hoping you’d remember me,” Nicki said. “I mean, I was pretty young the last time you guys saw me but you know…”

The guy who’d come in with her cleared his throat.

“Oh,” Nicki said. “This is Tyler, by the way. He’s known me almost as long as you guys have. He graduated last year with Sabin, and is one of the IGS drill leaders here. He, uh, also helped rescue you guys yesterday.”

“Thanks,” Alia and I both automatically said.

Tyler waved his hand dismissively. “Not a problem. It’s what I do. Anyway, we just wanted to come in and make sure you guys were okay. Megan and Sabin are a few rooms down. They… had some complications when we got back here. But they’re all right. We’ll go let them know you two are awake.”

Alia frowned. “What complications?” she asked. “What happened?”

Nicki and Tyler exchanged glances briefly before Nicki turned back to us.

“While you guys were gone, we found out that a lot of the Commanders here are working with the konna. We suspected Commander Mecah might be too, so when Megan and Sabin went in for the mission debrief, they went in with the instructions to figure out if he was.”

“Turns out we were right,” Tyler added bitterly. “He was the one who orchestrated your entire mission, even the part of you getting captured. Megan and Sabin got the information we needed from him, but just as Megan’s brother Zig was about to go in to make the arrest, Mecah shot Megan in the shoulder and Sabin in the stomach. Then he flew out of his office window and escaped. We’ve got people out looking for him now.”

“They… were shot?” Alia asked, her words catching in her throat.

Nicki nodded. “They’re okay now though. It took a little while for the healers to be able to help them, since both of the bullets were tainted with konna dark energy. But eventually they got the bullets out, and now both of them are resting.”

“We’re waiting for the okay to move Sabin, then you four are going to be taken to Aelston,” Tyler said.

“But, why?” I asked.

Again, Tyler and Nicki exchanged glances. With a sigh, Tyler explained.

“When we rescued you two, we figured out that the konna at that base were planning an attack on Edil. Originally, their plans had the attack scheduled for some obscure date a few months from now, but after our little… excursion, we think they’ve moved those plans up.”

“It’ll take a few days for them to get their forces here,” Nicki said. “Or, at least that’s what we’re betting on. Either way, everyone in the infirmary is being sent to Aelston.”

“No,” Alia and I both said.

Tyler and Nicki didn’t even looked surprised. I didn’t know much about either of their powers (though I remember from last year when we’d worked on a project together Sabin mentioning Nicki was undeveloped), but I didn’t doubt the fact that they’d expected Alia and I to refuse moving.

“We aren’t going anywhere,” Alia continued. “We are more than capable of fighting, and you’re going to need us.”

“She’s right,” I agreed, before Nicki or Tyler could protest. “We aren’t leaving.”

“You’re both crazy,” Tyler said.

Neither Alia nor I bothered to respond. Tyler and Nicki stood there expectantly, waiting for us to say something, but left eventually, saying they were going to go let Megan and Sabin know we were awake.

A few more minutes of silence after they had left, Alia finally spoke with a shaky voice.

“Alec, what’s going to happen?” she asked.

I shook my head, not understanding the question.

“I mean, the konna and sankrin have been on the verge of war for almost twenty years, and sure, the konna have been gaining strength while the sankrin are just barely managing to hold steady, but I still never thought that it would get to the point where our own Commanders would turn on us.” Her voice shook slightly as she spoke, but she didn’t stop. “So, what’s going to happen, now that we know what’s going on? Is it going to turn to war?”

“I… don’t know, Alia.”

She took a breath and looked at me, an unreadable expression in her eyes.

“It’s what the konna want,” Alia said. “A war with the sankrin. They know they have the upper hand—more strength, more bodies… possibly even better plans. And we can’t do anything about it.”

“Als…”

“Alec you don’t understand,” she said. “After Brittany put us through the takot visions and they took us back to our rooms… Tyrone came and saw me. He… he told me a lot of stuff. About the konna and their plans. It was mostly hubris, but I think he was trying to get me to join their side.” Alia gave a bitter laugh at that. “As if that would happen. Either way, I know what they’re planning ultimately. I don’t… I don’t know if we’re going to be strong enough to fight them.”

I watched as Alia tried to cover her face with her hands, only to stop and curse when she realized that her left arm was in a cast from where they’d broken her wrist.

“Dammit,” she swore softly, staring accusingly at her hand.

She looked so broken down, it was hard for me to watch. And the fact that she was admitting she wasn’t sure about us being strong enough to go to war against the konna made me really concerned. That wasn’t the kind of thing Alia would admit.

“Alia, look at me,” I said, leaning over to touch her shoulder, careful not to touch any of the bruises or cuts that I could see. She lifted her head slightly, her eyes holding an emotion I couldn’t describe, but understood nevertheless. I took a breath before continuing.

“We’re going to be okay,” I said. “We’ve got each other back, finally. And Sabin, and Megan…”

Alia’s eyes flashed at the mention of Megan’s name.

“That’s right!” she exclaimed, before jumping out of bed. She wobbled slightly, trying to regain her balance, but that only took a few seconds before she was storming out of the room.

“Als! Where are you going?” I shouted in vain. She was already headed down the hall, leaving me with no choice but to follow her.