The Sankari Legends Book One: The Scars We Hide

“It was her,” I said to Zig.

His head shot up as he looked at me with worry. I didn’t even have to clarify who I was talking about. He knew.

We were sitting in the kitchen of his house in the Inon territory. When we had first gotten here, I’d been surprised at the size of it, but Zig said he actually shared it with someone else, a guy named Damon Moniz, who was a high-ranking technician around here. Apparently, Damon was on leave in the city currently, which is why he wasn’t here.

After we had left Alia and Alec in the bunker (the bunker was more or less the basement of the house, only unlike a normal basement, it was reinforced to be able to withstand powerful attacks from the outside), Zig had given me the “grand tour”. We’d ended up in the kitchen, since our goal had actually been to get Alec more water.

Unfortunately, our topic of conversation had shifted away from casual catching up into much more dangerous areas.

“You’re sure?” Zig asked, his voice calm but forceful.

I nodded. “I didn’t see her, but I knew she was there. Maybe not physically, but she’d definitely had a hand it all. She was the one who sent them to attack us.”

“Did the others…”

“No, I don’t think they did,” I replied. “Like I said, I didn’t see her. I could just tell. Besides… I was the only one who didn’t get attacked.”

Zig was quiet for a few minutes before standing up and walking across the room. He stood with his back to me for the longest time. Neither of us spoke.

“You know what this means, right?” he finally asked, still not looking at me.

I stared at him wide eyed, though I knew he couldn’t tell.

“Zig…”

“We’ve talked about this, Megan,” he said, turning around towards me. “We knew that this could happen.”

“So what?” I asked. “All I said is that she was there in one way or another. It could’ve been that I was just sensing that she had been near the people that attacked us recently. Her soldiers didn’t even attack me. They were after the other three—Alec especially. Why do you think he’s the one that ended up unconscious on your couch?”

“That’s not the point Megan. Even if they didn’t know you were there tonight, she’ll find out. The more you put yourself out into the world, the more likely it will be for them to find you.” Zig looked at me with cold, hard eyes. I forced myself not to shrink away.

“It doesn’t matter, Zig,” I said firmly. “I’m not removing myself from the world just because there’s a chance she might find me.”

“And if she does find you?”

That made me hesitate. Zig and I had always talked about the possibility of her finding me. We knew she would probably want to… after what had happened the last time we had seen her. We didn’t understand what it meant for me though… why she would want me at all.

“Look, I know it’s a risk. But this is something I have to do.” I tried to sound as calm as I could. “I can’t sit by and not do anything. I went to the academy because I thought I could do something to help.”

“I know,” he said. “I backed you on that. But we never thought that you would end up going on a mission like this.”

“It’s too late for me to back down now,” I said hotly.

Zig and I had had these arguments before. For most of my teenage years—ever since my powers developed when I was twelve—we had always had disagreements. Should I keep my powers a secret (Zig won that one); should I go to Edil to train at the academy (point for Megan, but with many restrictions). The last time we had argued had been right before Zig had left Edil. He was worried about leaving me at the school alone, since one of the only reasons he had agreed to let me go in the first place was because that was where he was currently stationed and he could keep an eye on me. Since we had been the only two who actually knew the truth about my powers, he was scared I would end up in trouble. I, being the stubborn sixteen year old I was, had of course insisted that I would be fine, that I had been keeping this secret for nearly four years without incident, and I could easily handle myself. Still, Zig had insisted that we find someone I could go to in the event that some disaster would befall me. I’m still not sure how, but eventually Zig managed to convince me to trust my secret to his girlfriend KC. KC was really nice, and I didn’t really have a problem with telling her my secret.

So, yeah, Zig and I arguing wasn’t anything new. Me losing arguments also wasn’t anything new. But this time I was determined to stand my ground. I wasn’t going to be taken off this mission for any reason at all.

Zig sighed and slumped down in the kitchen chair he was sitting in.

“Meg, I’m not saying that you have to leave the mission. I know that’s impossible. All I want is for you to be careful though. I can’t risk losing you.”

I relaxed a little when he said he wasn’t going to make me abandon the mission, but I also took in how completely spent he looked. There was a lot more on his plate than he was letting on about.

“Zig, is there something else you’re not telling me?” I asked.

“What? No.”

“There is,” I said, walking over to the table where he was sitting and pulling out the chair across from him. “Zig, I can tell there is. Now tell me what’s wrong.”

“Meg, don’t worry about it, okay? I’m fine.” He was lying, though. I could tell.

“Zig…”

“It’s getting late,” he said, standing up abruptly. “You should get to bed. I’ll take Alec his water and make sure those two haven’t killed each other. Sabin should also be getting back soon. I’m sure he’ll have a lot to report.”

Without another word, he stood up and walked away. I sighed and dropped my head down onto the table. That was another problem between Zig and I. No matter how close we were as siblings, there were always things we kept hidden from each other. And despite the fact that I had years of training to be able to pull information out of people, none of that worked on Zig. Or maybe…

My eyes drifted to the door of Zig’s office in the corner of the room. The door was closed, but I doubted Zig had actually locked it. He was never the locking doors type.

I got up from my seat at the table and walked over to the door. I had seen Zig in here earlier, on one of my passes through the kitchen to get bandages for Alia’s arm. He had been holding up a few papers with both of his hands. An envelope that I assumed that the papers had come in dangled out of one hand. Despite the fact that the address side of the envelope was facing me, I hadn’t been able to catch what it said. But I remembered the script of the front. It was our mother’s handwriting. Since I had started at the academy a few years ago, I hadn’t even heard from Mom. It was against the rules to have any kind of outside contact during your first year, though it is allowed in later years. Mom hadn’t written me anything though. Zig had told me not to expect it. I guess I could’ve tried writing her, but honestly that had never been something that I chose to make a priority. But now apparently Mom was writing Zig, which I didn’t really know what to think of.

Curiosity got the best of me and I pushed open the door. It opened silently into the dimly lit office. I carefully walked in and took in Zig’s workspace. As I had expected, both the floor and desk were strewn with papers and books. All of the chairs except for the one behind the desk were piled high with books, most of which were about the Ancient Wars—the first wars ever to be fought between the sankrin and the konna. My brother had always been interested in those stories. As I walked around the desk, I noticed Zig had left just a small enough space for him to be able to work on his desk, while the rest of the surface was covered with stacks of papers on stacks of books. As luck would have it, I discovered Zig had left the letter in the cleared off space. I picked up the envelope and took in the fact that it was, indeed, our mother’s handwriting.

Suddenly growing very nervous, I pulled the papers out of the envelope and began to read:

Dear Zachary,

First, I would like to thank you for your letter. It’s so good to hear from one of you after so long that just the sight of your name on the return address almost brought me to tears. I’m also very surprised that you were transferred to Inon… even more so that you accepted it. What about your sister? Did you just leave her alone in Edil? Honestly, I thought I raised you with more sense than that. Megan is young. She can’t be left on her own yet.

I was only on the first paragraph, but I was already growing irritated. I was not too young to take care of myself. Mom had always disagreed about me going to Edil, though when Zig had left she had been extremely supportive of him. I guess it was just because I was the youngest. I was her baby girl.

It’s not that I didn’t love my mom. I really did. It’s just that there were times when she was so suffocating I didn’t know what to do. It’s one of the reasons I went to Edil in the first place. I took a deep breath, smothering the irritation building inside of me and continued to read.

I suppose you know what is best for her though. You two always did have your secrets.

Anyway, you didn’t write to ask me to scold you about your sister. You asked me what I knew of your father. I guess I should jump straight to the point. Your father is dead.

I almost dropped the letter. My dad was… dead? The word rang in my head like the echo from a bell. Despite the fact the he hadn’t been in my life for a long time I had never thought that he could be dead. Dad just wasn’t one of those people that it seemed possible they could die.

He’s been dead for a long time now. I’ve just never told you or Megan. I didn’t want to remind either of you about him. But you are getting older now, so I suppose you have a right to know what really happened to him and furthermore, what really happened the night that he left us.

I knew what had really happened that night. Zig and I both had known for a while. We’d just never told Mom that we knew, or how we’d come to find out. But I was confused as to why Mom was choosing now to finally tell Zig. I mean, from what I knew, the real events of what happened the night Dad left were pretty important. But then again, it was probably a good thing Mom had never actually told us… otherwise neither Zig nor I would’ve had an easy time getting into the academy.

I heard footsteps coming up the stairs that broke me from my thoughts and rushed to scan the rest of the letter and then put it back in the envelope. I wasn’t worried about processing all of it just yet. I would remember every word of it when I needed to.

I quickly moved out of the office and across the house to find somewhere to get some sleep. I wasn’t ready to ask Zig about the contents of Mom’s letter yet. But it did make me wonder… with the attack earlier, and now Zig asking Mom about our dad… there was something stirring. And whatever that was, it wasn’t good.

The dream I had that night was a recurring one. It was the same dream I had had for about a week, ever since Commander Mecah asked me to approve of the members of our mission’s team:

It was night. It was cold and snowing. I was tucked away in my bed, covered by a mountain of blankets in an attempt to keep warm. (My room was always the coldest in the house, and Mom constantly worried about me getting sick). I had been sleeping peacefully, dreaming about our trip to visit my grandma in Suba, when suddenly Zig was shaking me awake.

“Megan! Megan wake up!”

I grumbled something incoherent and burrowed further into my blankets. Zig shook me harder.

“Megan, come on you have to wake up!” he said urgently. “Satama is under attack!”

That was when the sound of alarms ringing penetrated my ears. I bolted out of bed and quickly threw on the coat and boots that my brother threw at me. Then he grabbed my hand and dragged me downstairs.

“What’s going on?” I asked. “Who’s attacking?”

“The konna,” Zig replied. “No one knows how they got in… but they’ve nearly destroyed all of Satama.”

“But… how?”

“I don’t know,” Zig said. He stopped us as we reached our front door. He turned around and bent down to look me straight in the eye. “Mom said Dad and Bri are gone. She told me to make sure you were safe. She said for us to go over to the Parkers’ house… they have a raid shelter in their basement where we’ll be safe until Mom can come and get us.”

“But… why would Daddy and Bri leave?” I asked.

Zig just shook his head. “I don’t know Megan. Come on, we have to go.”

He pulled me out the door, holding tightly to my hand as we made our way across the street. There were people filling the street, all shouting and trying to do something about the fires that were spreading among the houses. It didn’t seem like there was much of the attack still going on. Zig continued to lead us in the direction of the Parkers’ house. I tried to drown out all the noise going on around me and focus only on running, but it was almost impossible.

We were only a few yards away from the house when a voice called out Zig’s name.

“Zig! Megan! Wait!”

Zig stopped and turned to the voice. It was Mr. Raider. He had just come out of his house, which was right next to the Parkers’ house. With him were his wife and two children: Sabin, who was about a year older than I was, and his younger sister Nicki. Alia Parker was also there. She looked terrified, which was an expression that I had never seen on her face until that night. When she saw Zig and me, she ran over to us.

“Have you seen my parents?” she demanded, raising her voice over the chaos of the street. “Or Alec? Do you know where my family is?!”

Zig shook his head sadly. He didn’t know the whereabouts of Alia’s parents or her twin brother, Alec, any better than Alia or I did.

“I don’t know, Alia!” he shouted in return.

Just then, something in Alia’s house exploded. Flames shot into the night sky as all of us stood completely paralyzed.

Well, all of us that is, except one.

Alia’s eyes widened as her home when up in flames. She screamed and before either Zig or I were able to react, we were pushed into a bush behind us. A small part of me registered that nothing had even touched us, but that instead we were pushed back by an unseen force. I was able to dig my head out just in time to see Alia take off across the street.

She would’ve run straight into the flames if it hadn’t been for Sabin. He was the only one of us who reacted quickly enough. Before Alia was able to make it to her yard, Sabin tackled her. Alia shouted in protest, screaming and punching Sabin, but he held on. Zig and I pulled ourselves out of the bush and ran over to them, followed shortly by Sabin’s family.

We all gathered around Alia who had stopped fighting and was sitting on the ground with her knees curled up to her chest. She was staring at her house with wide and frightened eyes. Sabin still had his arms wrapped around her.

“Alia?” I asked carefully as I sat down next to her.

She didn’t move from where she was. Nor did she speak. She just sat there, silently staring at what had once been her home while tears trickled down her cheeks.

“So this is what happened that night?”

The voice pierced through my mind with a force that nearly made me fall to the ground myself. I inhaled sharply.

“No,” I said softly. “No, it can’t be. You can’t be in my dream!”

“Oh can’t I?” the voice taunted. It was a voice extremely familiar to me, in both real life and in my dreams. But it was one I hadn’t heard in years… not since before I started at Edil.

I looked around for the source of the voice. She always showed herself. Always. It never made a difference what the setting of the dream was—whether it was Satama, the territory I lived in until I was ten, or my home in Suba. Even when I wasn’t already having a dream, and the setting was a completely void space with nothing but white or gray or some other color. She was always there.

Sure enough, as I turned to look around behind me, my vision tunneled and there she was. Her dark blonde hair was cut short in a sort of pixie-cut, with long bangs in the front and barely reaching the nap of her neck in the back. It was the same way she had always worn it. Her blue eyes—many shades darker than my own—were filled with malice, despite the smile she wore on her oh-so-familiar face.

“Get out,” I said, trying to keep my voice level even though I was completely panicking. She shouldn’t be here, was what I thought.

“Oh, I know I shouldn’t be here,” she said. She laughed at the shocked look I guess crossed my face. “Oh come on, Meggy. You know that in dreams, all of your thoughts and feelings are open to me. There’s no stopping me from knowing what you are thinking when you’re asleep.”

I silently cursed myself for forgetting that. Not that it mattered whether I did it silently or not. She heard everything I thought and said.

“Mmm, Meggy such foul words. Tell me, did they teach you to speak like that at the academy? I can’t believe that’s the place the people of Sankruus trust to produce their soldiers. It’s pathetic.”

“Don’t call me Meggy!” I snapped. “What are you doing here? If you don’t have anything worthwhile to say, why don’t you just go away?”

“Temper, dear one, temper.” The way she talked was as if she were scolding a child. Of course, to her, I always would be a child. “You want to know why I’m here?”

“No, I just asked what you were doing here because I wanted to know what the weather is going to be tomorrow.”

A smirk spread across her face. “You’ve been taking too many lessons in sarcasm from the Parker girl, Meggy.”

I gasped, eyes wide. “How do you know about Alia?”

“I’m inside your mind right now, Megan,” she answered, her voice calm and nearly soothing. “I know the reason that you keep having the same dream about the night Alia and Alec’s parents died. Because finally, after seven long years, the four of you have finally been brought back together.”

“It’s just a coincidence that we’re all from the same area originally,” I said.

“Ha, I know you don’t believe that,” she said. “Come on, Meggy. You know there is no such thing as coincidences, especially not in your life.”

“Well this one is. The fact that the four of us were put on the same mission has no relation to anything from our past.”

“Or does it?” she asked. “Think about it Megan. You are all back in the same positions you were always in when you were kids. Sabin as the leader. You as the brains. And your fighters… who would be more perfect than the two Parker twins. They’re the ones who will get things done. This is not a coincidence Megan.”

I clenched my fist. She was taking words from my own thoughts. Ever since I had found out I was going to be the four of us on this mission, I had been consumed by thoughts of what it meant… whether it was coincidence or not that we had been brought back together in this way after so many years.

“If it weren’t just a coincidence…” I said cautiously. “Then for what other reason would this have happened?

“Ah, now you’re thinking right,” she said with a grin. “But why on earth would I tell you that? Telling such a thing would be giving too much away.”

“Then I’m going to ask again: Why. Are. You. Here?”

If it were possible, her eyes turned colder as she smiled even wider at me.

“To deliver a message,” she said. “Change is coming, Megan, and it’s coming very fast. Everyone will see it coming, but no one will see it either.”

“What does that even mean?” I asked.

“I wasn’t finished,” she said. “You see Megan, when this change comes, things are going to be put into action… ancient powers that no one has even thought about in centuries. And once that happens… oh, let’s just stick with the fact that it is going to be spectacular.”

“Why would you tell me this? What happened to giving too much away?”

“All of that information is leading up to the real warning. You see, with these ancient powers, there’s a sort of… well, there’s a prophecy-type-thing that goes with it.”

I raised an eyebrow and scoffed. “You’ve got to be kidding me. A prophecy? As in…”

“As in set-in-stone, going to happen and there’s nothing you can do to change it,” she said with a grin. But the grin no longer even had the small sliver of warmth it had held earlier.

“What is this prophecy?” I asked.

“Hmph I figured you would ask. Unfortunately, I can only give you a teensy summary of a teensy part of it. It describes four. Four of what, I don’t know—people I assume— but four all the same.”

I didn’t like where this was going, but I had to ask.

“And what of these four?”

“The prophecy, in simple terms, says that one will fail, one will lose, one will turn, and one… will die.”