Blood Ties

2775

A citadel of cylindrical towers rose from the sea and protruded from the cliffs that fringed them, their blue-tinged stone was flawless. Some people believed one day they could have simply formed themselves from the cliffs without a trace.

The centre tower was the widest. It came out into a roofless balcony, fifty feet wide, surrounded by the pillars of outstanding masonry and an overarching force field that shimmered gold against the grey of the sky.

It was there that the Seat took counsel as the infinite assault of the waves upon his castle went on below.

He paced restlessly, robes of black and red sweeping and billowing behind him as he strode over to a small arched window at the back of the smooth stone-walled room. Despite having no glass they were protected by the inbuilt force field that surrounded the citadel, and then a larger one that surrounded the island.

The sea breeze ruffled his hood and batted against his eyelids as he unblinkingly stared out into the dull, grey day. Endless ocean was all that filled his eyes, but still he grasped for breath, and it wasn't because of his traditional black mask. It was made from a fitted nylon material that thickened stiffly over his face, but thinned over his mouth and nostrils. Only his eyes were visible but even they were darkened by the shadow of his hood.

His council members watched him in uncomfortable concern, varying in sincerity. Their brightly coloured jackets of cream to aqua to purple made their leader's black ones stand out like a raven in a flock of peacocks. Some took their status to more extremes and wore matching trousers or leggings, while some of the less flamboyant wore simple but respectable ones of brown, grey, or a steely blue; the island's national colour.

They numbered six in total; his most trusted.

After pulling himself from the waves, he turned on his boot's low heel and paced to the windows on the other side of the room, the ones that looked out on the bustling capital city of Carthinon.

"Ten thousand?" He spoke, his voice sounding clearly despite the mask. His assured, well-spoken voice shook hesitantly at the number. He looked out at his people and braced himself on the windowsill. "What right do we have to take that number?"

He was no king, such a thing was considered to be antiquated even in stories. He was known only as The Mask, a title passed down from his ancestors and the first rulers of this island. What once was worn by his ancestor as a way of hiding his disfigured face had been continued by his heir in respect, and his heir's heir, and so on. It had become a tradition, to become The Mask was to give yourself to the island, your old identity no longer mattered. No one except for who they took as a partner may look upon their face. Identity was never a problem because of the amount of security measures that required his unique, living fingerprint.

For practicality and modern fashion's sake his robes cut short just above his waist and were fitted like a jacket with block red lapels, only flowing out into the length of his body at the back. His pants were black ribbed leather and the black boots that reached his calves were a fitting fabric similar to his mask. The silver zippers that went from the centre of the foot to the rims of the boots was bordered by bright red lines on either side.

A purple-robed council member ventured forward to speak. "Right does not come into it my lord. The shield is degrading and we have no way to replenish it, if we do not reduce its range now then we will all be dead within a day." He was Joyce Rentham, a portly man with a neatly-combed mop of thin and feathery brown hair. Permanently dyed to try and guise his age. He was one of the councillors who wore matching trousers.

The Mask turned around to give him what they presumed was a despairing look. "And why must the people suffer while we stay unharmed and safely enclosed in our city walls? Ten thousand of them will die if we do this, our people!" He couldn't stop himself from seething in disgust.

Rentham replied without a flinch. "The shields must be reduced sir, no matter what the direction. Wouldn't you prefer the people who can actually run this island survive rather than the people who provide the sheep and the fleas?"

Another councillor stepped forward before The Mask recovered from his exasperated sigh and fired back at the man. "We knew this would happen one day, the sacrifice is needed to keep the remaining humans alive. If we don't then this ten year struggle has been for nothing." He reasoned with him.

The Mask looked at him with sadness in his eyes. The councillor was Baren, one of the most down-to-earth and reasonable members of the council, unlike his younger brother who jumped on everything put in front of him. Neutral brown leggings and a yellow jacket stood out against his dark skin.

The Mask scoffed bitterly and looked out of the window again, this time at the fields just beyond the natural rock formation of the city walls that suggested at the populated areas beyond them. "And yet here we are, slaughtering our own for a limited survival with DNA so twisted by radiation that we are completely at the mercy of our blood. Do we even qualify as human any more?"

Nobody answered. He rubbed his gloved hands over his mask and sighed again. "And the others? Have we heard anything from them?"

"Nothing sir." Baren replied.

"Nothing." The Mask repeated under his breath. "Keep trying. As always." He told him, only resigned now.

Rentham took this defeated mutter as a sign and stepped towards him eagerly with a young intern wearing a simple navy blue outfit that echoed The Mask's, but without the cape. The Mask's eyes immediately latched onto the digital pad that held a hologram of a an official form that the boy carried at his side.

"So I take it you'll sign?" Rentham asked The Mask, sickeningly endearing.

The Mask didn't even grace him with a reply as he whipped his right glove off obstinately and moved to place his thumb on the blue touch-pad below the form to authenticate his identity, and the order. His thumb only hovered over it hesitantly for a moment. In that second all the faces of every citizen not fortunate enough to live nearer the capital flashed through his mind. He wished with every inch of his self that death by radiation was a swifter one, then his thumb pressed into it. The print appeared on the bottom of the digital form, then the form vanished in a flash.

"Thank y-" Rentham started to simper.

"Leave." The Mask cut across him in a commanding tone. They all turned around and filed out without a question. Within seconds he was alone.

He looked out of the window again, at that space beyond the city walls. He knew the reduction of the shield would happen in instants once the command was given and the island's forces had a chance to retreat. Only the forces.

 He looked as much as he could bear, imagining all the children at play or school, their parents working the mines and the day-to-day needs and survivals of them all. He'd seen a toddler once, sitting in the dirt with a yellow dress almost as bright as her smile.

 He turned away with a sharp breath and leant on a gilded wood and marble table next to a bookshelf. He swiped a goblet, almost invisible other than the metal band that went across the design, and all the books off it with a twisted cry. His shoulders hunched up, he hung his head. The rim of his mask began to soak.

The goblet's rattling echoed.

A woman bolted upright in her pallet bed. Honey brown eyes rimmed with a deep chocolate colour darted around for the source of the noise that had woken her. They scanned the dull metal walls of her room, the rugged drawers between the door and the right wall and the large oval mirror hanging over it. She saw in her reflection what was blocking her vision, soft and jagged dark brown hair that fell over her face in every direction.

Realising there was nothing out of place, she brushed her hair back and picked uncomfortably at her dark khaki vest. The white t-shirt under it clung to her body damply, but the dry vest was tighter than she was used to. A scuffle and a muted bang of metal-on-metal from outside to her right made her tense up again and drew her gaze to the single porthole of her room.

She scrambled over the cold corrugated metal floor, regretting putting off getting a rug for it so much, and gently placed her hands on the edges of the round window. Already open, she raised her head slowly so as not to disturb the intruders. Nobody ventured out onto the wasted coastline without a purpose, even then not if they could help it, and certainly not to a rusty and abandoned ship from the past century.

There were five of them moving across the dirty beach from the worn road to the ship, one as muscled and broad-shouldered as a soldier, three of an average stature, and a taller but supple one. They all wore the fitted white and navy blue radiation suits of the island guard, but one only wore a clear helmet like a fishbowl as protection from the low radiation levels. A flimsy measure to keep their prisoner alive from their car to the ship. One of them she thought she recognised, another she definitely did. She rolled her eyes as his head of side-parted messy blonde hair turned around casually to take in the dismal surroundings like he was being taken on a sightseeing trip.

They passed onto the wooden docks, away from the dirty brown shavings that were neither sand or gravel and out of her sight. She took it as a signal and pushed away from the porthole and the cold metal walls with a sigh. Dropping herself down onto the edge of her low bed, she pulled on snug nylon-material tan ankle boots that zipped up the front from the centre of the foot.

Deciding that the unusually tight vest would have to do, she passed the various posters she'd attached to the curved walls over time and left through the rusty red door, not bothering to rotate the wheel to lock it again once it thudded shut behind her.

She stuck to the right side of the ship when she could, moving through the cabins and alleyways with a practised ease. It was not long before she reached a room that was cordoned off only by ageing plastic sheets. She pushed past them all and softly walked through to the end of it. It had never been finished. It was at the middle of the ship on the right wall, a good 20 or 30 feet above the entrance. The room stopped abruptly with no walls to prevent falls, only the skeleton of the ship covered the space between this side and the other. No noise came from the feet she placed one in front of the other as she walked across the beams with ease. She chose the beam closest to the wall of the ship and crouched there as she reached the middle, watching silently as the intruders entered her home below.

"Honestly, if you wanted to visit my home so badly then I would have accepted a visit." The blonde prisoner said to the captain of the guards as they passed through the radiation shield and they all removed their filter-masks. A guard removed his fishbowl-helmet for him, seeing as he was handcuffed. "Ok, maybe just so I could make sure I had other plans on that date and, well, ran away. But still, it'd only be polite!" He amended truthfully.

The burly captain brushed sweaty chin-length brown hair out of his green eyes and sent him a sour look. "Shut up." He told him tiredly. "Search the ship." He commanded the others.

"So you really are that interested?" The prisoner asked in fascination as the guards split up. The captain scowled. "I admit, what I've done with the décor is pretty amazing, but with such a hideous canvas it was kind of hard..." He continued then gave the captain a patronising look. "Come on, what do you expect to find? A plan to kill the president? Smuggled solar cells from China? We're the last humans on Earth, those things don't exist any more." He extended his voice to try and get his point across, but the captain turned away to receive a report from his guards. The prisoner watched him with wary eyes, then when he let out a frustrated growl he stood up straight with the half-amused smile that he had before. Having his hands tied behind his back only made him look oddly dignified.

The captain stormed over to him. "Where is she?" He demanded.

The prisoner leaned forward toward him with wide eyes. "Who?" He asked in utter innocence.

He scowled even more. "The failure." He sneered, the words he drew out giving him both pleasure and hatred at having to elaborate.

The prisoner replied without missing a beat: "Oh her?" He snorted derisively. "We split up months ago, she's got a harsh tongue that one, cuts right to the heart of you and throws it to The Cloud. But I suppose you'd know all about that wouldn't you, Jadon?" He asked, turning the attempt at bringing out a reaction right back on him.

Jadon flinched back a little like the retort had been an actual slap, then he corrected himself. He regarded his captive in disgust, that he actually dared to keep trying to provoke him, then ordered his guards to go and search the ship again. Not so gently this time.

"There's nobody here, Captain." The prisoner told him tiredly, with more than a hint of patronising to his tone.

The guards and their Captain stopped. Jadon turned around. "Then why did my men find two bedrooms?" He asked, using the term loosely.

"I like to change the scenery up now and then, and keep an eye out for fine visitors like you from both sides of the ship." The prisoner replied happily like he was passing on a family recipe.

Jadon shook his head at him and started to follow his soldiers to search the ship. "We will find her you know."

"So you keep telling me." The prisoner sighed.

Then Jadon held up his palm at the guard closest to the prisoner. "Not you. You'll stay here and watch him. And watch yourself, Ciaran Felix is a two-faced rogue who'll use his petty magic tricks and pathetic word games to cowardly slip out of your fingers the second you turned your back." He warned him, giving Ciaran another glare just to assert his disregard for him. Then he turned to leap up the ramshackle metal stairs two at a time.

Ciaran shrugged sheepishly and stepped back towards a break in the room's walls into a large alcove. He looked up at the beams crossing the half-finished upper floor of the ship, but anything that had been there was long gone.

The guard sighed in resignation as he placed himself in front of the adjacent wall to keep watch for nothing. He looked back at his prisoner suspiciously as he realised Ciaran had gone beyond his line of sight.

Ciaran had leant back against the blue opaque stained glass wall at the back of the room that was once used for storage, feigning tiredness and using his palms to support himself. He flashed an innocent beam of a closed smile to the guard and huffed outwardly to emphasise his "exhaustion" even more. The guard, a ginger man with a small knobbled nose and mid-ranged stature, quickly peered forward to scan around the room. Other than two pothole windows smaller than the width of either of their shoulders, four scattered piles of wooden boxes of varying conditions and a rusty standing bird cage, the room was empty. No doors, escape paths or hidden trapdoors in the flawless but dirty metal chequered plate flooring.

Ciaran watched his brief investigation with a smugly cocked eyebrow. The guard looked back at him and rolled his eyes, now regretting his assignment to the illustrious Captain Leon, and stood in the middle of the gap between the alcove and the main room. His back to the offending prisoner.

Ciaran waited a moment before shuffling to the edge of the wall.

The glass wall was not the back of the room at all. It was more two thirds near the end, and the wall was the same length across. However the true back wall was spaced and decorated to perfectly match the one that went across the middle of the room and hid the two escape routes behind it: a ladder to the head of the ship and a trapdoor to the lower levels. It was a feature that had been his winning point in many arguments of whether this ship had been a smuggler's or not.

He didn't flee behind it however, he only scrutinised the guard for any hint of movement and when satisfied, turned his head to the left, towards the wall's edge.

"Rae?" He whispered hesitantly.

The woman behind it clenched up. Though the blue glass squares were too opaque to see anything through from a distance, close-up you could just make out the silhouette of anything near it. She'd been watching his since he got there, but let him wait and uncomfortably twitch his eyes back to the guard several times before she finally responded.

"Two months." She stated to him as vehemently as a whisper could allow.

Relief filled him at getting a response, the corner of his mouth twitched up at the sound of her voice.

"Two bloody months and you bring me this?!" She continued and his soppy smile dropped.

The quick-witted cogs of his brain began to whir and flounder. "I didn't know you'd be here!" He tried to protest in a murmur.

Rae replied with a muted bark in the back of her throat. "I've been following the route we set up for if one of us went missing exactly, of course you knew." Ciaran paused but thankfully for him she didn't stop long enough for a reply even if he had one. "And of all the guards to get on your back, you bring him?!"

Ciaran's eyes focused on his rookie ginger guard puzzledly. Rae's eyes rolled, even though she couldn't see his jest.

"You know who I mean." She whispered dryly. "And now we'll have to abandon the best place I've found for us yet, great."

Ciaran's eyes stopped hesitantly watching his guard and shot back to glare at the glass wall she was behind. "You found?! What do you me-" He started to hiss louder than he realised. His guard looked back at the sound to see him standing up straight with the same charming grin as before. "Sorry, frog got my tongue." He said and hissed again, this time adding a pathetic coughing sound to it.

His guard squinted his eyes and shook his head in utter disdain and bafflement at the behaviour of the supposedly infamous criminal his captain was spending so much time on. He shrugged and turned back around, reasoning that this would be one to tell the other guards in the barracks tonight.

Rae cut across Ciaran as soon as she heard the catch in his throat of him preparing to speak. "It's 'Frog in my throat.' Not 'tongue'. If you're going to use ancient phrases at least get them right."

"I- What?" He asked and almost echoed the expression of his guard, thrown by the correction. He shook his head. "Look, I'll explain everything later but there's no time now. I know how to get them out of here." He murmured to the wall out of the corner of his mouth. He saw Captain Leon cross over one of the second floor beams opposite the alcove room. The ginger guard watched his progress too.

"What?" She asked when he paused, a small part of her welcoming back the hushed-last minute plans she'd missed with glee. A very small part.

The Captain passed beyond his line of sight. "I need you to go up to the bridge. When the fighting starts turn the air conditioning on."

Rae frowned slightly at his silhouette but decided to flow with it. "Fine, just don't hit him too hard." She murmured and turned to scale the ladder to fulfil her side of the plan.

Ciaran suddenly abandoned all concern for the guard and stuck his head around the wall. "Hey!" He hissed her back. "Do you mind?" He asked and waggled his bound hands up and down at her.

"Oh." She realised and moved forward to take hold of his bonds. Ciaran looked towards the guard again and tried to hide the fact he was only leaning on half of the wall so Rae could get to his hands. The guard was so bored though that he wasn't paying attention to anything except the cuff of his suit and the condition of his boots.

Rae looked down at the opaque tubes that criss-crossed Ciaran's wrists and she couldn't help raise her eyebrows. Not only criminal standard, but ones usually designated for the highest criminals possible. They were dark green that almost appeared to be plastic, except they were completely flexible, appeared to have a neon green thread seeping through the furthest edge of them no matter how much you turned them, and had absolutely no chink or way of cracking them open. Only a silver thumb-sized square pad connecting them could open them. She tried to upturn the pad and her suspicions were confirmed, there was absolutely no seam in the metal to break. Ciaran's fingers twitched up towards his palms as she brushed them. Realising that the handcuffs would easily take fifteen minutes to break even with the right specialised equipment, she simply placed her thumb on the pad.

The pad flickered with a yellow light beneath the surface on it then turned a solid green. The tubes retracted themselves from the pad and Rae caught them in her hand. She tried not to notice his hand lingering in hers as she slipped the tubes off them.

He flexed and twisted his wrists behind his back and rolled his freed shoulders but remained facing forwards. A wry smile crossed his lips.

"They still haven't taken your prints out of the system?" He asked.

She wrapped the cuffs into a coil and pushed them into the thigh pocket of her skin-tight cargo leggings. "Not when I've been able to help it." She replied quietly. He let out a humph of amusement to himself and she disappeared.

Pinning his hands behind his back once more, he hooked his gaze onto his guard.

"Lets get this party started." He murmured and flexed his neck to the side.

He shuffled up to the guard's side like they were casual neighbours. He looked up along with him at another guard's half-hearted searching of the rooms above them and tutted.

"This is all completely pointless you know." He said conversationally and the guard nodded along numbly. "It's just a typical set-up of his abysmally large baboon's ass of an ego to get one up on the intellectual dashing rogue who eternally defeats him by annoying him," The guard frowned with eyes almost popping out of their sockets and turned to look at him for the first time. Ciaran cocked his head as the guard's eyes widened further in realisation. "Do you think it'll work?" He asked, then waggled his freed hands above his head like a loon.

"How did you-" The guard tried to get his head around it.

"Magic trick." Ciaran informed him solemnly, before filling his popping eyes with his fist.

The guard fell to the metal floor with a resounding clang and a feeble cry.

Ciaran pulled his lip back at him doubtfully. "Really?" He asked and heavily placed a foot on the hand that was about to reach for his gun's holster. "Are you trying to destroy my ship?" He asked in exaggerated horror.

The guard roared, still somewhat pathetically, then and rolled over towards his prisoner, his arm clawing out to bash the back of Ciaran's knee and send him sprawling. He hopped out of the way but was still unbalanced and gave the guard enough time to get to his feet.

Ciaran laughed. "Now that's more like it." He enthused, waggling his eyebrows maniacally. The guard growled at them and went thundering forwards in a classic right hook. Ciaran stepped to the side and hopped from foot to foot, needlessly shielding his head with his fists. "Is that it?" He whined and sidestepped another bullish move from the guard. Deciding they weren't being loud enough, he let out his own guttural growl at the guard. He got a louder response and it escalated until it was basically just a threatening hopping and roaring match.

The other guards arrived with a thunder of footsteps fairly quickly.

Ciaran rolled his eyes as he heard them reach the stairs behind him. "Finally." He said and dropped his arms and stood still. The guard only had the briefest moment of confusion before Ciaran's knuckles collided with his ear and jaw, sending him down to floor again in a strange flop.

Captain Leon watched his rookie guard fall to his feet and he frowned up at Ciaran. "What are you doing?" He mused warily, knowing full well that he could have escaped a while ago instead of fighting the goon. Ciaran looked at him like an innocent rabbit in silence. An awkward moment passed then he was almost gleeful to be satisfied with the sound of eight massive fans and machinery beginning to start up and creak throughout the ship. "Didn't I tell you? I got an auto-start installed!" He grinned, nodding up at the massive tubes far above them that ran through the ship. The air was whipping their hair and the machinery was making the floor beneath their feet vibrate now. A conflicted buffalo was the only way to describe Captain Leon now, torn between flooring his elusive prey and fleeing for his life.

The guards began to shift uneasily. "Captain, we only have fifteen minutes!" The nerviest of them called out. The Captain's head turned to look at him and the door, then shot back to Ciaran.

Ciaran grinned. No wild eyes or cheeky gestures this time, only the smug knowledge that he had won. The ship he called home had been a salvaged find, it belonged in a museum. At hundreds of years old, nobody really knew how these savage metal beasts worked any more. Only that the ones that did work started with an uncontrollable jolt that could send you fifteen miles out before you managed to shift the rusted tiller, and it would take twice as long to get it back to land again. Certainly not within fifteen minutes.

The Captain had begun to seethe, he looked like he'd punch him down just for good measure, but he settled for just jabbing his finger at Ciaran venomously. "I will find her." He swore.

"Yeah? You're doing great so far." Ciaran replied with crossed arms, leaning back from any potential spit from the Captain's mouth.

With one last fuming jerk of his finger, Captain Leon cast his eyes murderously about the ship, searching for something that wasn't there, and shouted to his men over the noise of the full-speed fans: "We head back to the capital. Out, out now!" They didn't need any encouragement.

With the ginger guard cradling his already oddly shaped nose they all fled the ship, putting on their anti-radiation helmets as they left. Ciaran gave them a little wave as he rocked back on his heels, then when the back of the last guard vanished through the miniature radiation shield that covered the windows and doors of the ship, he span around and leapt up the stairs. Pulling himself along so he could go up them three at a time, he yelled: "Ok ok get them off! We don't need to be swept off to Oz ourselves!"

The fans compliantly shut down until only a low whirring and chop of the air remained. "Actually, turn on the engines, we can't stay here." He said as he jogged along the walkway that ran along the edge of the second floor to the helm of the ship.

Rae had turned the key, starting the hum of the engines, by the time he got there.

"Well, it worked." She said as he came in, completely negating it having any other kudos than that with her tone.

"Just as always." He replied lightly and immediately went over to the helm.

"Just like your last plan I guess?" She asked just as lightly. He gave her one glance before quickly looking down and started leaning over the dials and map screen.

She watched him thoughtfully and decided it could wait. "What did the guard mean? 'Fifteen minutes'?" She asked.

He became absorbed in tweaking levers and settings he had no reason too. He soon ran out of them, despite being ancient the ship was fairly easy to use once you knew how. His avoidance plan foiled, he looked back at Rae's suspiciously folded arms.

"...They're reducing the shields." He mumbled painfully as he straightened up and waited for the engines to catch up and take them out of the bay.

"What?!" She asked in horror, dropping her arms like she was moving through water. "Why?"

"I don't know, but they're calling back their valuable forces now. Fifteen minutes before the entire coastline is ashes." He spat.

Rae's face screwed up as she refused to comprehend it. Strange noises came from her throat as she repeatedly stopped and started talking. "But all the people in the villages- that's half the island! We can't let them do this-"

"It's already happening!" Ciaran cut across her in a strangled voice and began to turn the ship, avoiding the peachy coloured cliffs. "We don't have time for anything, if we don't get out of here now we'll be caught behind the shield too. The capital is the only place I'm sure they won't be cutting out of the shield."

That caught her attention. "The capital? Carthinon?" She asked and he mumbled his confirmation. "Are you sure that's a good idea? The capital. Last time we went there we were run out like dogs, you got shot!"

"I've got a plan." He said as they chugged out of the bay. She held out her hand for him to elaborate. "We pose as survivors who've been pinned off from the island, until now when the shield was reduced. People will be so berserk at survivors from outside the shield they won't even care who we are. Imagine the pandemonium!"

"And when they do realise we couldn't've come from beyond the shield?"

"We'll be long gone and out of the capital by then. When everyone realises what their beloved Mask has done, they won't even remember us." He said, bitterness coating his tongue again.

Rae nodded, then took in the expanse of the ocean before them. "But the capital's on the other side of the island." She pointed out.

"It'll be close." Ciaran nodded and set his mouth in a line. "But we'll make it." He said as if there was no other option. There wasn't.

Rae looked from his bunched, dirty beige-shirted shoulders to the furthest window on the left wall of the arching room. She was sure  she could see a purple shimmer of the island's shield on the horizon of the ocean, maybe even closer than that. She whipped her head back to Ciaran and looked straight ahead, only to be convinced she could see the same thing out of the front window. They were gliding through the ocean now at full capacity and the bay had vanished behind them, but Ciaran's hand was almost white he was gripping and pushing the tiller so tightly.

"Maybe we should put the radiation suits on." She suggested, looking at the open door.

Ciaran looked back at her strangely, if they went behind the shield nothing would help them anyway. "You can if you want to." He said and turned back to the window, staring at the horizon like he could will it closer.

She considered it, even went to the door. The ship was easily flying along at 75 knots, the entire ship was creaking and shaking in protest. The footing would be uneasy but Rae knew she could make it there and back fine. Then one of the large posters they'd collected and stuck up over time began to curl up. She frowned, it was right at the other end of the ship, but then she realised. It wasn't curling up, it was being atomised. The edges turned a crimson red, reacting to the radiation, before it ate itself up in black specks, until it was nothing. Everything of a similar flimsy material began to follow suit, then the rusted parts of metal supports on the other end of the ship began to disappear.

The shield had caught up with them. She slammed the door and twisted the wheel to seal it. It would do nothing about the radiation, but it felt better.

"Forget the suits." She muttered when Ciaran looked at her curiously as she took her place next to him. He only held her gaze for a moment before turning back to the open sea. She didn't need to explain, her ashen face was enough. He put even more strain on the tiller, making the veins on his arm pop out. It was a wonder it didn't break. He saw her pick at the fabric around her stomach out of the corner of his eye but said nothing, if he went even an inch closer to the island's cliffs they would already be corpses for the radiation.

Beads of sweat on their brows had turned into streams and dark patches on their clothing by the time all the stickers on the board with all the communication and power control buttons behind them began to turn black and disappear. Then the rubber buttons began to pop and be eaten away. One of the abandoned chairs fell onto its base as the legs gave way.

A prized wanted poster to Rae's right began to crumble and she saw the devouring of the radiation close-up. She pressed away from it and into Ciaran as much as she could. Then they both leaned forward as they began to feel a vile tickle on the hairs of the back of their necks. Rae felt truly sick, in no way she had before, and if Ciaran put any more weight into the tiller he'd end up sending himself flying out of the window.

The horizon was still distant, the sea endless, and the cliffs going on beside them with no clear end. Their vision was blurring and throbbing so much they could see nothing beyond their own hands, Rae clamped onto his free hand and she squeezed her eyes shut; the stories of what happened to those who strayed into The Cloud were many, and none of them less than stomach-churning. If either of them had wanted to say anything there would have been no point, their throats and ears were so clogged up no noise could have been registered by either, not beyond the shrieking of the crumbling ship.

Ciaran's fingers clawed into Rae's in response, both memorising every single inch of the touch. The only thing she could think of clearly was that his fingers were bonier than she remembered.

They knew this was the end.

Then Ciaran suddenly turned the tiller in a sharp right with all his strength that made him collide into Rae's ribs. For one fragment of a second the ship stopped, then all of the energy it had stalled thrust it forward. The cliffs were gone, they'd reached the northern coast of the island.

The pressure had increased so much neither of them breathed, then in one pop it was gone. The air was clear, they both gasped in unison as their bodies functioned again. Rae gasped incredulously and looked around them, only the destruction of the radiation remained. A breeze came in from a window that had had its sealing eaten away, they were in the shield again.

Ciaran began to shake. They looked at eachother and the laughter broke out of them uncontrollably. Ciaran pulled her head to the nape of his neck and closed his eyes with a hysterical beam of a grin, resting his chin on her head. She turned her head to the right as they embraced and watched as the towering crown of the island citadel's towers began to rise out of the rocks on the fuzzy blue horizon.

The gleeful relief vanished, leaving only pits in their stomachs. She pulled away and wrapped her arms around her waist. He returned to the controls and she quickly wiped the moisture from her eyes and cheeks in puzzlement. He wisely chose not to look.

Ciaran slowed the ship down and steered it out for a wide berth around the citadel and to approach the city's docks from the south side, so they'd at least appear to have come from the right direction.

He cleared his throat and rubbed his nose, but it did nothing to break the uneasy silence. One danger had passed, but now the only place that could offer them sanctuary had a life sentence on their heads.

Or was it death? So much had happened in the last two months he couldn't remember.

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