Echoes

Chapter 6

I woke to the sound of cages rattling. I sat up in the darkness, grasping to remember where I was. I couldn't tell what time it was, but from ruggedness of the road under the truck, I decided we had made it into the Tiburr Mountains, outside the wall. On one side of me, Gavie was curled into a ball with his back still facing me, so I couldn't tell if he was asleep or just ignoring me. On the other side, Pix sat with her legs crossed and her eyes closed. I sighed. I wondered what Josh told Ravi. He was smart, he probably figured something out. At least, I hoped he did. Pix opened her eyes after hearing me shuffle around.

"Sorry if I woke you," I said quietly.

"You didn't, I wasn't sleeping," she stated.

"Oh," I replied. "Alright. Any idea where we are?"

"Heading west through the Tiburr Mountains. We should reach the coast by tonight," she answered like it was no big deal.

"How do you know that?" I asked.

She shrugged. "I was born of earth. I always know where I am, as long as I'm on the ground. Once we get to the ocean, I'm completely lost. That's what Gavie's for, I guess."

"Huh," I said. "Guess I'm not the only weird one here."

Pix closed her eyes again and I was left with my thoughts. I wondered about the other captives, but there wasn't enough time to catch them up with our plan, or to get them all out alive. I knew that was going to stain my conscience for the rest of my life but there was really nothing I could do about it. Every time the truck hit a bump, Pix hit her head off the top of her cage, frustrating her to the point that she gave up on her meditations. We decided to pass the time by asking each other questions about our lives.

"You're from Tenai'i, right?" I asked. "What's it like?"

"Well that depends on which part," Pix started. "The whole archipelago is covered in thick jungles, but no island more so than Auni'la. I don't really remember much about it though, other than the black sand on the beach. Hanaka's kind of different, it's technically a city, and the capital, but all the buildings are raised off the ground and no more than three stories. It's a big port town too, I remember seeing all different types of ships."

"That sounds like the exact opposite of Alvion," I noted.

"Well, what's Alvion like? I didn't really get to see much of it," she asked.

"Not as great as you'd hope. Sorry to disappoint. It's basically just rolling fields and small forests. We have a lot of farmland and one big lake in the middle of the nation, with a river that wraps around the inner wall, where the capital, Nessum, is. I've only been there once, as part of a birthday trip with my adoptive brother," I explained.

Pix's eyes were wide with curiosity. She reminded me of a little kid.

"How old are you?" I asked.

"Hard to say exactly, since I haven't celebrated a birthday since, well, never. Maybe seventeen?" She guessed.

"Huh, I could never imagine not celebrating a birthday. I should be nineteen in a couple months," I said. "They didn't really teach us about the cultures from the other nations, other than the fact that they were ruthless barbarians."

Pix let out a shrill laugh, like a high pitch flute. "I assure you, even though I grew up on the streets, I only fight if it's a last resort."

I looked over Pix, with her tiny frame and baby face. There's no way this girl could do any heavy damage, but I wasn't going to say that to her face.

"I'll take you word for it," I said, smiling.

We bumped along for another hour or so and continued talking about life. I felt bad for Pix, not only because of how awful her family was to her as a child, or how she lived on the streets, but because through all that, she finally got somewhere she thought she'd find a better life only to be swiftly kicked out. Gavie eventually woke up after we hit a bump and he was thrown against the wall of his cage. He grumbled and sat up, swearing.

"Where are we?" He muttered.

"Tiburr Mountains, a few hours from the coast," Pix repeated for him.

He grunted. "Good, I need to breathe in that sea air again."

Pix looked scared just hearing the word sea. Gavie raised an eyebrow.

"Sorry, I just don't handle boats well," she said, her voice shaking. "I'm kind of a land person."

"Well, you're about to get your sea legs whether you like it or not," he jeered.

Pix turned green. "I'm just gonna concentrate on the ground for a while, before it turns into waves." She turned her back to us and curled up on the floor.

I took the opportunity to ask Gavie about something that had been eating me alive the night before.

"Gavie, you said you're Ekotian," I started. "Can you do anything...weird?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary, why?" He asked.

"Well, I heard like, these rumors in Alvion that Ekotians were immortal. They're not true, right?"

Gavie didn't say anything for a few seconds. "We had similar stories told in Krie. The older folk in my city say that the pureblood, original Ekotians couldn't be killed and that they lived forever, but nobody's a pure Ekotian. They died out sometime before the Migration, when the blood became too mixed."

"Too mixed?" I asked.

"The Priyankitanians," he said. "They migrated to Ekota almost three thousand years ago, and the two cultures blended. Some pure Ekotians isolated themselves around Mount Wanea, but they died off years ago, before the 'Great Migration'." He put Great Migration in air quotes.

I stared at the floor, taking it all in. But it didn't make sense.

"Do they not teach you this stuff in Alvion?" He asked slowly.

I shook my head. "They give us a basic history lesson of when everything happened and explained how the immortal Ekotians tried to overtake those without power, causing the civil war and migration, but that's about it."

Gavie threw his head back and laughed. I sat there confused. He caught his breath after several seconds.

"Is that what they teach you? Oh, I can't wait for the elders to set you straight," he chuckled.

I furrowed my eyebrows. Gavie gave me a sly look.

"What?" I asked. I hated it when people kept information from me.

"I can't give you the full story, but I'll tell you this: there's no such thing as the Ekotian Civil War."

I must have looked pretty confused because Gavie started laughing again. I waited until he was done laughing to freak out.

"What do you mean there was no civil war? Why else would we have migrated?" I asked, dumbfounded.

Gavie only smirked. "Like I said, I'll let the elders tell you the rest. Gives you something to think about for the rest of the trip. He was right, because it was all I could think of for the next few hours. The truck came to a screeching halt. We waited in silence and I dropped my hands to my lap again. The doors opened and flooded the truck with the salty smell of the ocean.

"Time to go," Gavie muttered. Cage by cage the slavers packed us onto a small ship. Even though it was dark I could still see the ocean from the headlights of the truck, and it was fairly daunting. I took one last look at the shores of Alvion, and was tucked away below deck.