Page 1

If life was measured by the lessons I’ve learned, I would be immortal. – Khalani Kanes

Whoever first said “there is nowhere to go but up,” lied. Things can always get worse. Always. You can plummet further between those cracks and crevices, because no true rock-bottom exists to halt the descent of misfortune.

Khalani Kanes knew that lesson better than most.

Heavy shackles chafed against her wrists and ankles. Every movement invited a stinging pain where cold metal met skin, but it was the towering dais in the center of the room that drew her attention.

JUSTICE PREVAILS

The Apollo Anthem, carved deep into the stone dais, stared back, mocking her with its falsehoods. Justice didn’t exist in the surreal hellscape of Apollo. Not for those who needed it most. Its definition had been warped into a weapon long before Khalani was born .

A colossal guard with deep scars carved into his mangled face yanked her to a rough halt in the sentencing hall. Torches formed a broad circle along the walls. The flickering shadows against the rocks made the space ominous and disturbing, which was probably the point.

Dread manifested inside her, so profound that it nearly took a physical presence. She could smell the bitter fragrance, taste it against her dry lips. Her lungs expanded to grasp more oxygen, but even the air was tainted, a thick layer of regret composed of the sins and screams of those who died where her trembling feet were held anchored to the ground.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

The echo of polished shoes drew her gaze.

An overweight man adorned in a black robe approached the stone dais. His bald head managed to reflect light, even in the dim cavern. The guards stiffened and stood straighter at his presence.

The Master Judge was here.

He assessed the room with a demented scowl, and his gaze descended on her. Khalani’s body shrunk, trying to make herself as small a target as possible. Her limbs would’ve been chopped to pieces and discarded in a fire pit if looks could kill.

The Master Judge patiently sat, perched high above her. “Do you know what this is, Miss Kanes?” he asked, a permanent X embedded in the pale skin between his brows, while he held a familiar black book.

Khalani rubbed her fingers together as the handcuffs shifted against her wrists. Words failed to escape her mouth, as if her tongue had already been twisted and cleaved out.

“This is betrayal,” the Master Judge continued. “Betrayal of the highest regard against Apollo. Who did you share this information with?”

Her gaze lifted in disbelief. They didn’t know…

The feeble muscles in her back shook and bowed at the weight of her choice. But there wasn’t a choice. Khalani already knew what she had to do.

“No one.” She swallowed tightly .

“Do you know what Apollo used to do with liars, Miss Kanes?”

Her body visibly trembled, heart jackhammering against her chest, and he smirked.

“We’d leave them on the surface,” the Master Judge whispered in a disturbing tone, leaning forward. “Their bodies burned from the immense radiation as they banged on the doors, begging to be let in as they gradually melted away. You have no family to speak of. There’s no one alive that loves you. No one would think twice if we left you outside Genesis to burn and rot. So, I will ask one more time. Did you tell anyone about this book?”

There’s no one alive that loves you.

The words reverberated off the stone walls and sank into Khalani like jagged, cruel knives. Her hands balled into fists, but nothing would claw back the raw truth of his statement.

She used to believe that love was like the sun. Unseen in the underground. Unwavering. A bright spot within a bleak universe. But love wasn’t like the sun.

Love was like gravity. Pulling and tugging you down to the deepest depths, exposing your core vulnerabilities, ripping barriers apart, and leaving you with nothing but space.

Love was what made her open the door that fateful night.

One month ago, when Douglas rushed into her house past curfew as if a pack of rabid rats were chasing him, she didn’t turn him away like any sane person would’ve.

When his hands shook as he revealed the black, tattered book that appeared centuries older than her, she didn’t leave. When he opened his mouth and said, “I need you to keep this for a few days,” her answer should’ve been a resounding, “No.”

But she ignored the obvious red flags and insisted they were a deep shade of orange. Douglas was her only friend in Apollo, and it didn’t matter that he was sixty-nine years old and smelled of old books and watered-down whiskey. Friendships don’t have to make sense to those outside it. She first noticed him eyeing her peculiarly as she ate on the ground outside her apartment.

For a whole year, he walked by, silently studying her while she sat on the dirt. Then, one day, he suddenly spoke. “Is the road comfier than a chair?”

She glanced up, surprised that the old man was talking to her. She even looked over her shoulder in case he was talking to some other weirdo eating dried cereal on the cobblestone.

“Probably not.” She turned back around. “But my ass likes being closer to the ground. Reminds me where I’m going someday.”

“That’s morbid.”

“No, just changes your perspective. The place you eat should be a comfort zone, so I’ve decided that eating on the ground might make me comfortable with the shitty parts of life. Should try it someday,” she replied, returning to her meal.

Khalani thought he’d left the strange girl eating on the road alone, but her eyebrows rose when he sat next to her, groaning as he stretched his legs out.

“Well?” she asked after a long but comfortable silence.

He snorted. “Well, it’s not the most pleasant my bones have ever felt. But maybe you’re right and change only comes with pain.”

Douglas ate with her on the road every week after that. She learned that he worked in the Archives, the mysterious building that housed artifacts from the Great Collapse, but he never revealed details of his job. Not to her. Not even to his family. That should’ve been her first warning sign to stay far away from anything he asked her to keep hidden.

Douglas insisted he would return soon to take the book back. “Just hold onto it for a few days. Please,” he implored.

It was the fevered way he spoke that did her in. She agreed to keep the book temporarily and waited for him to knock on her door. But he never did. It wasn’t until she entered the town square and found his body hanging in the streets with the word THIEF carved into his forehead that she realized what he’d done.

Khalani should’ve returned the book then. If she was smart, she might’ve been able to avoid being murdered too. But she wasn’t sane or normal.

She was alone. The kind of alone no one desires. The kind where you think you want to drown, but in reality, all you want is to be saved.

The word “poetry” scribbled on the cover didn’t mean anything to her. But when Khalani found the courage to open the pages, she swiftly realized the contents weren’t beautiful, picturesque, or gentle. They were raw. Unrestrained. Every word, laced with passion and vigor, awoke a part of her she didn’t know existed.

She continued reading because it was the first time her brain and her heart dared to be on the same page. She kept it to escape. To be free. She read to stand on the earth and bellow out her dissent.

When the guards barged into her home days later and arrested her for a theft she didn’t commit, Khalani stayed silent. Not because she was a martyr. But she no longer found comfort residing on the ground.

“Speak!” The Master Judge’s voice snapped against her like a whip, swiftly drawing Khalani back to the present.

“I told no one.” Her voice was firm and unyielding.

If she revealed the truth, that she shared the book with Douglas’ wife, the Master Judge would kill their whole family. She wouldn’t allow that to happen. It was her final bit of strength. The only sliver of good left within her body.

They could take the rest of her empty pieces.

The Master Judge shifted forward, studying her ashen face. Despite the fiery dread coursing through her, she held his stare.

The Master Judge frowned and leaned back. “It’s no matter,” he stated calmly, but his serpentine gaze promised punishment. “If anyone was involved, we’ll sniff them out like the vermin they are.”

He called a guard forward to the dais, passing the book down to him. The guard threw it haphazardly inside a metal bin and proceeded to fill the container with a dark liquid. Khalani’s chest rose in rapid breaths as the crude scent of gasoline blanketed the air.

The Master Judge’s mouth curved up at the panic in her eyes. “ Do it,” he ordered.

The guard grabbed a torch and lit the bin on fire.

She wanted to scream . To let every ounce of pain screech from her desperate lungs. But no breath or barrage left her lips. The red flames tethered Khalani’s focus as her body hypnotically swayed side to side. Liquid pooled in the corners of her eyes. She couldn’t tell if it was from the smoke or her own despair. It was hard to know what was up and down. What was real or not.

Fire licked, cracked, and tore through one of the final things on this Earth worth saving. And a sick, gruesome part of her wanted to jump into the flames and burn too.

“If it was up to me, all those useless artifacts in the Archives would be destroyed.” The Master Judge wiped his hands. “I would love nothing more than to watch your body hang in the streets, so everyone can see the traitor you are, but the warden has contacted the court. His prisoners keep dying, and that’s unfortunate for you. Death would have been quicker.”

Shock snaked through her mind as his words slowly registered.

No.

“The Court of Apollo sentences you to life in Braderhelm Prison.” The gavel struck the stone slab, sealing her doom.