Return to Maren: The Exiled Trilogy

By Katherine Barger

The exiles escaped from Burgus—the most notorious prison in America—and fled to the safety of Fortune's Fall. But Nyssa Ardelone stayed behind with the hopes that she can convince the president that the exiles mean him no harm—despite his prophetic dreams that have convinced him otherwise. With a fake dream implanted into his dream recorder, Nyssa's confident she can make him believe that his survival is conditional on the exiles' safe return to Maren. But the task proves harder than she anticipated when she discovers the dream has sound in it, something that's never happened in any previous prophetic dream. Suspicious, the president becomes more unpredictable than ever before, and if Nyssa can't figure out why the dream has sound, reuniting with her family and friends in Maren might prove impossible. 

 

With the help of an unexpected friend, Nyssa uncovers the truth behind the sound as well as long-buried secrets about the president's past, a past that the president will do anything to keep hidden, including the total annihilation of the exiles. To protect the exiles and ensure their safe return to Maren, Nyssa will confront the president one final time, and its outcome will either give her everything she ever wanted, or destroy everyone she loves.  

• Language: English
• Publisher: Anaiah Press
• Release date: Oct 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9781954189430

Book preview

Chapter

One

G et her out of here, President Omri says.

He steps back from me—disgust hardening his eyes—and stalks to the head of the table, past the guards with their downcast gazes, their expressions cloaked in shadows that the dim lighting of the underground bunker can’t erase.

I don’t bother to hide my growing smirk, despite the pain it causes. My lip—busted from Omri’s smack—pulsates like it has its own heartbeat, and blood from the swelling wound oozes down my chin. But I don’t bother to wipe it away. I don’t care about the pain. I don’t even allow myself to consider the fact that I’m stuck here, in Burgus, the most heavily guarded prison in America. Milo is beside me, and his grip on my arm is enough of a reminder to me that I’m not alone. That somehow, we’ll keep moving forward.

An image of the Colossus arcs through my mind. Its ascent into the sky and its disappearance over the western horizon. My heart soars with it for a brief moment. I still can’t believe that the exiles are on their way to Fortune’s Fall. That we managed to pull off such a massive escape from Burgus.

I lift my chin as my resolve grows to do whatever I have to do to ensure the exiles ultimately achieve our end goal. With Pallas safely on her way to Fortune’s Fall alongside the other exiles, I’m on my own to interpret the reconstructed dream that I managed to implant in Omri’s dream recorder. I have to convince him of its truth: that his survival is conditional on the exiles’ safe return to Maren.

But Omri isn’t dumb, and the escape of eight hundred prisoners will make him more suspicious—more paranoid—than ever before. Still, I have to believe that staying behind was the right move. Omri might hate me, and he’ll definitely suspect I had something to do with the exiles’ escape, but he also knows I’m the only one who can interpret his dreams. He’ll put the lie patch on me and believe what I say. I’m an asset that he can’t afford to lose, just like I told Greer.

Greer. My breath hitches. I clench my jaw and make a conscious effort to push him from my mind. The only way I can ever hope to see Greer again—to see anyone I care about again—is to focus all of my attention on Omri.

I said get her out of here! Omri slams his fist on the table so hard that it rattles.

The guards seated at the table jump in a singular upward movement, so comical and seemingly choreographed, that I almost laugh out loud. But I keep a straight face in light of Omri’s own expression. His shoulders are rigid. His mouth is contorted with frustration. Both are physical manifestations of the rage I’m certain is boiling inside.

"Get that girl out of my sight now," Omri says through gritted teeth.

I’ll take her, Sir, Milo says, and his grip on my arm tightens. He takes a step backward, forcing me to move with him, and we turn toward the bunker door. Omri and his Guard have been locked inside since they believed an attack on Burgus was imminent. Their fear was intentional, pushed into existence as part of the plan to get them out of the way so that the Colossus could escape undetected.

No, Omri says to Milo in a quiet tone so different from his earlier outbursts that a shiver of foreboding races down my spine.

I don’t mind, Sir, Milo says as we pivot forward again. Where should I put her?

You’ll stay here, Lieutenant, Omri says. You lost her once, and I don’t trust that you won’t lose her again. He turns to the guard at his right. Take her to Pallas’s old cell. And make sure she actually gets there.

The guard leaps to his feet and marches to Milo and me. He wrenches me from Milo’s grip without a word and pulls me to the door, opens it, and shoves me through. I glance over my shoulder at the closing door and get a last, quick glimpse of Milo’s back. He stands rigid now, too, a mirror image of Omri’s angry stance. Only I get the sense that, unlike Omri, Milo stands frozen in fear. He seems to have recognized what I’ve just realized. Omri is questioning his loyalty, and if that’s the case, Milo is in danger.

But I can’t think about Milo anymore because my new guard yanks me up the stairs toward the main floor of the Annex—the administration building in Burgus—at a pace much too fast given the thick darkness. The power outage that enabled the Colossus to get away undetected is still going strong, and I trip almost immediately, unable to see where one stair rises to meet the next.

A sharp cry of surprise escapes my lips when my knees hit the step’s hard edge, and I clench my teeth as I struggle to my feet.

Hurry up, the guard says on a growl. I didn’t sign up to be your babysitter. I have more important things to do.

More important things to do? I roll my eyes as he drags me onward. You mean go back downstairs and sit at that table while you wait for the power to come back on?

Watch yourself, he says. Or you might find you’ve accidentally fallen to the bottom of these stairs. It’s a long way down.

If anything happens to me, Omri will kill you. Don’t forget he ordered you to get me to my cell safely. I jerk against his grip on my upper arm. I guess nobody’s bothered to tell you I’m kind of important.

I don’t care how important you are. His fingers pinch through my prison uniform and bite into my skin. Accidents can happen.

Not to me they don’t. I force my legs to keep up with his, even though my bruised knees ache in protest. My bravado might get me hurt even more, but I almost wish injury would happen if my pain gets this guard punished as a result.

The guard doesn’t say anything else to me though, and we march up the remainder of the stairs in tense silence. When we reach the main door, he pulls it open, and we step into a hall that’s too quiet. Weak light filters through a handful of open doors, but I don’t see a single person as we march down the hall toward the main entrance.

At the main entrance, the guard yanks open one of the double doors, and we step into an afternoon turned sweltering and humid in the aftermath of the storm. The sky remains overcast, and the prison yard is awash with soggy debris. The trees along the river, which were bent almost in half during the tempest, now stand as though they’ve been petrified, stunned into statues by the previous violence of the weather.

The guard pulls me around the Annex and away from the view of the river to a line of vehicles that sit parked in a row. Get in. He opens the back door of the nearest one and shoves me down into the seat.

I’ve barely tucked my legs inside before he slams the door. A moment later, we pull away from the Annex and turn right, toward the rows of prison cells that run alongside Burgus’s eastern side. The cells are housed in long, gray buildings that stand three stories high. They’re nothing more than primitive rectangular boxes behind which rises the steel fence that keeps prisoners contained.

Another vehicle passes us, heading toward the Annex, and its driver is the first sign of life I’ve seen since we left the bunker. When we park at the block of cells where I assume I’ll be held, I see at least some of the other absentee guards. They patrol the buildings’ perimeters in pairs, talking and laughing as though nothing unusual has happened. That the country’s most historic prison escape didn’t happen today.

My guard pulls me from the vehicle without a word and drags me inside, into a hall made of concrete that’s porous and cold when I brush my fingers against it. We pass cell after cell, my steps double-time to his long strides, and ascend a staircase at the end of the hall.

We’ve just stepped onto the second-floor landing when a strange whirring sound seems to emanate from all around us. The guard yanks me to a stop, his shoulders taut with alert, and pulls me close to his side. But his concern doesn’t last long. Lights flicker up and down the hall before they come to brilliant, steady life, and he gives a whoop of triumph.

That didn’t last long. He chuckles and jerks me down the long hall. That plane that got away will get shot down any minute, mark my words.

I stumble again to keep up as my skin pricks with fear. Burgus is back on the grid, and in much less time than I’d anticipated. With the prison up and running again, the guard is right. Omri is free to communicate with the Air Guard. How much time does the Colossus have before the hunt for its whereabouts begins?

I take a deep breath and try to quench my rising panic. Surely, my brother Jek, the pilot flying the Colossus, will have taken every precaution to keep the plane off radar. I’ve no idea how long the journey to Fortune’s Fall will take, and all I can do is pray they’re close enough to land before the Air Guard finds them.

Wonder how important you’ll be after it’s shot down. The guard pulls me out of the way of three guards who jog around the corner and hurry past us, saluting my guard when they pass. He ignores them, drags me to a cell at the end of the hall, and tosses me through the open door into a gray room. Gray walls. Gray bed. Gray floor. How did Pallas stand this dismal monotony day after day?

Safely delivered, the guard says to me, his voice dripping with sarcasm. Enjoy your stay. He steps back and slams the door, locking me inside with a decisive click.

I stare at the locked door, my ice-cold palms pressed against my thighs, my chest heaving from exertion and panic gridlocked together. Fear has grabbed a foothold with the electricity’s return, and every worst-case scenario of what might happen to the Colossus races through my mind with wild abandon.

I close my eyes and count to ten, willing my racing heart to slow and my confidence to return. Seconds tick by. Still, I can’t seem to find the willpower to move or release the terror that’s now wrapped around me.

I know I said I doubted You, God, I say out loud, though I keep my eyes closed. And I’m not going to lie, I still do. But I also know that You got the exiles out of here, and I have to believe that if You got them this far, You’ll get them all the way to safety.

The only response is silence, of course. But I’ve grown used to that. Somehow, though, just by saying that short prayer out loud, of reminding myself with spoken words of all the miraculous things that have already happened, my fear begins to retreat.

I open my eyes and take a deep breath, then force myself to cross past a small bathroom to stand in front of the window. My view is of the exiles’ side of Burgus, and I can see the floodwaters that still lap against the buildings and flow along the road that connects this section of the prison to the exiles’.

Though the rain has stopped, clouds still hang low and heavy, and it’s on them that I fix my gaze. I have to believe that You brought me here for a reason, too, I say in a whisper, and I press my fingers against the glass. That You gave me the courage to stay behind for a reason.

The scene outside my window remains unchanged, the silence hangs around me. With a sigh, I drop my hand from the windowpane and press my arms tight against my sides. So, this is what I’m going to do. I pivot to face my room, my chin jutted, my shoulders pulled back as though I face an invisible army. I’m going to believe that whatever comes next, God, You’ll be here with me for that, too.

Chapter

Two

Sometime later, I hear the lock click open on my door. I’ve retreated to the bed to stare up at the ceiling, trying not to think about the Air Guard chasing the Colossus. But at the sound at my door, I sit up quickly, and my brows shoot up when Milo steps inside.

You shouldn’t be here. I swing my legs to the floor and walk toward him as though I’m going to push him back into the hall. Omri’s suspicious of you. It’ll look bad if someone sees you talking to me.

Milo holds up his hand, stopping me in my tracks. I just came to tell you that I think the exiles are going to be okay. Omri ordered the Air Guard after the Colossus the moment the power came back on, but they haven’t been able to locate it.

Relief pours through my legs so fast that they begin to shake. Do you think they’ve made it to Fortune’s Fall already?

Milo glances at his watch. They should be there soon if they haven’t gotten there already. It’s not that far, and the Colossus is fast. He glances over his shoulder and steps farther inside. I know you’re right about Omri being suspicious about me. So, I’ll make this fast. He pulls a small, palm-sized tablet from his pocket and holds it out. You need this more than I do. It’s how I used to communicate with Ethelind. We used an encrypted channel, and you can use it now to talk to her or anyone else you need to in Fortune’s Fall.

I take the tablet from him without speaking and press it to my chest. Thank you, I say in a whisper, but my stomach twists into a guilty knot. If it weren’t for me, Milo would be on his way to Fortune’s Fall with Ethelind and all the others. I’m sorry I asked you to stay. I should’ve let you go with everyone else.

Milo shrugs. That was my choice. You didn’t force me to do anything. Besides, you needed an ally here. He nods at the tablet still clenched against my chest. You might not have a lot of opportunities to use that. I’m guessing things are going to change for you come tomorrow morning.

I frown. What do you mean?

I mean that once Omri has that dream you put in his recorder, things are going to be different. The dream plus the exiles’ escape, not to mention all these rumors about the wheat getting destroyed—

Wait, what? My arms fall to my sides, and I stare at him, confusion wrinkling my brow. What are you talking about?

There are all sorts of rumors floating around right now. Supposedly, the storm completely destroyed the wheat crop we’re contract-bound to send to Asia in the fall. So, you know, that problem plus losing eight hundred prisoners has Omri panicking. My guess is he’ll be heading back to the presidential compound pretty soon, and I doubt he’ll leave you here, especially after he has that fake dream you snuck into his recorder. He’ll want to keep you close.

I nod slowly. If everything goes the way it’s supposed to, Omri will have the reconstructed dream tonight, which means you’re right. Tomorrow, everything changes.

Do you think you can make him believe what the dream claims is going to happen? Milo raises his brows. You and I never really talked about it, but Ethelind filled me in before she got out of here. Tread carefully, Nyssa. He’s extra paranoid now.

I give him a grim smile. Oh, I know. I begin to pace, thinking through everything that’s already happened and what I have to do now. Before I fled the presidential compound to go to Fortune’s Fall, which now seems like ages ago, Pallas interpreted a dream from Omri’s recorder that showed two people would rise against him and cause his downfall. The dream enraged Omri. It terrified him, too. But everything was made even worse because at first, Pallas chose to lie to him about the dream’s true meaning to protect the exiles. When Omri learned the truth, Pallas was arrested.

I stop in front of the window. Greer and his brother, Gideon, are the two people who are prophesized to bring about Omri’s downfall. Omri still doesn’t know that detail, and we have no idea how everything will play out, but the thought of Greer going against Omri…

I squeeze my eyes closed. None of that matters right now. The most important thing for me to focus on is how to get Omri to believe the fake dream over the former, true one. Getting him to believe it is the only way the exiles can have safe passage to Maren, our true home; otherwise, they’ll be forced to remain in Fortune’s Fall forever.

I have to make Omri believe that prophecies can change if events leading up to them don’t go as planned. I turn toward Milo. "He has to believe that this new dream overrides the old one, that he’ll live if he allows the exiles to return to Maren. I tuck the tablet into my pocket and press my palm against it. I’ll do what I have to do. And you do what you need to do to stay safe. Promise me that."

Milo nods. I promise. He ducks his chin toward my pocket. Don’t let anyone catch you with that tablet, alright?

I give him another grim smile. Don’t worry.

Milo stares at me a second longer. Take care of yourself, Nyssa.

I clench my jaw, nod. What will you do now that you know Omri has his eye on you? Will you stay here?

Milo shrugs. I’ll try to keep my head down. He takes a step backward, toward the door. Tell Ethelind hi for me. And tell her I’m sorry. I’m guessing she’s not too happy I decided to stay with you.

I snort. Ethelind’s generally not happy about anything.

Milo smiles, but it’s wistful and sad. She was happy with me. He turns and leaves before I have a chance to ask him to explain.

I stare at the now-closed door for a moment, trying to imagine Ethelind as anything other than grumpy. The truth is that she has seemed different since our reunion in Burgus. Her friendship or relationship or whatever it is with Milo seems to have done something good for her. She’s braver now, kinder, too. Without her and Milo’s joint effort, the exiles never would have escaped yesterday.

I pull the tablet from my pocket and turn it on, waiting with impatience for the screen to light up. It’s an older-model tablet, not one I’m familiar with. But it seems easy enough to use. I press a circle on the center of the screen, and a single box appears, revealing a text thread between Milo and someone named E. Ethelind, of course. I type a brief message.

Are you there?

I wait for the message to go through, but it sits without delivering.

They’re fine, I say. Milo said the Air Guard hasn’t found them. They just haven’t landed yet, that’s all.

But waiting for official word that the exiles have reached Fortune’s Fall is going to be hard. I flip the tablet off and scan the room for a good hiding place. The only option seems to be beneath the bed, tucked into the shadows in the back corner. I worm my way beneath the bed and slide the tablet up against the wall. It’s almost invisible, so long as no one pulls the bed away from the wall.

With that task complete, I have nothing to do, and I wander back to the window. The clouds have begun to clear, and twilight has turned the sky purple. The prison yard below swarms with guards now. Pairs patrol the perimeter, vehicles come and go between the prison buildings and the Annex, and a lone helicopter soars toward the river, disappearing over the trees.

Back to business as usual. And soon, my job here will begin, too. Tomorrow, Omri will wake up having seen a reconstructed dream on which the entirety of the exiles’ future rests, and I have to make him believe the lie.

Prophecies can change if the events leading up to them don’t go as planned, I say out loud.

I hope Omri believes what I have to say.

Chapter

Three

In the morning, my summons comes with a vengeance. One moment, I’m asleep; the next, my door opens with so much force that it slams against the wall.

Get up, Ardelone, says the guard who stands in the doorway. The president wants to see you.

I sit up on the hard mattress and swing my feet to the floor. My eyes are gummy, and my brain is fuzzy, still enmeshed in the deep slumber I was in until a moment ago.

Coming, I say, but my voice sounds thick, like I slept with cotton in my mouth. Give me a minute. Somewhere in the recesses of my mind, I recognize that this is it. Omri has had the dream, and now I’m being called on to interpret it. Still, my body can’t seem to shake away from sleep. My legs are sluggish, and my head falls forward.

Nope, the guard says. Shoes on now. Let’s go.

I force my head up and stand, wobbling slightly. The guard bends and throws my shoes at me. They hit me in the thigh before they fall with a thud to the floor.

I glare up at him. Seriously?

Tick tock.

I ignore him and—with a burst of anger-driven strength—slide into the small bathroom before he can grab me. A small triumph that unlocks my energy. I shake my arms out at my sides and take a few deep breaths. I want to be wide awake and prepared for this coming meeting with the president.

There’s no mirror in the bathroom—which is just as well—but I manage to swallow a palmful of water before the guard grabs me from behind and tosses me back into the room.

I said shoes on, he says.

I narrow my eyes at him but bend to pull on my shoes without arguing. The moment I finish tying them, he yanks me up and into the hall, dragging me toward its end and the stairwell that will take us to the main floor.

Outside, the prison yard is a hive of activity beneath a cloudless blue sky. Guards shout at one another, and a line of yellow-uniformed prisoners waits to board a bus.

Where are those prisoners going? I ask.

None of your business. The guard opens the door to a black jeep and motions for me to get inside.

I press my nose against the window as we cut across the yard and veer toward the Annex. The bus filled with prisoners pulls forward and heads in the direction of the road that connects this side of Burgus—Mainside, as it’s called—to what was once the exiles’ side.

Are they moving prisoners to the other cells? I ask the guard.

Shut up. He pulls up to the Annex, steps from the jeep, and pulls me from the car in three fluid motions.

Inside, we march down the hall and straight to Omri’s office. He’s already waiting. He stands behind his desk, which is framed by unfiltered light that pours in from the windows on either side, and he’s dressed as always in a black suit, his silver-streaked hair slicked against his scalp. His gaze, while unreadable, never leaves my face.

Put her there, he says to the guard without preamble, and he points to one of the two chairs that sits in front of his desk.

The guard deposits me without a word and leaves. I grip the edge of the chair and try to ignore the tightness in my chest. I’m afraid to move, afraid that any action, no matter how small, might give away my anxiety, and that can’t happen. This meeting has to go perfectly. Any small mistake on my part and everything could come crashing down.

Omri pivots to the screen mounted on the wall behind his desk and taps it. The screen turns blue.

A dream for you to interpret, Ms. Ardelone. He glances over his shoulder at me, and his nostrils flare, the first sign of emotion beneath his cold exterior.

I turn away from him and focus on the screen, clenching my jaw in anticipation of what I know is to come.

The dream that appears on the screen is familiar to me, of course. It’s identical to Thaddeus’s dream that I was called on to interpret when I reached Fortune’s Fall, at least it is at first. Birds perch on a line of boulders that sit along the center of a river enclosed in a canyon. The birds shoot up out of the canyon and fly across a valley, toward a line of snow-crested mountains that frame the horizon. But their way is blocked by an oak tree that rises up from the center of the valley.

This is where the differences between the two dreams begin. In Thaddeus’s original dream, two pine trees rise up on either side of the oak and press it down into the ground. Those pine trees symbolize Greer and Gideon and their ultimate takedown of Omri, who’s represented by the oak. In this reconstructed dream, however, as the pine trees grow taller, so, too, does the oak. None tries to dominate the other, and the birds dart through the gaps between the trees and soar toward the mountains. Once they disappear on the horizon, the dream focuses on the trees, which