Page 70 of The Infinite Glade
“Oh, child.” Alexandra rested her palm against the girl’s face. “One of us must die in order to save the rest. There is no grander gesture in all the world. And I wasn’t going to let it be you.”
Sadina went as still as Roxy, her eyes dropping to the ground.
Just as she’d wanted, confusion and chaos reigned as the news spread. People were running this way and that, in every direction, no one quite sure what was happening. Rumors created more rumors. Her lie grew and blossomed, then grew some more.
It had worked. Of course, it had worked. She was a Goddess.
Alexandra slipped away from her group. She ran for the cover of the strange forest, still growing within the Glade after all these decades and decades, like a blight.
The darkness had a smell which reminded Isaac of the waterfalls inside the caves of the cliffs back home. Earthy. Unforgiving. He limped behind Jackie, Miyoko, and Ximena, who still held a hissing, sparkling light, through the tunnel beneath the mountain. He ran his hand along the side of the dark rock wall that rose and arched high above him. The echo of Cian and Erros talking ahead of the group made Isaac want to pick his words more carefully.
“Frypan,” he whispered. “Two lefts and a right . . .” There weren’t any markings in the rock, and he needed to make sure they could find their way out of the cave system.
“Way ahead of you.” Frypan knocked his walking stick against the wall then gestured at the dirt beneath them. He’d been dragging the point of his stick into the earth, leaving a deep groove to guide them out.
Or guide anyone else in.
Isaac shivered at the thought, not knowing if it was good or bad.
Alexandra heard the betrayal behind her as she fled.
Sadina was shouting at the soldiers taking Roxy away. “No, she’s wrong! She’s not the Godhead! Please, don’t take her!” Sadina then screamed, but that only enhanced the distraction Alexandra needed to escape. 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13 . . .
Her Pilgrim cloak slowed her down, but shedding it would only show them her true garments. The Goddess ran from the commotion as fast as she could, waiting for gunshots or screams from behind, but there were none. She ran a path between pockets of Pilgrims and Remnants, distinguished so well by the colors of their clothing and the way they stood. Her Pilgrims looked defeated, slumped over and beaten, and the Remnants stood on the heels of a power Mikhail didn’t deserve. Had never deserved.
Alexandra’s hood slipped as she ran; she quickly pulled it back over her head.
“Goddess!” A Pilgrim reached out and grabbed her, spinning her to a stop. Tattoos covered his face, tattoos of names.Thomas. Newt. Alby. Chuck.“You . . .” He stared at her with a fanatical, almost evil smile.Zart. Minho. Winston.The names of Gladers of Old, staring back at her along with the face of the crazed Pilgrim.
The Goddess fought to get free from the desperate grip. “No, you’re mistaken.” She pulled her hood tighter with her other hand as she wiggled to break away. “Let me go.” She dug her nails into the Pilgrim’s arm. “Let go of me!” she demanded.
But he didn’t budge or loosen his hold on her. His eyes widened with lunacy. “You . . . you tried to have me executed in front of the whole city for yourowndeceit. You killed Nicholas. . . . It was you, not me! The Godhead killed their own!” the tattooed Pilgrim shouted to the others behind him. “The Godhead lives!”
Another Pilgrim ripped at her cloak. “It’s you . . . ?” she whispered. “It’s really you. Here in the Maze to save us!”
“She’s here for flaring justice!”
“Goddess!” Pilgrims flocked around her.
“Flaring justice! Flaring justice!”
“Calm yourselves!” Alexandra commanded, but without her podium, without her guards, without her song and dance and all the trimmings, she was nothing. The Pilgrims were out of control.
“Let go of me!” she screamed, growing desperate with panic. She never should have made her people so dependent on her. Remnant Guards were closing in, now. She’d drown a slow death in the pitiful Pilgrims’ desperation.
“They’re crazy,” she said to the soldiers, shaking her head. “Absolutely mad.”
“The Godhead lives!” The tattooed Pilgrim held up Alexandra’s hand and a soldier released his grip from the Goddess.
“Thank you,” Alexandra said. “They’re crazy. Mad. Absolutely mad.”
“Come with me.” The soldier pulled her by the hood of her cloak, nearly choking her. He was joined by others, at least a dozen.
“No. You have to believe me—they’re crazy! They’re all crazy!”
The soldiers dragged her to the center of the Glade. It was all falling apart. All of it! The Evolution, all of it! She screamed, a thing so loud that surely the very stone walls of the Maze shook from its power. Her heart was melting inside her chest.
The tattooed Pilgrim chanted behind her.
