Today was a day for stockpiling. As Gemma had told me, the Recorder has complete access to all locations and can draw wherever she sees fit. I planned to draw in a place full of supplies for the journey I would make.

Dashing out of the Conclave building, I rejoiced that my ankle had healed nearly overnight if you called two weeks overnight. A decently stubborn sprain, it had only taken its sweet time leaving me alone.

I was going to run until I found a storage house or my legs gave out. On my back, my little backpack bounced, full of my sketchbook and pens.

I darted through crowds of laughing people, this day being a Rest Day. Strangely, this was another similarity carried across to the settlement. Here, the only difference was that they called it a "weekend".

The main road I was on lead in two directions, to the gate, and to the mall, and for now, I was heading to the mall. A quick check of the Records Hall had given me a full map of the settlement and turning to the left just before the mall would lead me to a row of massive buildings, formerly known as warehouses.

The streets were packed with people eager to learn self-defense in response to the terrible threat looming above us all. The clamor of worried people set me on edge. Fear leads to terrible things.

Though the truth about Ottosen had been revealed, no one knew the true danger lurking in the forest. Children played along the streets.

"Ready or not, here I come!" A little boy uncovered his eyes, running past me in search of others. It seemed like a variation on Hide and Tag. He was supposed to have said 'Ready or not, I'm it!' I almost liked the new version better.

As I ran through the streets, people turned and pointed; they knew exactly who I was. The murmurs were near silent, but I felt the pressure of their eyes. They only knew what I was, not who I was. I was too used to this kind of attention.

I shook off their eyes as I slowed. The mall was in sight and I was unprepared for the heat. Gemma had given me more clothes in the past weeks, soft sleeveless tops and shorts in different colors and patterns. Even in a flowered 'tank top' and gray shorts, the sun beat down on me harshly. My run slowed to a walk and I turned left, heading straight for a massive building at the end of the street.

The building was full of rubble; parts of the roof had caved in, yet the walls stood tall and protective of their goods. I tried yanking the door open, but two solid pulls did nothing to open the space to me.

Maybe this wasn't the right warehouse. Turning to my left, I took in the long line of massive buildings. One of them would have supplies, right?

Leaning against the door, I took a break. Running was hard work and here I was wanting to cross the Between. I slid down the door, its smooth surface letting me reach the floor easily. I was being foolish by leaving this place, but we're all fools for love.

Being a fool means putting everything on the line for a hope, a promise with no guarantee of fulfillment. You just hope you put your faith in the right place and follow the falling star.

Looking to my right, I snorted. This place was so overgrown that I couldn't see the other warehouses past the bushes. But I could see the wall of this warehouse and it had a vent. There was my falling star.

Crawling over, I started yanking at the vent. With two tugs it came off, revealing a way into Warehouse Five. The hole was my size and there was nothing to do but to crawl through it to the inside.

There, bricks and metal bars were piled in huge mounds but beyond the mess I could see what I wanted; boxes that could contain everything I needed. Clambering over the mess, I started tearing through the boxes, setting aside food and water and all sorts of supplies.

It seemed to be an untapped flow of goods the settlement had never found. Placing my supplies in a pile, I stood. There was enough here to last me three weeks in the Between. With a bag full of these, I could make it all the way to a City and then find him.

With the sun high overhead, I headed back through my vent and down the road, sweating in the heat that shimmered on cracked pavement. I had to sketch something for the Records Room before evening fell, but what would I draw?

Did they want to remember the mall as it was on a Rest Day; empty and silent? Or were they looking for the images of the old days; children playing and smiling in the sun?

There was so much I could show truthfully that I didn't know what was best. I could manipulate the image of the settlement just by choosing specific things to draw, but that wasn't my job.

Instead, I sat in the mall, the huge doors having parted for me loudly in the silent space. On the tables were the wares of the settlement; scavenged clothes, bright colored decorations and toys sitting in rows.

They all appeared on my paper easily, as if this was what I had wanted to draw all along.

It was almost too simple; my mind had near immediately found the truth and effortlessly shown it. What meant more than all the things people leave behind? Leaving their goods, their livelihoods out for the taking showed the boundless trust of the settlement.

Maybe trust was simply a fundamental part of Souls. Or had the Gathering drilled the concept of trust in our minds? After all, there were no locks on any door in any City.

By now, the light that had been shining in from the wide glass windows was dim and dwindling.

I was going to miss training! Scooping up my sketchbook and pens, I tossed them in my bag and ran out the doors to the street.

A sunset spread above the mall, breathtaking as only wild sunsets were. I stored the vibrant reds and soft yellows in my head for later, deciding to make that my next drawing. I should have focused more on the people in the settlement, recording them to stand the test of eternity.

I walked on, moving straight for the group of people crowded. At the front stood Theo, starting to organize people into groups.

I stuck myself in the back of the mass, blending in carefully to wait for my turn. I really saw little point in learning to fight for a city I planned to leave, but it was best to keep up the appearance of a skeptic.

"Melanie Baird?" I stepped forward, pushing my way out of the mass to stand before Theo. "You'll be with my group." He shook my hand warmly, eyes shining bright with pride at the program he was putting in place.

By now, the sun had set, revealing hidden stars far above us. I held my arms close, the night chill an extreme contrast to the heat of the day. A group had formed around me again, a murmuring mass of people.

Talk of the danger had spread like a panic because that's what it was. And panicked soldiers are no good in a fight.

"Over the past decades, our ancestors scrounged our haven for supplies to survive far from our old home. Most were sent to various storehouses for the future, but not the weapons. The knives and occasional sword were kept in the barracks to train Guardians and prevent killing. Now it is necessary for you to fight."

Theo turned, bending down to chests behind his back. Pulling one open, he rifled around in them. The crowd around us grew more frightened, a strange reaction that had once lead to my exile.

When he rose, it was with knives in his hands, still sheathed in a possible threat. We would face a similar sight later, only unsheathed and ready to kill.

"We will survive if we can all defend ourselves. Come line up for a knife and we will begin." We lined up in the near darkness, torches the only light as we each received a knife. Theo handed me mine with a smile, and I disappeared again.

Everyone seemed to know me, and their whispers followed even when immersed in the crowd. It was the awestruck power of it that worried me. I wanted to fade in their memory, but by saving their settlement and not being Severed, I was emblazoned on their minds.

"Today we plan to start the basics with the intention of reaching dual knife fighting within two weeks. Please pair up quickly so we can begin." I held the knife loosely in my hand, wishing this wasn't necessary.

To my right, I met the eyes of a honeyed blonde girl. Moving to introduce myself with the perfect shy smile, I froze as she was pulled off by another girl with springy bronze hair.

I knew that hair! As they moved further through the crowd, I pushed towards them. If Mara was here then she was fine!

A hand on my shoulder stopped me. Who dared touch me? Their hand warmed my cold shoulder but I shoved it away as I turned.

Behind me stood a stranger with ashy blond hair swept neatly across his forehead. I turned awkwardly, his warm earthy eyes twinkling at me charmingly as I met him straight on. He had an inch on me, making him a five foot ten to my five nine.

My breath caught in my chest, a disgusting feeling as he wasn't my Soulmate and couldn't be. But he did have golden hair like my Soulmate's feathers.

"Will you be my partner?" His mouth was tweaked in a slight smile as he spoke. Partner? I already had a partner but she left with Mara. This boy wasn't important, Mara was! I turned over my shoulder to go find Mara, but he placed a strong hand on my shoulder.

"Are you alright, Melanie?" I turned back to the boy, unused to being so well known in the settlement. He stared down at me with hazel eyes, concern flickering in raised eyebrows and widened eyes. Who was he?

"How do you know my name?" I squinted at him; had I been so lucky to stumble upon my Soulmate?

"Almost everyone here knows you; you're the still Soul who showed us all that Leader Ottosen was a Traitor." He stuck out a hand with a grin. "I'm Elliott Wayne, from Skyview. Now will you be my partner?"

"Skyview," I said before rushing on, "A guardsman was from Skyview." Elliott simply stood there; my words obviously had no effect on him.

"We're the only two left so hurry and choose between me and no one."

Disbelief that I had found him grabbed a hold of me and I stared at my knife, pulling it out of its sheath.

It was a knife for slashing, long and slender with a hilt of black plastic. On the blade, a faint etching flickered in the torchlight, reading "Chris L." Like the rest of this city, the knife was a relic of people long since ended.

"Fine." I looked up at him, determined to figure out his Truth. "Aren't you a Guardian?"

Theo lead us through exercises on slashing, deflecting, and stabbing. Everything we tried in pairs was with sheathed knives only but that didn't stop Elliott from using his full strength in every attack.

"I am now," Elliott said as he slashed harshly at me. "Don't feel bad if you can't keep up. This is my livelihood."

He sent me sprawling with a vicious 'stab' to the gut. Bruised and humbled, I laid on the ground for a minute, the grunt of training pairs around me. I moved to lift myself off the ground, stopped again by a sheepishly offered hand.

Focusing on his hand, I let him lift me to my feet. I brushed stray raven hairs from my face and nodded gruffly. Then I let my face settle into a hard mask and attacked. With a few thrusts and slashed, I managed to drive him into a wall. We had fought our way into a doorway and now I had him pinned on the deep oak door.

My sheathed knife trembled at his throat and I looked him over. Gelled hair, hazel-gold eyes that burned in the torchlight, slightly crooked nose; all were characteristics of a boy who might be my Soulmate. Now I just had to see his Soul. It was time to employ the bold Melanie.

"Skill or no skill, I've nearly died three times, at least, in the past month. Trust me when I say I'll do whatever it takes to make it out of here alive." My face burned as I leaned closer. He had been toying with me through the fight but now I was done. "People like you only get in my way."

His face hardened as he looked down on me. Meeting his gaze, I kept my knife against his throat. The plastic sheath bobbed as Elliott swallowed deliberately. He wasn't impressed.

"This training session is over, please return all knives and head to your rooms." Just in time, Theo dismissed us and I released Elliott.

Pulling my backpack off the ground where I left it, I stashed the knife in it and left. Beneath the slivered moon I walked back to the Conclave building, tired of this world where people knew me for what I was.

If I had lied properly, he would follow me. His reaction was the key to knowing whether he was my Soulmate. Was it premature of me to hope?

I had made it nearly a block down the cream cement when my lies were answered. Or rather, manipulations of the truth.

"Make it out of here alive? That doesn't sound like someone who wants to stay here very long; impending attack or not." Elliott hurried after me, catching my shoulder once more to spin me around.

"What would you know about how I sound? It seems to me like you barely know me." My challenge hung in the chilly air like a warm breath.

"It isn't hard to see when someone wants to run. You keep your head down, ignore everyone else. If you want to run and be a coward, that's fine with me but don't waste Theo's time. The rest of us are here to fight for the settlement."

I stepped forward staring him down. He wasn't like me, he didn't know me.

"Look, I have a place to return to and my Soulmate is relying on me to return. Bonding with him is the only way I can imagine that would restore my Soul." Irritated, I thrusted my arm at him, relishing his shudder at the wrong image on my wrist.

But that should have been astonishment as he realized it was a match to his own.

Confused and concerned, I hurried on. "That has been frozen for eight years; maybe that's because I haven't met him yet. This place and all its people are beautiful, but there's more out there for me than false love." I shook my shoulder free from his grasp and kept moving down the road away from the boy mirroring my doubts back at me.

"Melanie, wait!" Footsteps pounded on the pavement behind me as he caught up again. Would he show me his Soul now?

"What?" I twisted to look at him hopefully for the last time. These stubborn, dramatic turns were getting tiring, Especially because he never said what I wanted him to.

"I still have family there," Elliott said, his voice softening. "Do you know why I'm still here?"

"Because you want this out of bonds love. Family is nothing without your Soulmate." I crossed my arms, still waiting.

"No. I'm here because what the Gathering told us was love is only one form of it and if that part of our lives is a lie then what else are lies?" He slid a hand through his hair, ruffling it slightly.

"A lie with love is better than truth without it." I nodded as I spoke, keeping my head clear of his ideas.

"Well, do you really believe in sympathy? My family sure did. I was a duty to them. And I bet your family does and your Soulmate. Here is free love," Elliott said, sweeping an arm around in the dark, "so don't throw it away.

"You think it's free love, but it comes with a price. How much do you even know about it anyway?" I kept walking, Elliott following close beside me. Ahead, the Conclave building stood tall and silent.

"I know plenty. Meet me in the Records Room tomorrow morning, there's lots you need to know before you decide to leave here." He jutted up his chin, surveying me from his perch.

"Fine. Good sleep, Elliott." We stopped before the Conclave building, Elliott walking to stand in front of me.

"Good sleep, Melanie."

His offer was strange and something I wasn't prepared for. Cheeks burning, I dashed into the void of the building. Even if I couldn't see them, I knew his eyes burned hot on my head.

As I blindly climbed the stairs, his words stuck with me. He didn't believe that anything was worth returning to the Gathered Cities. I didn't agree, but it seemed safer for my Soulmate and I if I stayed here. With everyone preparing to defend the city, there had to be no risk of the settlement falling to the Traitors.

If he was my Soulmate, it made all the more sense to stay here and meet with him in the morning. He could try to turn me against the Gathering but none of that mattered if he was my Soulmate.

I was dirty and Untrue and I lived outside of Soul bonds but maybe I could still find my Soulmate.

I finally reached my floor and pushed the door open to the beautiful home. No fire burned in the fireplace; either Theo wasn't home yet or he was already asleep.

Yawning widely, I padded down the hall and slid silently into my room. Laying atop my soft lavender comforter, Skylark slumbered peacefully.

Trying not to wake her, I switched my sweat-soaked clothes for cool sleep clothes. I curled up beside Skylark, watching her small chest rise and fall. I grew drowsy too, letting the troubles of today fall off my shoulders.

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I awoke just after dawn, sunlight crashing through the windows beside the beds. Rolling over, I felt for Skylark's small form. The mattress beside me was cool; she was probably in the Conclave Chambers with her parents.

I shook off the complacency of comfort and dressed for the heat. Meeting Elliott in the Records Room was only one part of my day, albeit possibly the most important. Then, I would be free to sketch. The small backpack beside my bed slung itself nicely on my shoulders as I left the painted forest.

Snagging ahold of a spare breakfast bread as I moved out the door, I headed for the Records Room. Heading down the stairs one flight, I flung my hair over my shoulder.

What was Elliott going to tell me? What could he say that would keep me from leaving? The Between wasn't safe for me with the Traitors planning to attack but the longer I waited here, the sooner they would send my Soulmate off as well. Unless he was already here.

Mounting the final flight of stairs, I saw Elliott sitting beside the glossy wooden doors down the hall. He rose as I approached, bright eyes pulling away from a well-read book to focus on me. My heart thudded. This could be the end of my journey. He would save my Soul.

"Good day, Melanie. I'm glad you came. I already grabbed some books for you to look at." A smug smile crossed his face and he crossed his arms in satisfaction.

Inwardly, I snorted. He was acting so rudely today. But I had been pretty rude the night before and it wouldn't do for him to treat me as I had treated him.

"Good day, Elliott. Before you show me anything, I just wanted to say I beg your forgiveness. I have wronged you and wish to erase my faults." I twisted my thumb. Maybe the formal forgiveness would erase my wrongfulness.

He cocked his head at me, unsure of what I meant.

"I was really tired of people telling me what they believe is right and that I'm wrong. Everyone here is so sure that they know the truth but I don't think like that." I held my arm awkwardly, truth spilling from my lips instead of a convenient lie about being tired.

"How do you really feel?"

"Well, it's hard for me to think like you do since I still have a chance at true love. For now, it's definitely safer to stay here where we can defen-"

A loud blast sounded, shaking the whole building. I met Elliott's wide eyes, scared to look out the window beside us. What could have happened?

         Icy panic filled my heart, breaking our frozen terror to move as one toward the window. We pressed our faces against the warm window pane, trying to see what tragedy had befallen the city.