Marya sat hunched in her chair, feeling numb. The hard edge of the desk pressed into her arm. She didn’t move. When the moment had come. . . she’d done it. She’d murdered a child. She had chosen her friend over Solldero, and now that Solldero was dead, it was crystal clear that Malcav would not free her friend as he had promised. Marya had exchanged Solldero’s life not for the life of her friend, but for a few hours’ reprieve for him. And yet. . . wouldn’t she do it again?
They’d showed her videos. Live footage.
Her friends, gasping and moaning, and their fear at the tortures promised them. Malcav had given her the choice, knowing that whether she killed a child or allowed her friends to be tortured, she would be destroyed from the inside. Guilt was already consuming her.
Cay Vojen plodded wearily behind Elle, who had one arm around Zinnia and the other around Friya. Friya was still sobbing softly, and Cay could see tears running down Elle’s face whenever she turned her head. Cay had seen death before, on his uncle’s farm. He’d even killed a few chickens. But this was different, and the smell of Solldero’s blood clung to his nostrils. Cay wouldn’t have believed the boy could be killed, but it must have been impossible to escape the strange machine that had vanished so quickly. And then Solldero had been so brave, thinking of the other kids in the group and about his family, rather than himself. And…
Cay realized he was blinking back tears. He sniffled hard, then looked around for Okner. Okner knew everything.
Joran was trailing behind, his shoulders hunched and hands stiff in his pockets, as if trying to block out the world. Even farther back was Okner, drifting distantly. His gaze, which had been on the setting sun, coasted down to Cay when the younger boy dropped back to walk beside him.
“Um, Okner? I was wondering, because you know everything — or not everything, of course, but a lot! Or maybe it just seems like a lot to me, ‘cause I don’t know much. But you do. I mean—”
“I will endeavor to satisfy your thirst for knowledge, so far as my meager abilities may stretch,” Okner said with dignity.
Cay took a deep breath. Okner even smelled like books.
“I was just wondering…what do you think Solldero was going to say to me? When he—I mean…”
Okner dropped his chin to his chest and stroked his mustache with one finger.
“As the great Hoi Lufernus so aptly suggested in the unfinished second volume of his On Induction, the information from our first two samples may assist us in comprehension of the third, although so poorly developed. First, in addressing Ms. Stern, our erstwhile leader issued a command and a statement. The command entailed protection for and leadership of the remaining six members of our group; namely, ourselves. The statement implied that our illustrious ruler is to be feared, an assumption with which I now hesitate to disagree. It also mentioned an individual by the name of Malcav who appears to long for our premature expiries. None of these assertions seem to have surprised Leera, so it is logical to assume that she had reached the same conclusions on her own; that is, she knew already or already planned to act on his communications. Second, our companion Elle being an inarguably considerate person, it is reasonable to believe that the idea of informing the Noy family of Solldero’s death might already have entered her mind, or at least would have done so in the near future. I would therefore surmise that Solldero’s intentions were not to reveal a sudden mystery but rather to emphasize some important fact that was either previously known or close to certain in veracity.”
He offered Cay a sad smile.
“What precisely this may be, in your case, I must confess I do not know.”
Cay wasn’t at all sure that he’d followed, but he nodded gratefully and tried to close his mouth. It was clear to him that Okner did know, however humbly he might phrase it.
Elle Tonarych looked up at Leera from the ground. This was the second time Friya had fallen, and this time she had taken Elle with her. Zinnia seemed not to care whether they stopped or went on, but a glance back told Elle that the boys were not in much better shape. But Leera’s expression was twisted in anger, and guilt too, Elle guessed. They were all feeling guilty, for what they hadn’t done – however impossible it might have been. Elle’s hands still felt the pressure of that machine in her hands, and somewhere in her mind her horrified thoughts tumbled over themselves wondering whether she’d done something, pressed some kind of button, even though she knew she hadn’t.
Friya wasn’t crying anymore; she was too tired to cry. Elle got to her knees and tried to help her friend up, but the girl just lay there. They were all exhausted, physically and emotionally.
Elle looked up again at Leera. Probably their new leader felt unsure of herself, both in her new position or as to their next steps. Elle hesitated, trying to think of what to say, but Cay straggled up at that moment.
“Oh, good, did Leera call a rest? I’m so tired I could sleep on coals.”
“That would be inadvisable, my young-” Okner began from behind him, but a look from Leera cut him short.
“We stop here and sleep,” Leera said, raising her voice so that Joran, standing a little apart, could hear. “Tomorrow we will discuss our plan.”
Elle nodded to show support, but Leera had already turned away, so she looked back at Friya.
“Here, use your bag as a pillow,” she suggested.
As she lay down next to Zinnia and let her weary eyelids close, she thought again of Solldero’s family. She would ask Leera to incorporate that in their plan, as early as possible.
Joran Arundasi couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t not sleep, either, but that only meant he tossed and turned in brief nightmares on the cold, stony ground. Finally, he sat up. Leera was keeping watch, pacing slowly around the little group, but Joran could see she was barely staying awake. Only natural, he told himself. Sleep’s like food and water. Humans can’t live without it. But he couldn’t sleep.
He watched her for a little, but the idea of her noticing him watching her made him self-conscious. A couple of half-formed jokes flitted to his mind; he brushed them away quickly. He’d have to break the tension another way.
“Um, Leera?”
His voice seemed to take a long time to reach her tired ears. She turned slowly.
“Arundasi.”
She was waiting, but at the last moment his courage failed.
“I can, uh, stand watch. Can’t sleep.”
He would have said more, but she merely nodded and lay down right where she was. In seconds she was asleep.
Jor hunched in place, thinking. He didn’t think about his mother, or the last time he’d seen a device like the one that had killed Solldero. Those things appeared in his nightmares more than their fair share anyway. But what Solldero had done…he’d sacrificed himself. Just like…he pushed the thought away. Sacrificing oneself was hard. Seemed impossible, if it involved dying. But, however badly he wanted not to believe it, it was certainly the human thing to do.
Friya Aztlán had already wrapped the shawl Elle gave her around her shoulders before she saw it was her velvet one with the embroidered hem. It was too late to save it from the mud that was drying all over her. She sighed and dropped her face to her bent knees. That short boy, the one with all the jokes, was pacing back and forth, edging his way over to Leera, who still slept on the cold, bumpy, muddy ground. Friya’s mother would be horrified if she knew where her daughter was now, and in the company of little more than peasants! Friya idly watched Joran tentatively shake Leera awake — the girl came upright in less than a second, less of a peasant than a soldier — as she continued to muse. What was she doing here? She was a noble, not a…suddenly, she remembered the seed fight, running and laughing through the streets (running! And laughing aloud!) with handfuls of fluffy seeds, and Solldero, Solldero defending her…
The tears she’d thought were gone rose swiftly to her eyes, and she turned her attention to Leera and Joran. The way Leera sat listening, one leg crossed under her and the other bent with her arm resting casually on it, instantly marked her someone powerful, a leader. Friya copied her, but pulled her legs back up after a second. It felt all wrong. The only posture she felt normal in was court posture, with a stiff back and hands folded in the lap, toes delicately pointed in her fine shoes. Would she ever be in court again?
Leera Stern was wide awake. She knew this because her father had drilled her into being alert the second she was woken. So why did the conversation feel like a dream? Arundasi was crouched next to her, his eyes flitting nervously from his hands to her face to the ground as he murmured. She glanced past him, taking note of the miserable teenagers scattered nearby. They were in poor form, although Vojen seemed to be on the lookout…or birdwatching. She suppressed a sigh and nodded slowly to give Arundasi the impression she was thinking about what he was telling her. It seemed entirely irrelevant, although a good leader didn’t jump to conclusions. Something about his mother dying, and machines, and…if this was the setup for a joke, she would kill him. Well, hurt him. Her thoughts might’ve shown in her face because Arundasi faltered and wound up lamely,
“So maybe there’s something I can do. If we see it again.”
“The device?”
“Yeah. My father called it his bodyguard-”
“Your father owns it?”
From the look on his face, he’d already explained all of that, but he merely nodded.
“He designed it, yes. I just thought, maybe, I could help. Like…”
Rather than say Noy’s name, he jerked his head sharply and sprang up in a quick movement that drew the attention of the others.
Leera pursed her lips. She could think later; now was a time for action.
Zinnia Questel didn’t care how close the nearest town was. She didn’t care that they needed to buy more food and bathe. She sat and watched a twitch in Leera’s face as she bossed everyone around, ordering Friya and Joran to purchase bread and galvanizing the others into planning their next moves.
Zinn didn’t care. She had failed, and someone was dead because of that. ‘You can’t help everyone,’ her mother would say, and Zinn put new meaning in the pain in her mother’s brown eyes. Her mother was a real doctor, licensed, but there must have been people she hadn’t been able to heal.
Solldero had called her a healer, but what was the point if she couldn’t save someone when it counted? She remembered the way his pulse had pounded under her hands as she pressed cloth to the gaping wound in his chest. The way he’d fought to keep his eyes open, say his last words, while she’d fought to keep him alive. She hadn’t done it. His blood was on her hands…metaphorically and literally.
After a moment, she realized she was rocking, staring at the dried blood cracked in unreadable patterns over her fingers and palms. Someone put a hand under her arm and pulled her up; she barely registered Leera. I failed him. Now he’s gone. There is no second chance.
Okner Annersap was in favor of cleanliness. He’d studied hygiene in its various forms from when natural springs were converted into public bathhouses to when a foreign queen made ice baths all the rage (at least among the wealthy). He’d also read Nath Spyeman’s The Invisible Enemy and Ellana Torcoree-Bekser’s What is Dirt? after his mother told him three times to clean his room. However, he objected to abluting in public fountains. It was undignified to hurry over one by one and splash water on one’s face and hands. Zinnia had the right idea, he thought. She reminded him of the little-known knight Sir Willem Bestel who had refused to respond to an attack at dawn because he hadn’t finished trimming his beard. Granted, his men had immediately surrendered in disgust, but he admired how slowly she scrubbed her hands, especially given that Leera was already fuming under her breath.
A glint of copper caught Okner’s eye. Hadn’t the prolific author Lorienne Twol written something on early copper mining in Calcor’Bolad? He was trying to remember the title when Leera suddenly shouted, kicked his legs from under him and threw herself at the ground. The thought that she had lost her sanity and the sight of flames reached his mind at the same time. The same orb they had first encountered by the Doar was suddenly visible, hovering for a second in the air over their heads before zooming toward the fountain where Zinnia still sat. Leera shouted again, almost a scream, and Zinnia looked up, but she didn’t move. The attack on…? Dolimar’s tragic…? The traitor princesses…? That was it. Only one of them had been a traitor, for love of the general of the enemy army, but when her sister died at the hands of the army she had granted entry, she refused to leave and was eventually killed – purportedly through a miscommunication – by a soldier of her own country. Except when the copper device vanished again, leaving a trail of screams and smoke, Zinnia was still alive. Her arm was bleeding, though, rather heavily. Okner looked at Leera, whose face was grimmer than King Volar’s when his sixth child proved to be another girl. He rather had the idea that they were making history.