by Jess Corban
You shouldn’t have pushed her so hard.
I have no rebuttal, no excuse. “Please, not you, too.”
She’s already gone, and it’s your own stupid fault.
“No,” I whimper, a tear finally forming from the tiny fragments of feeling lodged impossibly deep inside. “No, no, no.”
Neechi pushes through a nearby bush. “Dom Reina?” Seeing Callisto’s still body, his face clouds over.
“Help me, Neechi. I can’t leave her like this.”
Without a word, he bends down and begins covering her with palm fronds, concealing her chestnut and white tobiano coat with a lattice of green. I wander along the edge of the pool, westward, searching for fitting burial clothes for my loyal friend. Sixty meters from camp, a small waterway stops me cold. The crystal-clear water cuts through the moist Jungle floor, swishing around mossy rocks and pooling in miniature eddies, its breadth just wider than could be jumped across.
A stream.
And it’s heading roughly south, maybe a little west. Nearly the same direction the Mare was running last night.
If I had any emotions left in me, I might smile—maybe even whoop in victory. But as it is, I turn back to camp silently, arms full of leafy branches, vines, and sprays of delicate flowers.
Neechi has gone. I kneel beside Callisto, cut lengths of brown and white hair from her tail, and braid them into a circlet for my wrist. To keep a piece of her close to me. Then I use the foliage I gathered to arrange a meticulous shroud. A vine here, a giant monstera leaf there, bird-of-paradise and fuchsia, all blanketing her with life—vibrant life, to cover her absence of it. I brush the paper-thin, bloodred petals of a hibiscus against my lips before setting the flower on the center of the mound.
I don’t know if horses and people go to the same place when they die, but just in case they do, I whisper, “Take care of them for me.”
Bri and Neechi keep a respectful distance as we pack up camp. Jonalyn offers a sympathetic hug, briefly sandwiching—but careful not to smash—the baby between us. “I’m sorry, Rei. I know she meant a lot to you.”
I kiss her cheek in thanks, then gather my rucksack.
“We’re heading south today,” I say. “This morning I found the stream that should lead us in the right direction.”
“You can ride with me,” Bri offers, avoiding my eyes.
Used to the feel of bareback, riding pillion suits me fine, but Neechi insists I use his bedroll for padding anyway. The smoky black mare has no trouble carrying us both. She’s strong and obedient, and as sleek as an Alexia steed should be. Bri has taken to calling her “Horse,” which seems an appalling offense to such a fine animal, but I don’t have the will to fight her on it just now.
As we mount the horses, that nagging feeling of being watched returns. I glance around but find nothing out of place, and the waterfall makes it difficult to hear much of anything. I’m probably just paranoid.
The shallow, largely sand-lined streambed creates a level path through the tangle of brush, making progress much easier than the previous days. Other than the occasional low branch or jutting boulder, we’re able to move at a decent pace.
The enclosed Jungle world would almost be enchanting if I could contemplate beauty without it tearing at my raw insides. But grief makes loveliness painful, so I don’t think about the delicate rays of light filtering through the canopy, or the unique texture of a strange succulent vine winding hundreds of miniature green pads around a rough limb. Nor do I let myself dwell on the too-generous slice of cheese Neechi passes me at lunch, or the tender kisses Jonalyn places on her baby’s head while he nurses. Instead I let every fine detail pass in a thoughtless blur, unable to cope with beauty, kindness, or love for the aching void in my heart.
Before night falls, we discover a cave large enough to sleep in. We’re not the first travelers to use the natural shelter; a charred fire pit marks its opening. I wonder if Mother slept here, a Brute infant lying on a pile of leaves next to her, the way Jonalyn tucks her baby to her side now.
Bri and I finalize our shift assignments, then try to get some rest. Even when I’m not guarding the cave entrance and horses, I barely sleep. Every snap, every rustling in the treetops, could be anything—a snake, a jaguar, or maybe Dáin, come to prove I made a mistake by releasing him.
On the third morning since crossing the border, we eat the last of Marsa’s carefully packed provisions: one stale sourdough loaf, two strips of dried meat, and a cupful of taro-root mush portioned between the four of us. In the silence, I hear their collective fears: What now?
I splash my quarter of dry bread with a little water to soften it up. “There will be food when we arrive.”
Bri shoots me an And when will that be? glare, but is either too exhausted to parry, or doesn’t want to hear the answer.
I’m not sure I can handle the answer myself. I have no clue how to find food in the Jungle. If we don’t reach Tree Camp soon . . .
Jonalyn stands and sways with the infant, keeping him soothed while slowly chewing her share of the meat. I hand her my bread.
“You eat it. For the baby.”
Bri throws a sideways glance at the bundle in my sister’s arms before handing over her share too.
I know Jo would never take our food for herself, but for his sake she doesn’t refuse. I touch his tiny palm. His fingers curl around mine with slow, jerking movements, like a sensitive plant. His eyebrows arc, and his mouth works, grimacing, then widening in a big yawn. Something shifts in my chest, loosening the vise grip of grief. For the briefest moment, I can smile at this little life, so full of wonder and potential. In the span of seventy-two hours, he has made me dislike babies a little less. In fact, I feel a strange attachment to the child.
I don’t want him to grow up in a Hive or get brittle bones. I don’t want him to ever have to choose between the stinger or a phase-out facility. In bringing him to the Jungle, he’ll become a Brute, but at least he’ll have a chance at a long, healthy life. He’ll be safe.
I just hope his safety doesn’t come at the expense of ours.
Midmorning, the stream turns markedly west. About noon—observed not by lunch, but by our grumbling stomachs—it disappears into a crack under a massive rock face, half-covered in moss, vines, and tenacious plants growing on thin ledges. Our only guide, gone.
Bri gives me a pointed look. “Now what?”
“I . . .” The truth is, I don’t know. Defeat threatens to completely undo me. Have I been following the wrong stream the whole time? Is there another clue? I quickly hum through the tune yet again, considering the words:
Where the fire don’t burn, and the dark water’s deep,
We’ll save them there, at the mahogany tree.
You follow the mare, and I’ll follow a stream,
And we’ll leave them there, at the mahogany tree.
If there comes a day when you can’t find me,
Lay my flowers there, by the mahogany tree,
I’ll be buried there, by the mahogany tree.
I lost my love, at the mahogany tree.
I figured out the fire that doesn’t burn, the deep water, the mare, and I thought we were following the stream. The only other landmark is the blasted tree! But instead of our destination, I’m staring at an impassable mountain of rock.
Collapsing on a log, I silently run through the song again.
Nothing.
What am I going to do now? I’m responsible for bringing them here. We’re out of food and probably surrounded by predators just waiting for nightfall. We might make it back to Bella Terra, but without food herself, Jonalyn won’t be able to feed the baby. How long would it take for an infant to starve?
“Um, Reina?” Bri kicks my boot, interrupting my spiral. “Hellooo?”
“I don’t know where to go from here,” I admit. Defeat sounds even more miserable out loud.
“Great.” Bri finds a rock to sit on.
Jonalyn moves closer. “There has to be
a way. She said to follow the song.”
“The stream is the last clue, and now that has been swallowed by the earth.”
“I really don’t like the sound of that,” Bri grumbles.
Neechi dismounts and crouches low, looking at the base of the rock. “Could we go through?”
Bri snaps, “There is no way on earth I’m belly-crawling into that. You’re crazy.”
But I consider his question, stare at the slim gap between the water and the veritable mountain above. Could she have meant to follow the stream into that? Would we even fit? Besides, I wonder out loud, “What would we do with the horses?”
“We could leave them,” Jonalyn offers.
“That’s not an option,” I say firmly. “They’d be helpless out here.”
“I could stay with them,” Neechi offers.
A beat of silence follows, his proposal catching us all by surprise.
“While I admire your courage, you’d be helpless out here,” I counter. “You have no weapons and no food.”
He doesn’t press further, embarrassment coloring his dirt-smeared face. Still a Gentle, but a Gentle who wants to be brave. Like there’s something in him that was made for more.
Bri brings it back to the point. “Then what now?”
I remove my boots and wade closer to the opening, peering into the darkness. I can’t see more than a meter inside. The water echoes against the stone ceiling, which barely clears the stream’s surface.
“Who knows how far back this goes.”
Jonalyn shivers. “Or whether it drops off completely.”
“No,” I reason, thinking it through. “We’ve been following the water upstream since El Fuego. The water is flowing out of this rock, so it couldn’t drop off inside, right? Or it wouldn’t come out here at ground level.”
Bri catches on. “So this has to be, like, a tube.”
I nod. “Maybe a really long tube. We just have to find where the water enters.”
With no other options, it’s an easy sell, even though—without our watery trail—we’re forced to walk the horses through dense Jungle again. We keep the stream to our right—at least, we hope it’s buried under the bulging mass of rock and overgrowth rising fifteen meters alongside us.
An hour later, the incline we’ve been climbing softens, and the rock mass shrinks to ten meters high, then five. When it levels entirely, we round the end and nearly step into our stream, bubbling into the yawning mouth of a cave.
“Ha! We found it!” I wrap Jonalyn in a hug.
Neechi scoops water into his mouth with two hands, then fills our flasks.
Even Bri seems pleased. “Good job not getting us lost . . . yet.”
I smirk back, this small victory momentarily overshadowing the heaviness that has sapped the life from me since the pool. Since I lost—
Wait . . .
A peculiar, cord-like thread sweeps between two high tree limbs in the distance, nearly obscured by the busy, intersecting green growth between it and us.
I drop my bow and scramble to the top of the cave opening, but I need higher ground. A secondary ledge allows me to clear enough of the canopy that I can just make it out. Rising above every other tree in sight, the strong branches of a giant mahogany stretch toward the welcoming blue sky. Tree huts dot the limbs like perching sparrows, connected with zigs and zags of rope, thin as spider’s silk from this distance. A troop of howlers bark rudely from a safe distance, dispersing a flock of colorful birds.
I actually did it. I found my way back.
But relief quickly gives way to panic. The otherworldliness of their camp fills me with strange apprehension. These Brutes aren’t tame. I’m not even sure they’re good. And I haven’t just come back, I’ve brought company. What will Torvus say? Standing within a hundred meters of our destination, I contemplate turning around and retreating right back to Bella.
What was I thinking, coming back?
I force myself to run through my reasons, beginning with the baby Jonalyn carries and ending with my vow to avenge Tre’s death by helping the Gentles. For their sake, I have to try.
The stream leads us to within fifty meters of camp—I can just make out a row of the orchard’s many fruit trees in the distance. We leave the streambed, which curves sharply west at a deep pool with a sandy shore, to keep a straight course. Away from the water, traversing through a clearing of sorts, I realize the Jungle has become eerily quiet.
Would it be better to announce our arrival or tread quietly?
“Stay close,” I whisper to the others.
Bri brings Horse up beside me. “I don’t know where you’re taking us, Sunshine, but I have a really bad feeling about—”
Whooosh!
A broad, heavy net drops from the trees, covering us like trapped animals. The horses neigh and skitter, unable to rear for the weight of the ropes. Someone screams like a stuck pig—maybe Neechi. As if in response, a collective yell erupts from the Jungle around us, followed by charging bodies, barely clothed and dusty. Our captors encircle us, pointing spears and betraying no affinity. Bri draws her bow.
“Put that down,” I yell at her through clenched teeth.
She looks at me like I’ve lost my mind but reluctantly does what she’s told. Jonalyn wraps her arms protectively around her baby. Neechi trembles.
I muster every shred of courage I can dig out of my hollow chest and address the mob. “I’m here to see Torvus.”
INTERLUDE
IN THE EARLY MONTHS OF Leda’s unlikely destiny, she gradually learned to enjoy the dual role of Materno and Center codirector. She came to savor the smell of newborns, was soothed by the suckling of infants on bottles, admired the unmistakable love other Maternos had for their daughters.
Because of her position, Leda had greater freedom than most Maternos. Even as she became pregnant a second time—to fulfill her destiny—she absorbed herself in her work, splitting her time between Bella Terra and the Center, where she attempted to research antidotes for the vaccine. However, progress was slow; each lead seemed to end in impossibilities.
As months turned into nearly two years, she wondered about her son, saw his face in every toddler she tended to. She thought of Torvus, with his fearless dreams and passionate love. Would Jason someday resemble his strength? Share his features? The Gentles she worked with daily gave vivid glimpses of what her son’s future would have been if she hadn’t kept him from that fate. If she hadn’t known the truth.
What if she could offer other babies a chance at an unaltered life?
A daring mission began taking shape. It was not terribly uncommon for Gentles to die in infancy. Could she fake other deaths? If she was careful, her codirector needn’t suspect anything. The plan was risky, but knowing what she knew, how could she not act?
The first lie—“The Gentle didn’t survive”—twisted her insides. But what was worse? Deceiving Maternos, who, she knew, had no attachment to their male babies before they were sent off to fincas, or allowing those innocent children to suffer the fate of Gentles?
The second time Leda followed Torvus’s clues to the base of the mahogany tree, she traveled with two such “dead” infants—one with impossibly big, brown eyes, and another with wispy, baby-fine hair the color of red amber. Two babies, destined to be Brutes because of her deception.
Crossing kilometers of Jungle with the infants, a milking goat, and a mule carrying supplies was no small task. But the peril of the Jungle held no terror compared with the apprehension that pounded in her heart when she knocked on the plumeria-carved door. The door of the home Torvus had made for her.
When Torvus found Leda on his doorstep, he gathered her in his arms, breathed in the scent of her, kissed her hair, her cheeks, her lips.
“You came back to me,” he said, lifting her from the ground and spinning her in a dizzying circle.
She let herself believe it for a moment, and, more cruelly, let him believe it too.
“I brought you something.”
She rifled through the mule’s pack for the books she had bought from Aunt Salita the month before, in a bargain that revealed the Senator’s lingering affection for Leda.
As he took the ancient, tattered books from her, a smile stretched his lips. She watched him remember their reading lessons on the banks of the Jabiru, where she patiently taught him to read using those very pages.
“And who are they?” Torvus asked, seeming to notice the babies for the first time.
“Torvus—”
When Leda explained who she planned to leave behind, she couldn’t hide the real reason she had come. Torvus stepped back, his eyes brooding storm clouds.
“Leave me—and take them with you. I’m no Materno!”
“Please, Torvus,” she begged. “They deserve a chance to be who they were created to be, just as you have had.”
It took no small amount of pleading, but he finally conceded.
“They can stay.” Leda’s heart flooded with admiration, relief, until he turned his back on her and yelled, “But I don’t ever want to see you again.”
His pronouncement shattered Leda’s heart into a million pieces. Didn’t he understand that she wanted to be with him? That if it weren’t for the duty of saving others, she would gladly unite herself with him forever? But the shock of his sudden coldness silenced any argument, and Leda resolved to honor his demand: he would never see her face again.
Once Leda departed and his anger cooled, Torvus was left with two babies and a mountain of regret. Though a twisted piece of him relished his ability to hurt her the way she had hurt him, he wished his final words back. He wished her back.
But wounded pride has no equal in its ability to blind love.
During his years serving Nedé, injustice had incited Torvus’s disdain for the Matriarchy. Solitude had fed it. When Leda asked him to take the babies, he convinced himself her betrayal proved she was no different from other Nedéans: selfish, proud, only using males for their own gain. Her request offered hope. If he had other Brutes like him, perhaps someday he could end the tyranny.