by Jess Corban
After gleaning the last of the mangos, bananas, and mamey from the orchard trees, Neechi rounded up eight Alexia horses lingering near the fringes of camp, who seemed more afraid of the big, scary Jungle than of these big, scary people. They were begging to be taken care of. Along with the two remaining horses we brought from Bella Terra, the ten animals will go a long way toward carrying needed supplies, even if the route to the ruins will make leading the animals tricky. Neechi has spent the afternoon tending to their wounds, repairing tack, and helping a few of the Brutes get acquainted with the horses so they can lead them without fear tomorrow.
Jonalyn invented a game for the cubs of transferring fruit from the underground lockers into woven baskets. Pip took the challenge quite seriously, mowing down three other boys in his effort to get the most mangos into the goal. Since the attack, she hasn’t let Finch out of her sight, usually wrapping him to her body with a colorful scarf—the Materno style. She keeps him close, like she’s afraid to let him go. Maybe she is. Once at the ruins, she’ll have to leave Finch behind. Perhaps forever.
Bri and I have spent the day working alongside Théo and Jem, sewing simple rucksacks out of any available material—animal hides, netting torn from tree hut windows, woven floor mats. Anything that can hold blankets, weapons, food, rope, or the few practical items the Rescuer brought to camp over the years: baby bottles, clothing, or, as I recently learned, the curious dusty books on Torvus’s shelf. Even without Théo and Jem’s coolness to remind me, I’m painfully aware each sack we create will be filled with items that could have remained here if it weren’t for me.
Hence the need for frequent water breaks.
As we pass by the fire ring on the way to the stream, Bri grumbles, “I liked them better when they had fewer reasons to hate us.”
As I’m mumbling a half-hearted agreement, I catch sight of Rohan descending the mahogany tree. His bare back is mottled with deepened bruising today—not that I’m staring. I admit, it would be easier to be angry with him if he weren’t so . . . so . . . him. He climbs down the ladder with one arm, the other holding a bundle of mats over his shoulder.
I walk faster, trying not to look his way, hoping he doesn’t spot us before we reach the cover of the overgrown path. So far today, he has asked to speak with me three times. Three times I’ve ignored him. It’s not that I want to be rude; I just don’t trust myself to think rationally around him—to hold onto my anger. I know he can’t be trusted, but one look into those deep, dark eyes, flecked with the tiniest specks of gold, and I just might forget that fact. Yes, distance is my best defense against irrational thought.
“What’s the matter with you?” Bri asks, a little too loudly for my preference. “I thought you two were—I dunno, close or something.”
I avoid answering till we’re concealed by leafy banana palms. “It doesn’t matter,” I dodge. For some reason the subject of Rohan feels especially vulnerable. Plus, I’m not sure I want to stoke the fires of Bri’s distrust by telling her he was part of an attack against Nedé.
Still, I have no one else to talk to, and as we make our way toward the stream, the feelings of betrayal swell like an abscess, begging to be lanced. Eventually I blurt, “I just . . . I heard something that made me realize he’s not who I thought he was.”
Bri actually laughs out loud. I brace myself for her epic I told you so. Prepare for her lecture on not being able to trust these Brutes as far as we can throw them.
Instead she says, “Were you even there last night? Nothing is what we thought it was. Not the Matriarchy. Not the Alexia. Not these Brutes. The whole world’s flippin’ like a flatbread and you’re worried he’s not who you thought he was? That’s hilarious, Rei. Seriously funny.”
She snaps a hanging liana that brushes against her face, then breaks off pieces as we close the distance to the stream, throwing the woody bits into the brush.
It’s too hot to argue. If I told Bri exactly what Rohan did, she’d be as angry as I am. Then again, some annoying voice reminds me that I don’t know his exact crimes. Sure, Dáin clearly enjoyed conveying the information—which doesn’t exactly add credibility—but Rohan didn’t deny his accusations either.
Even if there’s more to the story, would it matter? He was somehow part of the attack on La Fortuna. How can I trust him again?
We crouch on the stream-side platform where Rohan and I filled the flasks—was that only yesterday afternoon?—and splash water over our heads before filling our containers.
“So are you telling me that you trust them now?” I ask Bri.
She splashes her face with another handful of water, then shrugs. “I wouldn’t call it trust. More like ‘calculated risk.’ I wouldn’t let that redheaded Brute so much as take out the trash behind my back, but he did eliminate one common enemy. Teera obviously has to go, and they’re motivated to do the job.”
I peer at her suspiciously. “That’s not the only reason, is it? Admit it, Bri—they’re growing on you, aren’t they?”
She douses me with a ladleful of water. “Fine. Some of them . . . have proven they don’t mean to murder us in our sleep.”
I don’t think I’m the only one disarmed by Jase. I haven’t missed the way her chin lifts when he laughs at her excessive wry sarcasm, or the way she has softened, albeit slightly, to his instruction over the past four days. She even accepted some Brute clothing he gave us to alter into outfits better suited for our coming trek.
“Jase is my mother’s child,” I tell her softly.
Her head whips around so fast that her ponytail flings a wide arc of water against the surrounding leaves. “He’s what?”
“Something about him was eerily familiar. I couldn’t place it at first, but the last time I saw my mother, she confessed the truth. The craziest part—” and I don’t know why I’m sharing this with Bri, other than that it feels good to get it off my chest—“is that Torvus is the other parent.”
Her eyebrows shoot up, then furrow in confusion. “What in Siyah’s name—?”
I shrug. “I didn’t ask for details.”
“Let me get this straight: Your mother, Leda Pierce, and that big Brute with anger issues had a child—like in the old world?”
That pretty much sums up what I know. “She brought Jase to the Jungle so he wouldn’t grow up as a Gentle. Can you imagine—Jase, a Gentle?”
Imagining confident, capable, strong Jase reduced to a fragile, sickly, unmotivated Gentle is almost too much to bear. Bri must be entertaining a similar image, because she grows thoughtful too.
“She brought all of them here,” I continue, “because she believed they deserved the chance to be what God intended.”
She shakes her head slowly. “Even if her actions meant putting all of Nedé at risk?” Her expression changes as she answers her own question.
“Even if it meant risking her very life.” I choke on the words.
Remembering my mother’s sacrifice does more than rip open the wound of losing her. Remembering her convictions buoys my own.
I, too, have a cause. I was willing to sacrifice my best friend for it, and I can’t let one Brute’s secrets derail me from my mission. I can’t let Tre’s death be in vain. Protect the weak. I will ensure justice comes to the Gentles, even if it means leading Brutes straight into Nedé to remove its tyrannical ruler. Safety for all. I will help them take down the Matriarchy because I believe, as my mother did, that every person deserves the chance at their fullest life—even those who could hurt us.
We return to camp to find a strange commotion humming near the great tree. A scout guards a figure obscured by surrounding Brutes.
“She asks to see Torvus,” the scout shouts, and one of the boys immediately sprints down the path to the leader’s house.
Bri and I jog toward the disturbance. I scramble onto the dais for a better look, but only catch glimpses of the prisoner’s back.
Even from this poor angle, I can tell the intruder is a woman—tall, with dark hair pep
pered with gray, piled loosely on top of her head in a disheveled mess, strands sticking to her neck and shoulders. She hunches forward slightly, appearing weary. I scramble down and run the perimeter of the encircling mob, peering between shoulders to catch a better glimpse of her.
The woman’s face is paler than it should be, and uncharacteristically dirty, but I’d know those eyes anywhere.
“Mother!”
Her gaze flits toward my voice, and I begin shoving Brutes out of my way to reach her.
“Mother!” I yell again, pushing forward.
And then she’s in my arms—breathing, solid, alive—and I can barely keep my feet on the ground for the giddy weightlessness that threatens to lift me right out of this world. My cheek presses against the soft familiarity of her gently aged face.
“I thought I lost you,” I whisper, barely able to believe my senses.
“My Rei of Sunshine,” she says, then sucks in a pained breath as her body sags under my eager embrace.
I set aside relief for worry. “Are you alright?”
She tries a weak smile. “Considering I was run through by the Alexia not two weeks ago, I’d say I’m better than ‘alright.’ Karina did an admirable job stitching me up.”
“What are you doing here? I mean, I’m so relieved, but why—? How—?”
“I got word Teera was sending a hundred Alexia into the Jungle. I feared the worst. As soon as I was able to ride, I knew I had to come warn Torvus.” A flash of sadness accompanies the next words. “No matter the cost.”
I don’t have time to wonder what cost she could mean. The leader of the Brutes has already caught sight of us and strides double-time toward the crowd. Bodies give way before him like a receding tide. Even I find myself stepping aside as he approaches, unnerved by a strange fire igniting his storm-gray eyes that I worry could burn us all.
Fear flashes in Mother’s eyes, briefly, but as he blazes toward her, she defiantly lifts her chin, stands straighter, musters every shred of dignity she possesses.
“I know you don’t want to see me,” she blurts, “and I wouldn’t have come except I heard—”
She’s unable to finish. Torvus engulfs her in an earnest embrace, pressing his lips to hers. He holds her like he’s at once afraid to break her and afraid to lose her. Then he caresses her cheek with a large, weathered hand.
“You’re alive,” he breathes, with more tenderness than I’d have thought possible from this hardened Brute. “I was a fool to ever let you go.”
Mother melts into him like he’s the safest place in the world, allowing his arms—arms that could snap a bow in half—to cradle her weary body.
Her lips tremble. “I never stopped loving you,” she says, tears slipping down her dirt-smeared cheeks.
He presses her to his chest and kisses the top of her head. “Nor I you.”
Not a foot shuffles, not a throat clears as we witness this vulnerable moment between two unlikely people. There’s something sacred in their reunion, and none of us dares interrupt the transcendence of it.
Still, heat creeps up my neck and cheeks at the intimacy of their affection. It’s as if they’re the only two people in their own private world. Like the rest of us aren’t even here.
For a moment, the memory of Rohan’s touch tingles along my cheekbone, and I remember the way time stood still when he looked at me—when he saw me. When I trusted enough to open my heart to him.
Even as I warn myself that I can never be so careless with him again, I find myself scanning the area for a set of broad shoulders and dark, unruly hair.
Beside the weapons locker to the north of the fire ring, Rohan whispers something solemn to Jase, who’s staring slack-jawed and unblinking at Mother and Torvus. The faintest smile lifts Jase’s lips at whatever he’s hearing, then he slaps Rohan’s back and sets off with intent.
Rohan watches his friend make his way through the crowd toward its center, then catches me staring at him.
Without words, without my permission, his gaze penetrates my soul.
Look away, Reina.
How is it possible for someone to seize control of my own heart’s beating?
Reina! Look away.
Confidence sets his jaw, quiet pleading furrows his brow. The juxtaposition of sufficiency and yearning—asking me, without words, to allow him to explain himself—almost breaks my resolve to avoid him. Why do I want to trust him so badly, even when he has proven I shouldn’t?
For Siyah’s sake, Rei!
My better sense finally breaks through, like a slap to the face, and I force my focus back to my mother. Jase has breached the circle of Brutes surrounding her and Torvus, waiting a respectful distance from the pair. When Torvus slips an arm around her back, turning her toward the path to his home, she catches sight of Jase.
The woman I have always known as calm, collected, soft but unflappable, freezes in recognition. When she breathes again, she slowly places a hand over her mouth as fresh tears well up in her eyes.
“Jason?”
She moves toward him, reaches trembling fingers to touch his cheeks. She smiles, and laughs, and cries, as if shocked that this tall, strong, kind-eyed Brute was once the infant she brought through the Jungle to Torvus.
Jase places a wide palm over her delicate hand, his lopsided grin mirroring her joy.
“You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to meet you,” he says, his voice even more throaty than usual.
His words seem to complete her joy. Her body convulses with a sob, and she winces at the still-healing wound. Torvus is at her side in an instant, bracing her with a steady arm.
“You need to rest,” he says, some of his usual commanding tone returning.
She nods, though clearly reluctant to leave the child she has only just been reunited with. To Jase, she says, “We have much to talk about. We will, soon.”
I can’t say I’ve ever seen her this happy, and her joy spills into me. “Once you’ve rested, I’ll come see you,” I promise, kissing her cheek. “And I’ll tell Jo you’re here.”
She slips an arm around Torvus as he leads her down the path to his home. She leans against him, head resting on his arm, as if they’ve never been apart. I know little of love between a woman and a Brute, but I can already tell her affection for Torvus is . . . different somehow. It’s not quite like the love of a Materno for her children, though equally passionate.
It’s a kind of love, I think, that could drive a person to make irrational decisions. To risk. To open oneself. Perhaps even to forgive.
Two hours later, the sun’s setting signals an end to the day’s preparations. Grumbling stomachs coax us away from our growing pile of patchwork sacks toward the kitchen. Only Jem insists on finishing a final bag, his fastidiousness trumping hunger. Surly Théo reminds him we still have tomorrow to finish, but the quiet, narrow-faced Brute ignores him.
“I’ll meet you there,” I tell Bri and Théo. “I want to check on my mother.”
I peel away from the pair, making for Torvus’s house. It’s my third time following this hard-packed path, barely visible through the tangle of encroaching Jungle plants, but this is the first time, I realize, I haven’t been nearly choked with apprehension on my way.
The shoddy structure yawns at the approaching night. Nothing has changed about the outside of the house—the loose board over the door hasn’t been secured, nor the bushes trimmed—but the rise and fall of voices, an ember of candle glow through the window, creates the illusion that the home is different somehow. Warmer. More welcoming.
I strain in the low light to see the stairs as I climb, pausing to listen. Not to eavesdrop, exactly, but to consider the foreign combination of their voices together—like a horse whinny accompanying an oriole’s song. Each endearing in its own way, but curious together.
“. . . some of their horses,” the Brute leader is saying. “I could take you myself tomorrow.”
A weighted silence stretches between them before Mother’s soft voice re
plies, “Is that what you want, Tor? For me to return home?”
Against my better manners, I find myself edging closer to the crate against the house so I can peer into the window without being seen.
The two sit across from each other at the wooden table, Torvus’s back to me.
“I can’t lose you again,” he says, “not when you’ve only just returned.”
She places her hand atop his in the center of the table. “Then what is it?”
“We are leaving Tree Camp. Moving south, to the ruins, deeper into the Jungle.”
“Then I’ll go with you. We can make a home there, together.”
“They’ll find that camp too, eventually. Now that your mother knows for sure . . .” A bit of grit roughens his words. “I have to put an end to this, Leda.”
Her expression is unreadable. “You’re planning something. What?”
He doesn’t answer right away, instead rubbing her hand with his thumb, watching their entwined fingers intently.
When he speaks, his tone is softer. “A woman once taught me that true strength is shown in sacrificing for the greater good.” He meets her gaze. “I understand now. I know why you couldn’t come to me—couldn’t live here with me. It’s the same reason I can’t stay with you now.”
She closes her eyes slowly, sending a tear slipping down her cheek. But when her eyes open again, they reveal compassion, not anger.
“This has always been beyond us,” she says, smiling softly. “But to have your forgiveness, and to know you understand how it tore me in two not to be together . . . I can return in peace.”
He shifts from his chair to the floor, kneeling in front of her. “I don’t know how this will end, but I know I have to stop her—for your protection, for those you brought me, for the future.” He cups her chin in his hand. “But if I survive, I will find you. And I will never, never let you go again.”
He kisses her, and I sink down below the sill, take a moment to breathe in the thick evening air, balmy and full of life. A monkey scuttles through a branch overhead, chasing another’s tail. Nearby, a crimson tanager alights from its neatly wound nest.