by Kate L. Mary
Lysander’s wife blinked, and there was a sudden moment of recognition. “Indra.” Her voice came out almost excited. “You’re Indra, right? You tried to kill my husband!” She burst into tears and threw her arms around me. “Thank you. Thank you!”
I did not push her away, but I did look back at Asa, who stood in the doorway, keeping an eye out for anyone else.
When our eyes met, he said, “Lysander probably didn’t treat her any better than he treated every other woman.”
It had never occurred to me before. At least not like this. I was never under any delusion that Lysander cared about his wife—marriages in Sovereign City were arranged and existed mostly to continue the bloodlines—but I had not taken much time to think about what this girl had probably gone through. She was young, no more than twenty, and had been handed off to a monster. What had she been forced to do?
I shuddered.
“It will be okay,” I whispered, trying to keep my voice soft and soothing. “It will.”
The girl pulled away, rubbing the backs of her hands across her face to wipe away the tears. “I’m sorry. I’m not usually like this. It’s just been a scary week. Most of the people I work with have been dragged to the square and either imprisoned or killed.” She swallowed. “After being tortured.”
“But not you?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I kept waiting for it to happen, but no one has given me up yet.”
“And Lysander is in the government building?”
“Yes. He, my mother, and a few other council women are trying to get the power back.”
“They won’t,” Asa said. “Egon will make sure of it.”
The girl’s gaze moved past me to my husband, and she startled as if just now noticing he was a Fortis. “Egon?”
“He lives in the tower,” I said almost impatiently. “It does not matter. What matters is getting to Lysander.”
“You’re going to kill him?” his wife asked, hope ringing in her voice.
“I am,” I said.
“And make him suffer?”
“A cut for every woman he has tortured.”
She smiled, tears shimmering in her eyes. “Thank you.”
I started to leave but then looked around, suddenly realizing she might not be safe here. Our army was raiding every house, killing everyone they found. We had decided to spare only the very young. It was a luxury we did not have when we stormed the Fortis village, but with the Sovereign dead, the children would be able to stay in the city. We could raise them differently, teach them love instead of hate.
“What is your name?”
“Tereza,” the girl said.
“Tereza,” I repeated, “you must come with us. It is not safe for you here. If my people find you, they will kill you. They do not know you are on our side.”
She pressed her lips together as if thinking. “I can free the others. The ones still alive and being held in the government building. There are cells on the first floor.”
“I know,” I whispered, my own time in that prison coming back to me.
It had been short, a few hours only, but I had spent time in those very cells. After Lysander defiled me, after Bodhi came into the city to get revenge. I tried to stop him, but had arrived too late. By then my husband had already been caught. He was arrested for trying to kill Lysander, I was arrested so I could serve as an example to other Outliers. Do not cross the Sovereign.
Little did Saffron know, but that punishment was a link in a chain of events that had eventually led to her death.
Tereza’s face fell. “I’m sorry for the things you’ve gone through.”
“I am sorry as well,” I said.
30
Indra
Battle sounds still echoed through the air, but the grizzards had taken their leave while we were inside Paizlee’s house. We passed other Outliers and untouchables who were rushing in or out of buildings, blood staining their hands, as well as bodies lying in the streets, cloaked in red robes that signified they were Sovereign.
We turned a corner, and I caught sight of Zuri, her gray hair streaking behind her as she fought a figure cloaked in red. Male or female, the person was no match for the Mountari woman, and was down in minutes. When Zuri pulled the blade from the body, she turned to face her husband, smiling, and was met with a nod of approval.
We reached the square with no trouble. Tereza stuck close, her eyes widening with every person we passed, but carrying herself much better than I had expected. I was out of breath, but it was not until I rushed into the open square that I finally paused. Only it was not to calm my pounding heart. It was because Emori was in the stocks.
I rushed to her aid, charging up the steps to the platform and gasping out her name. She lifted her head, and I was relieved to find minimal damage. She was bruised, her nose bloodied, but otherwise, she seemed to be in one piece.
“Indra.”
All it took was the sound of my name on her lips, and I knew. The damage to her exterior was nothing compared to what was inside. She had stayed here to get her revenge, but had instead been forced to relive her humiliation.
I tried to control the tremor in my hands when I reached out to undo the stocks, but it was impossible. My fingers shook, making me fumble, and Asa had to come to my aid. He had the stocks open in a second, and Emori came tumbling out. I tried to catch her, but she was bigger than I was—taller and broader—and we both went down.
“You are okay,” I said, cradling her in my arms since I was unable to lift her. “You will be okay.”
“Only you could think that after everything I have been through.” Her gaze moved past me to where the others stood, focusing on Asa. “It is him. He is what gives you so much faith in life.”
“It is everything I have witnessed and endured,” I said.
“Then you are a fool,” Emori replied, but there was no malice in her voice.
I lifted my gaze to Asa. Behind him, Asger and Tereza stood, watching in silence.
“We must move,” I told my husband. “We cannot stay here.”
“I can carry her.” He took one step, but stopped, his focus on Emori. “But only if you want me to. I won’t touch you if you don’t want me to.”
Emori let out a bitter laugh. “This is the man I was so certain would destroy us.” She shook her head once before nodding her assent. “I have no choice but to let you carry me, Fortis. If you do not, I will die here, and I swore to myself I would not leave this world until Lysander had taken his last breath.”
Asa knelt and gently lifted her into his arms. “We’ll make it happen. I swear it.”
“I believe you will,” she said. “You and Indra.”
Inside, the building was dark thanks to the lack of electricity. Asa and I had both been here before—him as both a prisoner and a guard, and me as a woman who was about to have her life ripped apart—as had Asger when he worked in the city himself, so we did not need Tereza to tell us where to go.
The cells were not locked, which made freeing the prisoners easy, and Tereza knew the names of everyone we came across. Aralyn was in the second cell, naked and bloody, but alive. She stumbled out and practically fell into Tereza’s arms.
Asger swore at the sight and turned away. Beside him, Asa averted his eyes as he gingerly lowered Emori to the ground. Once his hands were free, he pulled his shirt over his head. His gaze was still focused on the wall when he held it out to Aralyn.
“Thank you,” the woman said, gingerly taking the shirt.
I had already moved on to the next door by the time she had the shirt over her head. Emori was on the floor beside me, with Aralyn and Tereza on her other side. Asger had his back to me, and Asa had not yet torn his gaze from the wall when I ripped the cell door open.
Light burst into the dark room, illuminating a woman. She shrank away, covering her face with her plump arms and practically curling into a ball.
“You are free,” I said.
The woman lowered her arms, peeking out fr
om behind them like she was not sure she had heard me right. “What?”
“Outliers have raided the city,” Tereza said from where she sat huddled with Aralyn.
The woman ventured closer to the door so she could look out. “Tereza?”
“It is me, Edwina,” Tereza held out her hand. “Indra is here to set you free.”
The woman looked up, her eyes wide as she studied me with sparkling green eyes. “Indra? Your name is Indra?” I almost turned away, thinking she was dehydrated and possibly delusional from whatever she had endured, but I froze when she said, “Who was your mother?”
She pulled herself from the cell and came to join me in the hall. Her gaze moved over me again, this time down to my toes and then back again, concentrating on my face. When she reached up and touched my cheek, I had to resist the urge to pull away.
“Dichen?” she whispered, her fingers caressing my skin. “Was that your mother’s name?”
I blinked, unable to respond.
How did this woman know my mother’s name? Yes, Dichen had worked in the city, and Edwina could have met her that way, but there was no way to know my mother’s identity just by looking at me. We looked nothing alike, because I was not Dichen’s daughter by birth.
“How did you know?” I managed to get out after a moment of confused silence.
Edwina’s green eyes moved over my face, her hand still on my cheek. “It’s you. I can’t believe you’re standing in front of me after all these years.”
When the reality of what she was saying sank in, I found myself looking the woman over. Like all the Sovereign, she was not a thin woman, and her skin was pale from living inside the house, but she looked different. Gentler. Kinder. I took in her brown hair, only slightly streaked with gray, and green eyes. We had the same eyes, I realized, and the same full lips.
This was my mother.
“You gave birth to me,” I said, awed. Confused. Torn.
I was desperate to head deeper into the building so I could find Lysander, but at the same time hungry for information. I had always known I did not come from my mother’s womb, but I did not learn the truth about my origins until shortly before her death. I was Sovereign. I had been illegally born in this city and smuggled out by Dichen, who raised me as her own.
“I did,” Edwina said, tears filling her eyes.
“What are you saying?” Tereza asked just as Emori murmured, “How did this come to be?”
Aralyn, however, was silent. Almost as if she had always known this moment would eventually come.
The woman in front of me—my mother as it turned out—did not take her eyes off me when she said, “It happens sometimes, children conceived illegally. Most of the people here don’t care if their offspring is tossed aside and left to die—the Sovereign aren’t taught to love one another, and parents are often cold. I cared, though. I always cared.”
I thought of Saffron and how little emotion she had shown when she was alive, even when talking to Lysander, her own flesh and blood. It was so different from how Dichen, the mother who raised me, had been. She had always been firm, teaching me right from wrong, but had been loving, too. Gentle. Soothing. A woman whose empathy and love helped mold me into the person I was today.
“I was very young when I had you,” Edwina whispered, her fingers moving over my cheek in another gentle caress. “Still just a child. Seventeen. So young, yet at the same time old enough to understand that the world we lived in was wrong.” She paused to swipe her free hand across her face when a tear broke free. “There was a boy working in my house. Barrick was his name. He was an Outlier from the Mountari tribe and only a little over a year older than me. He was quiet—like all Outliers in the city are—but so beautiful.”
Barrick. I had heard the name before, but it took a moment to remember where. Zuri had mentioned the name when she spoke of her first husband. They could not be one in the same, could they?
“He started working in our house when he was only fourteen,” Edwina continued, unaware of how fast my mind was spinning, “but I didn’t talk to him for several years. That would have been wrong. Would have earned me a beating.” Edwina shook her head sadly. “The Sovereign can be so very cruel. Even to their own people.
“One day Barrick arrived at the house with a dirty uniform shirt. At the time I didn’t know what happened, although I later found out a Fortis man had thrown pig excrement at him. I was the first one to see him when he arrived because I was outside, and I knew he’d be punished if my mother saw him. So I snuck him inside and managed to find him a clean shirt.” Edwina smiled, and it lit up her face, making her look more beautiful than any other Sovereign woman I had ever seen. “It was the first time we spoke, and he said very little, but it was the starting point of something huge.
“I waited outside the laundry room while he changed—I wanted to make sure my mother didn’t happen upon him—and when Barrick took his shirt off, I got my first glimpse of the lygan teeth piercing his skin. He was only seventeen, but already there were nearly a dozen. The sight of them took my breath away.”
Around me, the room was silent as everyone listened to this story, the shock and confusion on the faces of my friends obvious, but nothing compared to my own shock. I was standing in front of my mother, and the way she was talking about this man, Barrick, left no doubt in my mind. He was my father. But he was an Outlier. It could not be true.
“After that, I couldn’t get him out of my mind. I watched him as he worked in the house, sometimes bumping into him. Pretending it was an accident.” Edwina let out a laugh and shook her head, and the pure joy the memory gave her reminded me of my own time in Saffron’s house, dancing around a Fortis man who would later steal my heart. “It was childish at first, just a silly fascination with someone so different. But it didn’t stay that way for long.
“Slowly, things between us began to change. I would look up to find him watching me, and our eyes would meet. We’d sneak off to talk during the day, stealing moments we had no right to. He told me about the wilds, about hunting lygan, and I snuck him sweets. After a few weeks, I finally got brave enough to ask if I could see his piercings. When he showed me, I ran my hands over them.” She rubbed the tips of her fingers together as if remembering how the teeth had felt. “Only a month passed between the day I snuck him a new uniform and our first kiss. After that, we were alone every chance we got.”
Edwina paused so she could look down, and at my side, Asa shifted closer to me. His hand moved to my lower back, and I snuck a look at his face. Like me, he was watching Edwina closely, and I had a sense that he, too, was remembering the story Zuri had told us about her first husband.
“I had just turned seventeen when I realized I was pregnant,” Edwina said, her eyes still down. ”Barrick was eighteen, and by then he’d established himself as a great hunter in his tribe. I was already promised to a man here in the city, and Barrick had told me how things worked in the Mountari village. I knew it wouldn’t be long before some woman chose to fight for the right to be his mate. We had no future, but I wanted to make sure our baby did, so I hid my pregnancy from my parents. It was both to protect Barrick and because I knew the baby wouldn’t stand a chance if they found out what I’d done. The second it was born, they’d kill it.
“I was alone in my room when I gave birth. Barrick had confided in one of the Outlier women working in the house, and in addition to promising to help us get the baby out of the city safely, she’d told me everything I needed to do when my time came.” Edwina finally lifted her gaze so she was once again looking at me. “I only had that one night with you. You were so small. So beautiful. I held you, rocked you, and did everything I could think of to keep you quiet while I waited for morning to arrive. When it did and the Outliers returned to the city, I knew it was safe to make my next move. I put you in a basket and went downstairs. Barrick was in the dining room polishing my mother’s silver, and when he saw me, he knew.
“We worked together to get you thro
ugh the city, Barrick carrying the basket to make it look like he was simply escorting me somewhere. We followed the instructions the Outlier woman had given us and made our way to Aralyn’s house.” She paused and looked at the other woman sitting on the floor, smiling at the memory even as her eyes shimmered with tears. “Before that day, I’d never met her, but I’d heard of her and knew my mother didn’t like her. She called Aralyn a radical. Someone who was trying to destroy our way of life. I’d never really understood what she meant, but I found out that day. I learned about the sympathizers, the people who wanted things to be more equal. But I also learned there was a secret tunnel. That it was how they would sneak my baby out of the city.”
“Could you not go?” I asked, awed and amazed by this story.
I had barely thought about my origins since my mother—Dichen—told me where I came from, but sitting here now, learning that I had not only come from this city, but had been made in love… It was more than I ever could have imagined.
“I could not.” Edwina looked down again, sniffing as more tears filled her eyes. “I wanted to, more than I’ve ever wanted anything. Barrick was the only man I’ve ever loved, and we talked about it more than once. Each time, I decided the obstacles were too great. There was too much at risk. If I disappeared, the Sovereign would blame the Outliers. There was no doubt in my mind. Those working in the city would be punished, and then the Fortis would be sent into the wilds. So many people would die. I couldn’t let that happen. Wouldn’t risk so many lives just so I could be with the man I loved.”
Asa moved his hand from my lower back to my shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “This is where you get your strength.”
Understanding dawned on Edwina’s face as she looked from me to my husband. “It looks like I’m not the only person who realizes love has no boundaries.”
“No,” I whispered as I reached up to cover Asa’s hand with my own. “You are not.”
Silence fell over us, but it was short lived. There was too much to do and say. Too many questions and too many things in front of us.