Such A Secret Place (Stolen Tears Book 1)

by Cortney Pearson

  “How do you work this thing?” I concentrate, nudging my magic to life and channeling it from my hands into the black square of plastic. The screen lights and fills with a picture of Gwynn’s stepdad. His dark hair and bony nose. The uneven line of his scowling mouth.

  “You know him?” Talon asks.

  “Yeah, and believe me, no one else deserves execution more than he does.” I hand the aud back to him and take another sip. The wassail sinks down to my stomach like hot coals. I think it over for a few moments. “Why, though? Why such a random selection?”

  “Don’t know,” Talon says. “The news only said he’s facing criminal charges. But the Arcs can peg those on anyone.”

  It’s so odd. Clarke Hawkes was a soldier. I can’t think of any reason Arcaians would execute one of their own—they all have criminal charges! Did something happen? I haven’t been gone that long. It’s only been a few weeks at the most.

  “Time to get to work,” Talon says. “I figure we’ll train a bit more, and then I think you’ll be ready to head into the city.”

  The tears perk up, and I perk right along with them. “Really? That soon?” I’m coming, Ren. We’re coming.

  “I saw you work your thing on that siren. With a bit more training, I think you’ll be ready.”

  My body throbs. I can feel every one of my muscles reforming and resculpting themselves. And the stream that I once had access to only in deep relaxation I now feel and can call to me in several seconds. I feel like that’s pretty good progress, but as Talon informs me regularly, not good enough.

  I don’t care though, because I know I’m progressing and strengthening. Whether it’s good enough for him or not, it’s unbelievable to me. I’ll definitely be able to help Ren. No more standing by, weak and useless, like I did when those soldiers dragged him from my house.

  I want to tell Gwynn—to tell somebody! The moment I sensed those guys in the forest with magic and followed with a block on instinct, I had to marvel. These are things I never dreamed I would be capable of doing.

  And now I find myself able to hold my own in hand-to-hand combat with my trainer. I know he’s going easy on me, but the rush of moves from my body, the further extension of my limbs, the added limberness—and all of that being aided by magic I never thought I’d learn—is completely exhilarating.

  “It’s too bad Arcs don’t have forked tongues or black eyes or something so I can tell exactly who they are right away.” I speak through bated breaths as I focus on mirroring Talon’s movements. “I mean when they’re not wearing their khaki-happy outfits and Xian claws.”

  Talon’s hands slam toward me, and I raise mine just in time.

  “You mean their tainted hands aren’t enough?”

  I don’t answer. I’m absorbed. For hours one pose moves to another, and he insists I flex my muscles and stream my magic with each relayed position. A difficult thing, considering how entangled my thoughts become anytime his hands come anywhere near me.

  “Scenario,” he says, aiming his forearm at my waist. “We’re going up a staircase in the Triad Palace, and an Arc is descending toward you. What do you do?”

  “I call my magic,” I say, focusing and beckoning the long-dormant stream in my bones until it zaps through me like fire, accentuating the rigidity in my strained muscles.

  “Good. Next.”

  “I push it to my fist to help drive the force of it, and I—” Movement. Concentration. “Hit—him?”

  Talon ducks and directs a hit to my knee. I dodge back.

  “Where do you hit him?”

  Talon’s moves quicken, become robotic. His arms come at me from every side now, whirring with a soft sheen of silver magic. I push my own magic out until it hisses along my hair follicles and coils around my hands. Talon continues speaking, but it takes every degree of attention I have to stay ahead of him, to keep those firm drives from touching me in the way they’re meant to. I ache enough—I don’t need one of them to actually make contact.

  “You have to gauge your enemy’s every movement, always be on alert so you’re the one doing the injuring and don’t end up being the injured. Ward off any attacks, and I’d say, in this case, aim for his shins.”

  He flattens and twists his hand like a screwdriver and slices it through the air. It rings through on a strip of silver, aimed straight for my neck. I rear back and lash my fist toward his temple.

  He dodges, relaxing his posture. “Okay,” he says, dusting his hands. “That’s enough for today. We’ve got a lot of planning to do.” His chest heaves like a bellows. Beads of sweat fall from his brow.

  I smile.

  “You’ve had enough, huh?” I spin on the spot and lunge a forward thrust at his stomach.

  With a furtive jab, Talon blocks my advance, and I don’t miss the fact that he makes none in return. That doesn’t stop me. I’m too in-the-moment, brimming with adrenaline.

  “It’ll be dark in a few hours,” he says, seeming fixed on blocking only. “We’ll go into the city to sleep.”

  I laugh and make for his shoulder to get him in an arm lock. “Who needs sleep?”

  Before I know what’s happening, my arm is restrained. I’m thrown into the air like a dirty rug and land on my back. Talon kneels across me, pinning my arms on either side of my head.

  He studies me, panting. The rims of his eyes tighten and then relax.

  “You especially need to rest so you don’t wear yourself out before tomorrow.”

  I’m too caught up in his glance to realize he was taking me seriously. We just stare at each other for a long moment. My breath locks in my throat.

  I wait for him to act—as I can’t really move. With my hands fettered in his, I’m completely open to him. He has to be feeling the same. This invisible lure between us. How else can he look at me with such softness in his eyes?

  Too soon he releases his hold and allows me to sit up.

  “I was just having fun with you, you know,” I say.

  He drinks from his water bottle. A loop of sweat dips down his back.

  “You think it’s fun, don’t you?” I go on. “Role playing with me like this, teaching me?”

  “I suppose I’ve never thought of it like that. It’s just—”

  “Just what?”

  He shrugs and looks at me. His eyes twinkle. “Just what I do. Who I am. I have to defend myself, and so I do.”

  The trees thin out, and city lights fleck in the distance, some peeking at us from high in the sky. I run to match his pace, still pumped with adrenaline.

  “Come on, you were having a little fun, just now, with me. Weren’t you?”

  Too bad there isn’t any kind of magic that will allow me to plug into another’s thoughts. I’m dying to know what he’s thinking. He peers over his shoulder, raising an eyebrow. I know by that look—he’s said all he’s going to say.

  I decide to let him win this battle. “I can feel the tears. We’re really close.”

  “That’s good.”

  Okay, not much of a conversation starter. “I can’t wait to find Ren, too. How far is the city?” Buildings dot in the distance. I already know it won’t be long now. It’s just to get him talking. To hear his voice.

  “We’ll be there soon.” He chucks my pack to me and slings his on his back.

  Hmm. This is one of those times he apparently wants to be left alone. And for once, I let him.

  Streets—and the fields between them—multiply the closer we get to Valadir. People are racked along the thruway, barely moving in the jam of traffic heading away from the city.

  While I imagine riots and protests, people enraged, smashing out the windows of vehicles, throwing objects back at the city walls, fighting, shoving, pushing their way back into their hometown, instead they file alongside the slumbering traffic, carting children, animals and bags. Their heads hang down, their expressions wiped like blank slates.

  None but a few look back. None of them look anything other than stoic, really. They’ve ju
st been kicked out of their city, and no one seems to care.

  “Why are they all walking?” I ask. “Their vehicles are right there.”

  “You of all people should understand that better than most,” Talon says.

  Reality sinks in. “You mean—you mean the Arcs…”

  Sullen face after sullen face passes. It’s more than the loss of their homes they mourn. Of course they’re not driving. They can’t. Not anymore.

  War will be just what these people need, Nattie said. Something’s got to drive them back into feeling. How emotionless they all are. Almost like they’re not alive. Like something else is moving them instead of their own volition. I’ve forgotten how bad it is since being around Talon.

  “That’s just wrong on so many levels,” I say, inhaling through my nose. “How is Tyrus doing it? There’s no way Arcs can just line everyone up and Xian them one at a time. That’s a lot of people now without their magic.”

  Talon scowls across the crowd. “I’m not sure how he’s doing it.”

  “Someone’s got to stop him.”

  Nattie’s other phrase resurfaces unawares. It is up to you to break the spell.

  I ram the thought away. I have no idea how I’m supposed to do it—or if it’s even supposed to be me at all. A crystal teardrop and a bunch of mumbo jumbo code-talk isn’t much to go by.

  The other side of the thruway—the side going toward Valadir—is practically empty. People brave the meridian, lumbering along the uneven grass, and begin heading the wrong way. Others feather out in the field Talon and I trek through, heads bowed.

  Arcs are stationed every ten feet or so around the city gates, a tall stone obstruction surrounding the inner buildings. They look like wooden soldiers all frozen in the same position, making a circle as far as my eye can reach. And the few people who seem to feel enough to try to get back into the city are being stopped.

  One woman in a long dress steals my attention. “Let me go,” she cries, clutching the child at her side. “Please, my son. Think of my son!”

  Acid from my stomach rises to my throat. A female Arcaian soldier slaps the woman across the face. “Know your place.”

  “But this is my home! You can’t just—nooo!”

  The Arc throws the woman to the ground. She runs a silver device down the woman’s side.

  “Her blood’s active!” she calls and then several more Arcs join in, holding the woman down. The first stabs her Xian into the mother’s leg. She writhes on the dirt, clawing at the Arc’s hands.

  The small boy stands there, indifferent. I wait for him to wail, to tear at his ears and shout for his mother. To twist back and forth the way she is as the metal scavenger digs into her flesh. But he just stands there as she flails, helpless and broken on the ground.

  Her screams imprint into my subconscious. The claw glows a deeper violet, and the female soldier tips her head back as the glow transfers to her right hand. It’s awful—I’m horrified but I can’t help staring.

  Talon pulls me to his chest. “Don’t watch,” he says. “Turn away.”

  My brain won’t let go of that image. Not just the Xian claw, but that they do it right there, in front of her child.

  “I can’t believe she’d do that when she has a kid,” I say, clinging to him.

  “I can,” Talon says, rubbing my back. “What I want to know is, how did the woman get out of the city with her magic intact?”

  I pull away. “What do you mean?”

  “You said it yourself. It’s too much effort to Xian people one-by-one. That soldier said her blood was active. Tyrus has got to have some way he mass-Xianed these people. If that woman escaped, then that means they’re still doing whatever it is inside the city.”

  “There’s no way we’ll get past them,” I say, seething. The tears seethe too, begging me not to give up. “We’ll end up just like her.”

  “Pretty much,” says Talon. “They’re probably sketchy about who they let in, with this war likely to begin any day.”

  “What are they waiting for? Not that I want it to start, but with their stupid, arrogant, control freak tendencies why haven’t they attacked the rest of Itharia?”

  I hope it won’t start. Not when the Firsts all claim I’m the one who can stop it. Part of me wants to tell Talon, to see what he thinks, but I hold myself back.

  Talon’s eyes follow the line of soldiers. “My guess is they want to seem like the good guys. But I don’t know for sure, not if they’re stealing magic by the masses.”

  “Regardless, they don’t seem the wanna-be-good-guys type.”

  Especially not with the way they’ve tracked us down, hunted us like animals. At that thought I realize how risky it is for us to be walking in the open like this. Tyrus found us in Waenton, thanks to Paul. Who knows how the soldiers found us in the forest. I contemplate suggesting we hang back, travel at night or something, and that’s when I notice her.

  Feet from us, a woman snuggles a whimpering baby—no tears in his eyes—close to her chest while launching massive stares at Talon and me.

  I grab his wrist. “Talon?”

  Not taking her attention from us, she leans over and nudges the man at her side. He tosses a look toward us as well. After squinting for several seconds, he pulls an aud from his pocket.

  “Talon,” I say again, keeping my glance on the small family. “I think he just reported us.”

  "What do we do?” I ask, fear swaying under my ribs. The tears peck at me with frantic nudges, and my voice echoes their disquiet. “We have to get in. How are we going to get in?”

  Talon’s hard eyes analyze the line-up along the city’s border. The soldiers stir. Several small groups branch out and I watch one stop several people, questioning each of them. Oh no.

  Quickly, Talon pulls me behind an abandoned maroon vehicle. I follow his lead and kneel, keeping my balance with one hand on the gritty ground. The residue of burnt magic fumes out from the deserted automobile.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Trying to figure out what to do.”

  More soldiers channel through, stopping stragglers left and right. My heart hitches in my chest, making it hard to breathe. We’re too noticeable. I don’t see how we can blend in.

  “Put on your uniform, Talon,” I say in a flash of inspiration. “Act like you’re taking me in.”

  Talon’s already shaking his head. “No way. We’ll both get caught. Since attacking Nattie’s house, it’s clear Tyrus is still looking for me.”

  “But that doesn’t make any sense,” I say. “He had us back in that basement. Why didn’t he just kill us then? Those soldiers back at Nattie’s were definitely aiming to kill.” I can’t believe I never considered it before.

  “Maybe he’s discovered something since then,” says Talon. “It might be the tears. They burned him, remember? Maybe he thinks they’ll stop burning him if you and I are dead. Either way he knows I’m working against him now. That reward isn’t just for your head. It’s for mine, too.”

  I swallow. I can’t believe I’m saying this. “I’ll do it then.”

  “What?”

  “Maybe I can trick them.”

  Talon glares. “I won’t leave you alone with them.”

  “I’ll blend in. Piece of cake,” I add, hoping to hide the absolute panic flashing through me. Crouched down, Talon rises on his toes, bracing his fingers against the vehicle’s window to peer through it. He inhales.

  “It could work,” he says after a few second. He opens his pack and digs out a familiar brown pair of cargo pants and a button-up brown shirt with badges on the arms. “Put this on.”

  Heat blazes in an instant, rushing from my stomach to the top of my cheeks. Take off my clothes right here, in front of him?

  He thrusts the uniform at me. “Hurry!” He then turns his back to me, directing his gaze to the buildings.

  Talon has the manliest body—chiseled muscles, broad, lean shoulders that funnel down to slim hips. Not to mention that h
is legs are inches longer than mine. My forehead comes to his nose whenever we stand beside one another. This is so not going to work.

  “I won’t fit into your clothes, Talon.” Even though I’ve noticed a few extra inches between my thinning belly and my waistband over the past few weeks, it’s definitely not enough. I’m still curvy to the max, especially in the rear section. I’ve always wished I could take a chunk from my behind and stuff it into my chest; then maybe I’d look a little more proportioned.

  “Are you calling me fat?”

  I shake my head. “Your jokes are so weird.”

  I glance around. People seem to be preoccupied with their own business. Soldiers swarm through the crowds, but no one pays a speck of attention to the two of us, squatting down beside the empty maroon vehicle. I can’t see the woman and her baby anymore.

  I hesitate for a moment, unsure if I really want to do this. Ren is in Valadir. Even if I didn’t need to get the tears, I’d push through that line of soldiers if it meant helping him.

  I peel off my shirt, hyper aware of the teardrop dangling down my chest. As quickly as I can, I lace my arms in Talon’s shirt and button the top.

  The pants are harder. I have to sit on the rough, pebbly rock and lay down to get them done up. The shirt hangs down to my thighs, and though the waistband of the pants hugs my hips, the legs extend past my feet like floppy sleeves.

  “I’m gonna look ridiculous. You know that, right?”

  “I’m hoping they’ll just notice the uniform,” he says, his back still to me. “Not its size.”

  It’s quite a chore to tuck a shirt into pants while crouching. The fabric bunches weird around my crotch. I groan and stand completely up. Talon mimics the movement.

  “The pants are too long,” I complain, pointing to my non-visible feet.

  “We’ll just roll them up,” he says, kneeling in front of me and doing just that. Once. Twice. Oh, whaddya know, three times! The sleeves he rolls, too.

  “Good thing you made me get these black dungeons for my feet,” I say, referring to the boots I’ve finally broken in.