by Wendy Wang
“If they healed him, he will meet me here,” Raemah said. She closed her eyes balancing her steaming bowl between her small hands, almost as if she were offering it up in prayer.
Sorrel was almost finished with her gruel when she looked over at the girl’s untouched bowl.
“Raemah you have to eat.”
“He always gives me half of his.” Raemah’s lips quivered, and her eyes glassed with tears. “He says, ‘You’re still growing. I’m not.’ And I never argue with him. I just take it and slurp it down because I’m always hungry here.”
Tears fell onto her dirty cheeks and she swiped at them with her upper arm.
“I know,” Sorrel said, pressing her shoulder against Raemah’s. “He’s right though, and if he were here, he would want you to eat.”
“Absolutely I would,” a voice said. Sorrel looked up, her heart clogging her throat.
“Jorgen!” Raemah shouted and jumped to her feet, nearly spilling her gruel. She launched herself at Jorgen, throwing her arms around his neck. “I—I thought you were dead. I—”
“Well, I’m not. Not yet anyway,” he smiled weakly at Sorrel over his sister’s shoulder. He kissed her on the temple and loosened himself from her grip. “Now, you know I’m alive, will you please eat your dinner.”
Raemah nodded and picked up her bowl, gulping down the gruel.
“Not too fast,” he scolded. “I don’t need you getting sick.”
Jorgen held out his hand to Sorrel. She grabbed onto it with both hands, squeezing it hard to make sure it was real. He pulled her to him, snaking his arms around her waist. His body trembled against hers, and he buried his face against the crook of her neck, his breath tickling and warming her skin at the same time.
“I thought you were done for,” she whispered against his ear. He chuckled, but the sound was thin and too high pitched like a too-tightly wound mandolin string that had been plucked.
“I thought I was too,” he said. “I still don’t know why they didn’t just kill me.” She hugged him tighter. After a moment, he pulled out of her arms and cupped her cheek. “Come let’s sit down. I just want to look at you.”
They sat next to the wall and she held his hand. Her thumb brushed over the thin pink scar around his wrist. His leather harness didn’t quite cover it. There were matching scars on his other arm and ankles.
“I’m so sorry. This is all my fault,” Sorrel said softly, too tired for tears.
“No, it’s not. It’s nobody’s fault.” He squeezed her hand and gazed at her so intensely it made her squirm. “Tell me why you’re not stuttering.”
“I met a great healer.” She shrugged one shoulder. “And she helped me.”
“She healed you?” Jorgen asked, his voice incredulous.
“Yes. She did more than that, but yes. Essentially.”
“At the queen's palace?” Raemah asked.
“No sweetie.” Sorrel shook her head. “It happened after the soldiers came to the village. I was there. I saw you both get taken and I’ve been trying to find a way to get you out of here since then.”
“Where were you? At another camp?” Jorgen asked.
“There are other camps?” Sorrel asked.
“Yes,” Jorgen nodded solemnly. “There are several people here who were moved from another camp. There's also a prison.” She quirked an eyebrow and he shrugged. “The guards talk.”
“This isn’t enough of a prison?” she asked, remembering Egan’s threat about a place that would rob its inhabitants of all their affinities.
“Apparently not,” he said. “It's still under construction but it won't be long before it's finished, and they'll just move all of us there I think, or at least the ones they don't need.”
“Need for what?” She asked.
“Farming, mining, manufacturing. Whatever they don’t want to do themselves,” Jorgen said, shrugging his shoulders.
“How many people are here?” Sorrel asked. “Surely there are more of us than there are of them.”
“I don't know,” Jorgen said. “And it doesn’t really matter. Not as long as we’re harnessed.”
They both stared at the leather bindings on their arms. She slumped with exhaustion placing her head against his shoulder. Never wanting to let go of him again.
“Jorgen the queen is coming,” she whispered.
“How do you know?” There was an inkling of hope in his tone. Maybe this place had not completely killed all the things she loved about him.
“I just know.”
“Did you have a vision?”
Sorrel shook her head. She hadn’t had a vision since the harness was put on her. “There are spies for the queen here. One of them told me.”
“When? When is she coming?”
“I don’t know.”
He leaned his head back against the wall and let out a heavy breath. “Did you mean it when you said you loved me?”
Sorrel raised her head and settled her gaze on his. “Yes.”
Her stomach fluttered and she thought he might kiss her. Finally,
“We should go. It's better to go before they call us.” He took their bowls, pushed to his feet, and held out a hand for her. Sorrel let him help her to her feet, tamping down her feelings of rejection. Of course he wasn’t going to kiss her. Not here. Not in this—horrible place. She forced a smile but he didn’t return it. Instead he headed around the building, leaving her behind.
Raemah grabbed her hand. “I’ll show you what to do.”
Sorrel nodded, giving the girl’s hand a squeeze. They started to walk around to the entrance of the dormitory.
“Don’t be mad at him,” Raemah said softly, squinting towards the pink and orange watercolor sky.
“I’m not mad. Why would I be?”
“He’s just trying to protect you. And me. He does love you.”
“I know,” she said, but her voice sounded thin and the words felt untrue.
“He’s just—it’s been so hard here.”
“I know,” she said, with no trace of doubt.
“He’s had visions you know.”
“He has?” she said, surprised. Didn’t the harnesses suppress their affinities? “What about you?”
“Just one,” Raemah said softly. “You?”
“No. None. not since they put these things on me.”
“You die, in his vision,” Raemah said.
The words slapped her in the face, and she stopped walking. Raemah hadn’t yet learned how to deliver the bad news that visions sometimes brought. She looked the girl in the eye. “You listen to me. I am not going to die and we are going to get out of here. I haven’t given up and neither should you or Jorgen.”
A strange smile stretched across Raemah’s face. “That’s what I told him. I told him the future can change. I told him I'd had a vision too and you lived,” Raemah said.
“But, he didn't believe you?”
“No.”
“It's just a vision,” Sorrel muttered. “It can be changed.”
“He knows that,” Raemah said. “But he’s still scared. You coming here was the first part of his vision.”
Sorrel stared into the girl’s black eyes, and cupped her thin cheek. “I promise you, no one is going to kill me, and no one is going to kill you either. I won't let it happen.”
Raemah nodded, and threw her arms around Sorrel’s waist hugging her tight.
“We better go before they start wondering what's happened to us,” Raemah said, pulling her arms away. “I don’t think I could stand to be punished again today.”
Sorrel called up a half-hearted smile. “Me neither.”
Eighteen
The dormitories were divided by a wide open corridor running through the middle of the building. Males were on one side and females on the other.
Sorrel stretched her neck, counting the five floors of metal cell doors. She followed Raemah up the steps, falling in line with the other women and girls heading towards their cells. For so many
people moving through a space, the relative quiet struck Sorrel as odd. No one spoke, or even whispered. Even their bare feet made little sound on the stone steps.
Guards were stationed at intervals along each walkway to keep order, but Sorrel couldn’t imagine anyone here fighting back from the worn, beaten looks on people’s faces.
Raemah led her to the farthest cell on the right. Long platforms, with only two feet of space between them—just enough to crawl through—lined the walls. Each platform held at least 50 women which meant each cell was brimming with at least a hundred and fifty women. She had passed fourteen other cells before getting to this one so on this floor alone there were more than two-thousand women. With five floors on each side of the dormitory, Sorrel estimated there were more than 20,000 people in this camp. And Jorgen had said there were other camps. Were they as large?
Sorrel wished for just one moment she had some pen and paper and access to her raven. Did the queen know how many Kaels were being held captive?
“Come with me,” Raemah said, grabbing Sorrel’s hand, and pulling her through the crowd of women. Raemah led her to the wooden ladder and climbed up to the second platform. Sorrel crossed on her hands and knees clinging to the wobbly structure. Raemah crawled along the wall to the farthest crook.
“Move,” Raemah said in a commanding voice to a woman. “I laid claim here the first night.”
The woman opened her mouth to argue, but another woman poked her side. “You heard the girl. Find another spot.”
Raemah narrowed her eyes and the woman shrank away, crawling back towards the middle of the platform, muttering under her breath. Raemah lay down and patted the narrow empty space beside her.
The other women took their place and lying down, falling asleep almost instantly from exhaustion and the lack of food.
Sorrel stretched out next to Raemah turning on her side, so the girl could spoon up next to her. She closed her eyes and her mind drifted. Just twenty-four hours ago, she was alone and lost in the darkness, unsure if she would ever see Jorgen and Raemah again. She said a silent prayer of thanks before her mind started to work on the problem of their escape. She couldn’t wait for the queen to come and rescue them, no matter what the guard had told her.
It seemed only a moment had passed before someone was waking her up and pulling her from the platform. Surely it wasn't time to go to work yet? She had just fallen asleep. A knocking on the wood frame of the platform reverberated through her.
“Get up,” a rough voice said from below. The women on her row groaned, pushing to their hands and knees, crawling towards the ladders on the end of the platform. “Don’t make me say it twice.”
Sorrel sat straight up, banging her head on the platform above. She glanced around for Raemah but didn’t see her.
She heard her before she saw her, crying somewhere below. Sorrel crawled across the platform, pushing past other women, garnering dirty looks. She swung her leg onto the ladder and scrambled down. Raemah stood between two heavyset guards, each with a hand on the girl's shoulders. Tears wet the girl’s cheeks.
“Sorrel,” Raemah cried.
“What’s going on? Where are you taking her?” Sorrel demanded. One of the guards struck her hard across the jaw, knocking her to the floor.
“That’s from Egan,” the guard said and they ushered the crying girl out of the cell.
The coppery taste of blood filled her mouth, and her tongue ached where she’d bitten it when she fell. Tears stung her eyes, and she swiped them away before they could fall. How was she going to tell Jorgen the guards had just come and taken Raemah away? The women walking around her prone body didn’t even look at her. A stab of panic sliced through her heart. What if they had taken Jorgen too? What if this was just one more punishment for her? Sorrel scrambled to her feet and pushed into the line of women, rushing past them once on the steps. Ignoring the line for gruel, she scanned the crowd of hungry people for his face, specifically his eyes. Only Raemah shared his black eyes. The sound of blood rushing through her ears drowned out everything else. Her stomach turned to an icy rock dropping to her feet when she didn’t see him. Tears burned the back of her throat. Egan had promised to hurt her. To make her suffer. She’d thought yesterday and all the days she’d spent alone in dark isolation would have been enough.
A hard tap on her shoulder made her jump. She turned and almost choked on her heart at the site of him. She swallowed back her emotions, controlling her urge to throw her arms around his neck, to never let him go. No point in risking the attention from the guards in the open.
“Didn’t you hear me? I’ve been calling you for—” he started.
The words spilled out of her before she could stop them. “They took Raemah.”
His lips pressed together and his cheeks flushed, nostrils flaring. He glanced around and then his gaze settled on her again, his eyes filled with the same helplessness she felt.
He cleared his throat. “We should eat something. It’s going to be a long day.”
Sorrel nodded and they headed towards the gruel line.
They drank down the gummy, warm liquid in silence, and Sorrel followed him to the fields. They both took a gathering bag from the pile and headed towards a long row of spiny purple prickleberries. With no gloves, handling the berries resulted in bloody fingers almost immediately. She stopped for a moment, sucking on her thumb.
“Here,” Jorgen said. “Let me show you.”
He knelt beside the bush she was tending to and pushed the long thorny runner out of the way with the leather harness on his wrist, giving access to the precious fruit hanging on the underside of the plant. “Hold your bag open like this,” he said maneuvering under the cache of berries. “Pinch them off from the stem and let them fall into the bag instead of pulling the berries. It’ll save your fingers.”
“Thanks,” Sorrel said, giving him a slight smile. He gave her a quick nod and went back to working on the nearby plants. She pinched several berries into her bag and scooted closer to him.
“I couldn’t stop them,” she said softly. “I’m sorry.”
His jaw clenched, but he didn’t look at her. The berry he was working on didn’t want to give. The hair-like thorns covering the deep violet fruit dug into his skin and he cursed, jerking his arm away. He sat back on his haunches and stared at his bloody palm.
“Are you all right?” she said touching his arm.
“I’m fine,” he grumbled, picking the fine spikes from the heel of his hand. The line between his brows deepened. “And there’s nothing to be sorry for. Trying to stop them would have been suicide. I couldn’t bear it if I lost you both.”
The pain in his voice sliced through her heart.
“Don’t say it like that. She is not dead.”
“She may as well be,” he said, shaking his head. He gritted his teeth. “I don't want to think about it. All right?”
She hung her head, digging her hands into the dirt, squeezing the sandy soil between her fingers.
“You don’t understand,” he pitched his voice low and glanced around before bringing his gaze back to her. “People disappear here. I don't know why, or where they take them. All I know is they don't come back.”
“So what are you saying? We just give up?” She stared at him. How could he so easily accept not knowing?
“Yes.”
Sorrow poured through her, weighing down every limb. She had to fight to keep upright. She hated this place, hated the guards that ran it but mostly she hated Peter Declan. She swallowed back the tears burning the back of her throat, scanning the fields around them. Her gazed settled near the fence line. Raemah's voice echoed through her mind. That's where they take us when they're done with us. Why would they have taken her there? Was Egan still punishing her?
“How many holes are there?” Sorrel asked.
“What are you talking about?” Jorgen frowned. “You should get back to berry picking before they notice.”
“Raemah told me about the ho
les where they dump people when they're done with them. She said when they're all dead they cover them up.”
“Sometimes.” He shook his head. She could see his mind beginning to whir and his gaze turned to the fence, looking past all the rows of food, and the Kaels stooped over toiling away. “They only take the sick there. Or the very old. I've never seen them take anyone young or healthy. Not when there's so much work to be done.”
“Yes, but, you said people disappear here.”
“I know, but it's because they're taken somewhere.”
“How do you know that?”
“I've heard the guards talk about having enough for shipment.” He sounded frustrated, but he'd gone back to picking the berries. She started working her own bushes again, glancing over her shoulder to check on the nearest guard.
“A shipment of what?” she said.
“People,” he said quietly. “I don't know how they decide who goes and who stays. Now please we have got to get back to work.”
Sorrel frowned, but went back to picking her berries in earnest. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe Raemah was still here. She wasn't certain that Egan was done with her punishment.
They continued down their row until their bags were full. Jorgen led her to a cart nearby and they emptied their fruit into it. They were on their third bag when the horn sounded.
She watched Jorgen take off his bag and lay it on the ground, to mark his spot. She did as he did, following him towards several carts with large barrels of water.
Two guards watched over the gathering crowd. Jorgen grabbed two tin cups from the stacks on the end of the cart and filled them with water. He handed her one and she drank greedily, letting every cool drop coat her throat. He gulped his down and refilled their cups again.
“We’re only allowed two,” he said, taking her cup when she’d finished. She watched him put the cups back on the cart. He stopped for a moment before turning back to her, his gaze fixing on the fence line until a guard poked him hard in the side with the tip of his baton, yelling at him to keep moving. The slight jolt made Jorgen yelp, and he made his way back to her holding his side. They walked together in silence back to their bags.