Emmie’s eyes widened as she looked back at him. He had longer brown hair, several chunks of it plaited, and it gave him a wild look. That, along with the rough clothing he wore and the thick beard, made him resemble the raiders of her stories. She tilted her bowl up to finish the brew, realizing that she had steadily been sipping the strange warm liquid as they spoke, and now the humming buzz was a constant companion under her skin.
“That’s all right. You don’t need to tell me anything. I don’t meddle in other people’s lives like Justine, but you need to understand something.” Tim glanced over at his wife and son, walking back towards them hand in hand. “There isn’t a person in this village who Lucian hasn’t helped in one way or another, and there’s no room for playing games out here.”
“I’m not playing any games.”
“Good. Then I don’t need to tell you that if you jerk him around and hurt him, there won’t be a friend left to you here.” Tim stood suddenly, ending the not-so-vague threat and leaving Emmie with a sour pit in her stomach. “I think it’s time for bed, Jean.”
“But, Da! Everyone is still awake!”
“Everyone else isn’t five years old, now don’t argue.” Tim nudged his son and Rachel smiled as the two headed away from the fire, then she turned her eyes to Emmie with a gentle look.
“I know we haven’t met yet, but I saw you the day you arrived. You looked as shocked as I probably did when I found myself with Tim that morning.” She sighed. “I’m not sure what has happened between you and Lucian, but I want you to look around and really see this place for what it is. Look at Tim and me, at Alice and Quentin. You can have a life out here, it didn’t end the day they exiled you.”
“Okay.” Emmie nodded, and Rachel smiled encouragingly at her as she turned to follow her family.
Family.
That’s what the village was, and it’s why she felt completely apart. She didn’t have a place here, and how could she? Everyone else was an exile. They had a common thread, a common need to survive in the face of impossible odds.
Emmie had fled voluntarily. From a life of privilege. From a beautiful home with an abundance of food, and servants, and – and a loving sister.
She’d had a family, at least one good member of it, and she had betrayed her to save herself. These exiles were so busy sacrificing for each other, protecting each other, and Emmie had thrown the one person in the world that loved her unconditionally to the proverbial wolves.
Her belly was empty except for the brew, and when she stood, the world tilted. Looking back at the celebrations going on near the village center, she felt overwhelmed. Part of her wanted to see Lucian again, to see him with his people being happy and normal, but it was all too much. Too many people, too many expectations. The brew was wreaking havoc on her as it bled into her system. She’d never liked alcohol much, even when she and Gabrielle had snuck it from their father’s study, and this stuff was making her stomach roll. With a grumbled curse, she stumbled her way back to the stable, hoping to be alone to think. The walk there was quiet, and on approach it looked promising, there was no guard at the door, but when she pulled the blanket aside, she saw Clara curled on her side.
“Oh, it’s you.” Clara sat up, and Emmie sighed.
“Hi.”
“Why aren’t you out celebrating with Alice? I’m sure you heard she’s going to be mated to Quentin.” Clara’s voice was full of venom, and Emmie huffed as she dropped onto the thin bedding she usually slept on.
“I was there. I’m happy for her.”
“Of course you are,” Clara snapped.
“Aren’t you happy for her? They clearly care for —”
“Happy? You want me to be happy that she found a mate in the three weeks she’s been here? I’ve been here two fucking years!”
“Okay. Sorry,” Emmie grumbled. She didn’t have the energy to deal with the angry woman, but Clara just laughed.
“It’s not like you’re wasting any time either. You didn’t waste any time spreading your legs for Lucian, did you?” Clara’s voice was sinister, and Emmie smacked her hand on the ground as she sat up.
“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about!”
“Don’t act shy with me, it’s all over the village. Lucian finally found a woman. Lucian finally fucked one of the women.” Her voice slurred, and it was clear she’d had more than a bowl of the brew.
“Drop it, Clara. I’m not entertaining this.” Emmie shook her head and turned away, lying down on her side. The words ate at her though, burrowing inside her.
“Although, I heard you’ve been spending a lot of time with Mathias as well. Is it just that you’re trying to hedge your bets? Make sure you’ve got one of the leaders of this place interested enough in your cunt that you get one of them?”
Rage burned inside her, but Clara was just trying to pick a fight. A drunken fight. She’d been around her father enough times when he’d been into a bottle to know that rising to the barbs would only result in a more explosive outburst. “Go to sleep, Clara.”
“Fuck you, Emmie.” She heard the girl moving, and then her hand brushed against her back. “What’s this?”
Emmie sat up fast to see the photo of Gabrielle in the girl’s hands. Fear rushed through her like cold water, sobering her quickly. “Please don’t hurt it!”
“What is this?” Clara’s anger seemed to be bleeding out of her, those blue eyes lifting to her with curiosity instead of hate.
“It’s mine. Please, just let me have it back.” She held out her hand, trying to suppress the trembling in her fingers.
“Fine. You’d probably just tell on me to your lovers if I did anything anyway.” Clara flicked the photograph at her and Emmie scrambled to grab it from the floor, brushing the dirt off of it as Clara turned away to lie down.
Her heart was pounding, the twisting in her stomach only clenching tighter as she looked down at Gabrielle’s bright smile. The deep creases in the photo were breaking the image in places, but it didn’t matter. It was all she had left of a life that was out of reach now. On the other side of a wall.
Decisions had been made, and this was her reality.
The exiles, and the village, and Lucian.
The benefit was that she didn’t have to make any more decisions tonight. There was time to figure it all out. To decide what she wanted, because as Lucian had made very clear –
It was her choice.
Chapter Eleven
Emmie awoke with an ache in her head and a growling stomach, but Clara was already loudly splashing water on her face at the back of the stable and that meant there was no chance at slipping back into sleep for a little longer.
“Morning,” Clara said, her voice empty of any of the hatred she had spewed the night before in her drunken state.
“Morning…”
“We both slept in. Victor woke me a bit ago, but if we hurry, there might still be something for breakfast.” She tossed a damp rag into Emmie’s lap. “I’ll see you later.”
“Sure.” She stared at Clara as the woman finger combed her hair, adjusting her shirt before walking out the front without even a backwards glance. Emmie groaned, rolling her neck to try and ease the tension. Even if her body wouldn’t forget the night before, at least Clara had moved past whatever issues had been bothering her.
Victor poked his head in a moment later. “You up yet? I’d like to eat too.”
“Yeah, I am. I’ll be quick.”
“Good, I’m starving.”
Emmie rushed through her morning routine, stepping out and dragging her hair into a messy braid as she followed Victor’s hurried steps down the path towards the center of the village. Clara had been right, there was almost nothing left to eat, but she was able to scrape a little from the bottom to settle her grumbling stomach after Victor had practically filled his bowl.
The day felt unusually normal after that, her new normal anyway. Except that the chaotic whirlwind of information from the day before
was slowly settling inside her as she read through yet another stack of correspondence in Mathias’ dimly lit home. He was barely talking to her today, and that worked fine for both of them, because Emmie already had too much on her mind.
Lucian wanted to be different, wanted to try and make them work. Whatever they were.
The entire village was apparently paying close attention to them, and most of them had no fear in telling her exactly what they thought about it. Good, bad, or in-between.
Clara was miserable, but that didn’t seem to be new. Alice was mated. And Emmie seemed to be floating aimlessly, unable to define what was happening with her and Lucian.
“Girl, are you reading or daydreaming?” Mathias’ voice was gruff across from her as he broke into her thoughts, and she sighed and sat up straighter.
“I’m reading.”
“Good, I want a summary of those letters within the hour.”
“Sure thing, captain.” Emmie rolled her eyes, but Mathias stiffened across from her.
“Why don’t you keep your mouth shut unless you have something useful to tell me?” He stood up from the table abruptly. “I’ll be back soon, and you better be done when I return.”
He jerked the door open and left it wide, letting in a rush of fresh air. The silence as he left was welcome, because there was plenty of talking going on inside her head to fill the room. Everything had felt so much easier at the waterfall, when Lucian was just Lucian and not the leader of the village, not the savior of these people. He was so much easier to process one on one, and even then everything was still full of complications, full of their brief history together.
Tim and Rachel had been right about one thing – being with Lucian was a high stakes issue, but despite what Clara had suggested, she’d had no part in creating this situation.
“Damn it all,” she grumbled and dropped the letters onto the table in front of her. They fluttered in the breeze from the door and she caught one page before it took off. As she lifted it, a particular line stood out to her.
‘I know you haven’t asked, but your son is doing well.’
Son?
Emmie gripped the letter, reading it from top to bottom, but the rest of it was just more information about movements inside the city. Updates on the council, on Jules Daniau – and the date on it was over a year ago. She was stunned.
Mathias had a son. Inside the city. A son he had been separated from for years.
Flicking through the other letters in the stack didn’t take long, but there were no more references to Mathias’ son. Absolutely nothing but more details about their plan to someday get back into the city, to overthrow the council and her father. To get back home.
She groaned and cradled her head in her hands, guilt gnawing at her insides. Emmie had never even paid attention to the judicial proceedings in the city. The decision to exile happened at such regular intervals that it became background noise. Boring. Inconsequential. She and Gabrielle and their acquaintances had preferred to spend their days reading a new book, or gossiping about others in their social circle while people had been sent out to die. Real people. Good people like Evan and Lucie, like Ben and Justine.
All while she had debated over whether she looked better in navy or cream.
So shallow. So ridiculous.
That girl had been foolish, selfish, and she was glad that girl had been left atop the walls.
Emmie picked up the first letter again, running her finger over the line that told her too much about the angry man she’d been spending her days around. The indentions of each word echoed inside her, and she debated whether or not to tell him.
Would he be happy to know his son was all right, or would it renew an old pain? Had he already read this page before his eyes started to fade? Or was this one of many that he had struggled to squint at in secret while reassuring Lucian that he had their plans under control?
Was Mathias just lying about what he’d read to keep hope alive among the small group that knew of his plans? Was he that kind of man? She couldn’t tell. He barely spoke to her about anything tangible, but she knew one thing for sure.
People were complicated.
So much more complicated than Emmie had ever taken the time to notice. They were light and dark. Good and evil. Hero and villain. All twisted up together with unique histories, and stories, and lives. Sometimes it felt like that’s all she did when she wasn’t around Mathias or Lucian – listen to people’s stories. Learn about them, about who they had been before, about how they had been exiled, about who they loved, and their names blurred together inside her head. Alice, Victor, Ben, Clara, Tim, Lucian, Quentin, Mathias, Theo, Jennifer, Nicholas, Rachel, and more. So many more. All of them thrown out on the whim of one man.
Jules Alexander Daniau.
This village had saved them. Lucian and Mathias had saved them. And who was she? A traitor. A spoiled rich girl. Daughter to the man who had caused all of their suffering, the man who was the true enemy to the city.
For the first time the gulf that existed between her and the rest of the village felt… different. She still felt separate, wrong, but she wanted to change too. Despite what Rachel had said, her old life had ended the day she left the city, but she had the chance to build a new one. To be someone new. To be someone worthwhile, someone who helped others instead of ignoring them. To be someone who cared, instead of a petty, selfish child.
Mathias appeared in the doorway, mumbling as he ducked and stepped inside, and Emmie scrambled to wipe her cheeks, aware of the cooling tracks of tears. “Well, girl, tell me what the letters said.”
She sniffed, brushing off the top letter before clearing her throat. “They all talk about a focused effort to bring in more guards that are sympathetic to the exiled, and —”
“And?” he asked as he dropped into his chair, looking over at her.
“Um…” Emmie brushed her thumb over the line that spoke of his son, and then raised her eyes to his. “And the letters are about a year old, I’m not sure if they’re very helpful. The ones I read a couple of days ago about the eastern wall being reshuffled were more recent.”
“Well, why the hell are you wasting time on those then? Give them back.” He took them and stacked them to one end of the table, placing a rock over them to hold them down. “Here, check the dates on these, I think these are more recent.”
Taking the stack in hand, she watched his face as he looked over the table full of correspondence. It seemed like he had emptied every storage space in his home to lay them all out. “What am I looking for, Mathias?”
“A solution. A real one.” he grumbled, wiping his hand across his face. “One that won’t get all those boys killed.”
“You don’t think you have enough support inside? Among the guards?”
“I think that it’s your job to read through them and tell me what you find, not strategize.” He snapped his fingers and pointed at the letters in her hands. “Go on, tell me what you find.”
“Okay.”
“Okay? Not going to give me some smart mouthed response, little bird?” Mathias tilted his head as he leaned back in his chair.
“No. I want to help.” She bent over the first of the letters, recognizing a familiar hand in the letter and affirming it was barely a month old.
“Hmm.” He didn’t sound convinced, but he settled into his seat. “All right then, get to work.”
Hours later Emmie didn’t feel like she had anything useful. Her head was full of numbers, descriptions of the city, and the routes of guards – she could picture it all perfectly – but it didn’t mean anything.
There was no real plan.
“Mathias?” She looked up from the most recent stack of letters and realized he had fallen asleep. “Mathias,” she repeated a little louder.
“Huh?” His head jerked up, eyes squinting against the fading light from the hole in the roof before he finally focused on her. “Oh. About time you finished, what did you find?”
“Mo
re of the same information. It seems like all of these letters,” she gestured at the whole table, “are just telling you the same details over and over. Who cares if one group of guards moved from the southwest wall to the northwest? By the time I’m reading these they could have moved again.”
He groaned and wiped his face before rolling his shoulders. “Your point?”
“My point is that if you’re serious about getting back into the city, you need a plan to attack the weak spot as soon as you get the letter. Not weeks or,” she held up the letter in her hand, “months later.”
“What do you know about any of this, girl? Guards and patrols and city defenses, as if you have any idea.” He laughed to himself.
Emmie gritted her teeth, forcing her mouth to stay shut, because what she wanted to do was yell at him that she had spent weeks figuring out the best place to escape. Identifying the place they left unguarded during shift changes, along the eastern wall, near the butcher shops where the smell of copper in the air was strong. “I know that old information is useless. That’s what I know.”
“And exactly how do you expect me to get current information?”
“Well, how are you getting these letters? Surely someone is getting close enough to the city to —”
“You don’t need to know that.” Mathias pushed himself up from the chair with a groan, stretching his back.
Emmie huffed out a laugh and dropped the letters on the table. “Then what am I doing here, Mathias? Why the hell did you ask me to read these?”
He paused, and Emmie did too. She had expected another outburst, another shouting match full of threats and futile rage. Instead, he looked over at her through his dark, wavy hair. “I’d hoped you would see some chance inside those letters, because I don’t anymore.”
“What?” Her voice was soft, disbelief coursing through her.
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