Smith gaped at her. "Where are you going?"
"Away." She started down the steps. "This is no longer my home."
"Raina," Mauser said. "Precisely what do you think you're doing?"
"Keeping the peace."
"It looks to me like you're letting a minority of maniacs bully you into handing over the island!"
"If that is what the people want, maybe that's what they deserve!"
He grabbed her shoulder. On the steps, she whirled, grabbed his hand, and bent his wrist in one of the ways Carl had shown her. Trying to escape the hold, Mauser banged into the staircase railing.
"This is bullying." She bent his wrist another fraction of an inch. He pulled his lips back from his teeth. Raina released him. "And this is letting go. It's like I just said, Mauser. If they're so far gone that they're ready to attack me in my palace, then my chieftainship is too broken to repair."
"But not everyone thinks this way. At least put it to a vote. If you lose that, then you can flounce."
She stepped to the dirt of the courtyard. Her foot could feel that it was no longer hers. "There is no need to vote. If there are this many who will fight, there are that many more who would vote for change."
Behind them, the winch clanked. The gates parted with a punishing groan.
"So you're quitting? Since when were you so fatalistic? When the Raina I know hits a wall, she doesn't walk away. She hits it again. And again. Until it falls down."
"Mauser! There is a cycle to things, and a season. When rain falls, if you don't catch it, you can't squeeze it back out from the dirt. It is gone." She crossed the courtyard toward the palace doors. Warriors were yelling her name, but she didn't look up. "And so am I."
Mauser trotted alongside her. "You're not making sense. This is one of those decisions that you essentially pluck out of nowhere, and then rationalize it as coming from outside you—the moon, the Bones, the land itself. A source of great antiquity and authority that cannot be questioned. But the cold truth is it all comes from you. If you walk away—if you leave these people to be overwhelmed by Anson—their deaths will be yours."
Raina stopped on the steps to the palace doors. She lowered her head and sighed, then turned to face Mauser. His face was wrenched into the picture of grief, distorted like a clay statue whose creator has grabbed it by the cheeks and pinched hard.
"If you still respect me," she said, "you will do two things for me. First, prepare me a boat. Something small enough to sail by myself. Have it ready by dawn."
"Nope," Mauser said.
Beside him, Mia blinked away tears. "And the second request?"
Raina tipped back her head and took in the stars. "Please look after my mother. See that she is safe?"
Mauser's face folded. Mia touched his shoulder and smiled at Raina. "We will."
As Raina passed inside the building, someone grabbed for her, but she brushed them off. She jogged up the left wing of the staircase. The pain had left her hip. In fact, it seemed to have left all of her, down to her bones and fibers, leaving her as light as a dandelion seed. When she reached the top of the stairs, she had no memory of her feet touching the treads.
She entered her room and closed the door. Beyond the windows, lanterns flickered. People shouted from the courtyard and walls, but she didn't sense there was enough anger to explode.
Like many, she kept a ready-bag of supplies by the door. After the Night of Almonds, someone had leaned her two swords against the bag. She belted them on and got a second bag. She wasn't concerned about extra food or water—these things would present themselves to her, or they wouldn't—but the nights had grown cold. She found another blanket, a second set of shoes, and extra socks. Then she took Karslaw's skull down from its peg, along with that of Reek, with his toothy mouth and ridiculous nose.
"You watched over me when I was young," she said to the shark's skull. "So now I will look after you."
She adjusted the bags to her back. As she did so, someone knocked heavily on the door, calling her name. But one of her first acts on moving back to Catalina had been to ensure that she didn't need to depend on the door. She slung a knotted rope out the window and descended it to the dark grounds beyond. After making sure she was alone, she moved to the ladder built into the back side of the wall, climbed to the other side, and jogged through the black grass.
She didn't stop or look back until she stood atop the hill a half mile to the north. From there, the palace and its lights looked as small as the Pleiades, or any one of the vacant houses on the island. In the darkness, the mainland was nothing more than a black smear between the sea and the sky. The truth revealed itself: Catalina, San Pedro, and all the lands of Anson were as nothing, of no more meaning or importance than the struggle of ants obscured beneath the grass.
She descended the hill. The palace disappeared behind her.
Raina wandered to the coast, which had always seemed holiest to her, the place where earth, water, and air were all churned together as one. When she reached the shore, she expected to be graced with a new revelation—a voice from the waves, perhaps, or a shock from the sand—but she found herself alone.
She found a sprout of hardy brush and tucked herself beneath it. It was odd to be cut loose of all the demands and purposes that had felt so mountainous just hours before. And what should she do now? Infiltrate the Heart and slay Anson, knowing there would be no escape? Or cast aside her last concerns for this realm and walk to someplace new, to be Raina?
She didn't mean to sleep—she needed to leave the docks at dawn, before any fools could arrive to harangue her—but her body knew better, seizing its rest.
Yet it knew its duty, and woke when the dew lay thick in the grass, the sun still at bay behind the eastern mountains. She stretched her legs and breathed the cold air. Ready, she walked east toward Avalon.
She arrived above town as the mountains watching over Los Angeles began to grow purple. There were hardly any lights in the windows of the houses and even fewer people in the streets. She walked briskly to the docks. There, two silhouettes awaited her: Mauser and Mia. A thirty-foot sloop nudged against the rubber bumpers separating it from the pier.
"This boat," Raina said. "It's far too big."
"For you, maybe," Mauser said. "However, you have grossly underestimated the size of your crew."
"You're coming with me? But I don't know where I'm going."
"I am frequently struck with that same condition. I'm beginning to suspect it's a malingering illness known as 'life.'"
"We're not here for this island," Mia said. "We're here for you. If you're going, we're going with you."
"But who's going to look after my mom?"
Mia gazed inland. "Well, my first choice was Henna. When I explained the situation to her, we immediately ran into a problem."
"That I was leaving, too," Henna said from the sloop.
Raina spun, hand on the hilt of her sword. She swore and shook her head. "Why do I suspect you're not alone there?"
Bryson moved from behind the cabin. "Because you've got the best instincts I've ever seen."
Carl emerged, too. He waved.
"You too?" Raina said.
"Think I've taught you everything I know?" Carl smiled with half his mouth. "I'm not done with you. Besides, when we abandoned San Pedro, I left my Chagall behind. I'd like to get it back."
Raina tried to promise him that they would, but when she tried to speak, she found her throat had become too tight to work. She blinked against the cold wind coming in from the ocean.
"I won't ask you to stay," she said. "But I would like to know who's seeing for my mother."
"Ophelia volunteered," Mia said. "I know, she's older than your mom. But her grandsons aren't."
"I think she will do fine." Raina moved toward the gangplank, but Mauser blocked the way.
"It's not too late," he said. "You can still retake your throne. Lead this place where it needs to go."
"I may do that." Raina rested h
er forearm on the pommel of her katana. "But perhaps I have lost them because I have lost the right to lead them. The challenges we face today are much broader and deeper than when I freed the people from Karslaw. Before I can return here, I must learn how to face these new troubles."
Mauser licked his lips, then stepped aside. Raina jogged aboard. The east glowed pinkly, scourging the night before it. With the help of the others, she cast off and steered them from the harbor.
She didn't know where she was going. Yet to her great surprise, she was overjoyed that she would not be alone.
II:
DAYS OF SILVER
13
He was within sight of Catalina before it occurred to him it might be a trap.
The thought made Lowell angrier than he'd been in weeks. Not at them—machinations and betrayals were all part of the game; if you thought there were rules to play by, codes of honor to abide, you'd be upholding them from a grave damn quick. Rather, he was mad at himself. How sloppy he'd become. The details had been tight, and from unblemished sources, but that was no excuse. You assumed the enemy could play just as well as you could. Anything less, and you'd find yourself in the same grave as the honorable.
Then again, being aware it could be a trap wouldn't have stopped him from coming over.
He wasn't much of a sailor, but he did his part to help the three-man crew guide the sloop into the port at Avalon. On the docks, men with guns watched them approach. Most looked in their thirties and late twenties. Interesting. Back when the girl had had the run of things, her crew had skewed younger, and hadn't shied from putting arms in the hands of women.
A man with dark, curly hair strode forward. "Identify yourselves."
"I'm Lowell," he said. "I represent Mr. Anson. You going to mind if I step off this boat?"
The man shook his head once. "You're clear."
Lowell exited to the dock, glad to be off the water. They had a mule-drawn wagon waiting on land. They offered to take Lowell's crew, too, but he informed them he'd be the only one visiting the council.
Mentally, he upgraded that to the Council—now that they were in charge, he supposed they deserved the capitalization.
As the wagon wound up the streets to the heights, people turned and stared. Some hauled corn and wheat down to the docks while others lugged pungently smoked fish from the shores. It was hardly what you'd call a metropolis, but he could believe as many as three hundred people lived in the town. More than their intel had led him to believe.
He didn't see any sign of electricity, cars, or industry heavier than fishing/agriculture. The Lunatics weren't ahead of them in the tech game, then. That would have been embarrassing.
The wagon rolled through open hills and fresh farmland. A half hour later, it approached the palace, which appeared to be a sprawling stone house heavily but not unskillfully augmented with stone wings, then surrounded by high walls and towers. Not a bad setup. Anson would be jealous.
The driver announced them to the gatekeepers. The doors creaked open. The wagon stopped and Lowell stepped out. It was a little after noon and the hottest it had been since September. Dust puffed from his boots. A man in a suit like some kind of butler showed Lowell in and brought him to an airy hall with stone tile and unpainted wooden walls. A winged staircase overlooked a long table. At it, three men and one woman stood from their chairs.
A librarian-type in glasses raised her brown eyebrows at him. "Mr. Lowell?"
"Correct," he said. "Does that make you Ms. Young?"
"Correct." She smiled and nodded to a chair. "Please, be seated."
He pulled out a chair without scraping the legs and sat. "I heard things had changed here."
"Before we get into that, I'd like one thing clarified, if you would. What is the exact nature of your role?"
"Undefined."
"Humor me by explaining what capacity you're visiting us in."
"Situations like this are complicated. Precarious. Like one of those towers of blocks that can be toppled by removing the wrong piece. When you're wearing your ceremonial robes, it's too easy to destroy things with one awkward bow."
A burly man—Gates the sheriff, judging by his badge—closed one eye. "So you're the fixer."
"I like to think of myself as a scout. I'm here to see if the land ahead is worth exploring. If we decide it is, then the powers that be send in the people to build the roads."
"I believe I take your meaning," Tina Young said. "What lands are you looking to assess?"
"Is Raina gone?"
"She no longer leads the people of this island. That responsibility has fallen to the four of us."
"Is she still here on Catalina?"
Young and Gates glanced at each other. A hefty man in a snappy suit said, "She's gone. And good riddance."
"Do you know where she went?"
The hefty man wagged a hand. "Sailed away."
Young's expression darkened. "Why does this matter?"
Lowell rubbed his stubble. "Security risk. If she's off the island, she's more likely to come after Anson. Could be you wouldn't mind that one bit. But it's my job to see that doesn't happen."
"Ah. Is that the real reason behind your visit?"
"If it was, do you think I would have brought it up?"
Gates leaned forward and folded his hands on the table. "If we could tell you where she went, what would that be worth to you?"
Lowell sniffed. "Displays of good faith are one of the best ways to restore trust."
"I'm not much for the subtleties of politics. Are we talking about a truce?"
"The question the People of the Stars face is this: are your people a threat? Or was that threat driven solely by Raina?"
"Who's no longer behind the wheel."
"We aren't the Huns. Wars cost resources. People, too. You better have a damn good reason for fighting one."
"So why did you attack San Pedro in the first place?" This came from the only one who hadn't spoken yet, a whip-thin fellow with a sharp goatee.
Lowell looked him up and down. "Does that matter?"
"Of course it matters. If it was wrong then, it's wrong now."
"Do you want to put a stop to the war?"
The man's goatee bristled as he pursed his lips. "Does anyone want to fight a war?"
"Sure," Lowell said. "There have always been men who destroy for no reason besides destruction itself. Question is, are we among them?"
"So Anson would be open to peace," Young said.
"He's open. What should I tell him about you?"
"That we wouldn't have made a change in leadership if we hadn't suffered severe disagreements with that leader. We are currently in flux. I can't tell you the exact nature of the ground we stand on. But if Anson is receptive to a ceasefire—a treaty—it would be deeply irresponsible of us not to meet with him."
Lowell nodded. "I'm sure he'd agree with that."
He stood and was escorted outside. The wagon team hadn't been expecting such a brief visit and had taken the mules away to be watered and tended. While Lowell waited for their return, he popped a stick of Big Red in his mouth. The doors opened, disgorging the burly, suited man into the sunlight.
"Heard you're waiting on a ride," the man said. "I can take you into town if you like."
"It's no trouble."
"My name's Nolan." He extended his hand. "I thought we might have more to discuss."
"Appreciate the offer," Lowell said.
Five minutes later, a team of horses rolled up, drawing a no-frills black carriage. Lowell got in. The inside smelled like sweat and chaff. It was warm and he began to perspire. The gates creaked shut behind them.
"I'm left with a concern," Nolan said.
"Then I'd like to hear it."
"I don't like the idea of Raina out there running around and causing trouble. If she were to come after you people, even as a free agent, that might sour relations on both sides of the table."
"One nudge topples the tower."
; "Precisely so. There comes a point when holding your tongue isn't a virtue. Not when silence threatens the safety of your people."
Lowell propped his elbow in the open window. "If you have something that can help keep Anson safe, that's going to keep both our people safe."
"The first thing to know is she didn't go alone. You're not looking for a single person—you're looking for five, six people. All of them far more dangerous than they look."
"Some people still talk like it was a fluke that a teenage girl nearly cleaned our clocks. Me, I've learned not to underestimate anyone here."
Nolan sucked the inside of his cheek, then bobbed his head, apparently deciding the compliment included him, too. "They sailed east. Morning before yesterday."
"Do you know where they were going?"
"I assume it was to go after the big man. They tried as much a few weeks back. Didn't work then, but they've got less to lose this time, don't they?"
Lowell probed him for more, but by the time they rocked to a stop at the docks, he'd gleaned nothing else. Mentally, however, he earmarked Nolan as a resource. His talk of the people might not have been total lip service, but there was plenty of spite and meanness there, cracks to worm into.
As for the rest of the council, he couldn't say. Whatever Anson's response, Lowell would return for a series of lengthy negotiations. Ones he would be happy to concede—after the discussions lasted long enough to measure the strength of their new enemies.
He got on the boat and made way for Santa Monica.
* * *
"She will come for me," Anson said. "You can bet your life on it. Just don't bet my life on it."
"I agree it's a possibility." Lowell stopped to pick a pebble from the tread of his shoe; Anson was restless and had taken them on a walk in the hills past the Heart. "What makes you so sure?"
"Two reasons. The first is practical. You said this wasn't a military thing, right? It was popular. So what's the best way to get back in the good graces of her people?"
Relapse (Breakers Book 7) Page 16