“Halt right there,” says a voice. The wagon trundles to a stop. “Just need to take a look.”
I grip my knife. Footsteps approach the back of our wagon. We really should have come in feetfirst.
Zivah catches my eye. “Wait,” she mouths. She shifts her weight.
Light streams through the sacks at our feet as someone throws open the oilcloth. “Food rations?” the guard asks.
There’s a muffled reply from the wagon driver.
More light comes through as sacks are brushed away. I coil my legs for a kick.
“Agh!” yells the guard. And then we hear laughter as someone scrambles away from the wagon. “Cursed spider ran right across my hand. Big one.”
I suppose spiders aren’t so bad after all. The guard lets out a string of curses, and there are more replies from the wagon driver.
“Damned quarantine has everything acting unusual,” says the guard, and we hear him come closer again.
Zivah’s mouth tightens. I suppose it was too much to hope that the guard would be put off by a spider.
There’s more talking, and a shadow blocks the light streaming in. I plan my next few steps. Kick his hands against the wagon hard enough to make his eyes water and get him to step back. Push off the board at my head toward the opening at my feet, then sit up, twist, and come out with my dagger.
“What in the—” Again, the guard dissolves into curses, and again he steps away. More laughter now, and are those crows I hear in the background?
“Blackbird’s graced you with a crown!” comes another voice.
“Better plant some seeds while the manure’s fresh!”
Could it be...Did one of the crows relieve itself on the guard’s head?
More raucous laughter. Then someone yanks the oilcloth shut, and the wagon trundles away. Zivah stares at me, her mouth agape. I can hardly believe it either. The crow who did this is going to get double rations for a month—if I can figure out which one it was.
The roads are rough, and the bouncing feels like it’s going to leave bruises, but the important thing is that we don’t stop. It’s hard to judge the angle of the sun through the oilcloth, but I think we’re heading north. Once in a while, I hear other horses and wagons, but it’s mostly quiet around us. That, combined with the bone-rattling bumps and divots we roll over, makes me think we’re taking back roads.
My limbs stiffen as we trundle along. Zivah fidgets ever so slightly, straining and curling her fingers in an obvious effort not to move more than she has to. I think on our next step, whether it’s better to wait for a stop or jump out while the wagon is going. Either way, we’ll likely be seen.
Finally, the driver says something, and the wagon rolls to a stop. There’s muffled voices in the distance, and I hear our driver walk off. I look at Zivah, who shrugs. Carefully, I cut a slit in the oilcloth and look through.
It looks like we’ve stopped at a creek. There are several wagons nearby, and a group of people at the river already watering their horses. An umbertouched man in healer’s robes, probably the driver of our wagon, walks toward the river to join them. I recognize him as the man Baruva was talking to before he entered his tent.
I duck back down. “If anyone’s paying attention,” I whisper to Zivah, “they’ll see us getting out, but I don’t think we’ll find a better chance.”
She gives a quick nod. I hand her my dagger, and she cuts a wide slit in the oilcloth behind her, on the side of the wagon facing away from the river. I say a quick prayer to Neju as she clambers out, then follow her. I drop next to her behind the wagon, and we run, keeping low, toward a cluster of bushes by the riverbank. Almost there.
Zivah reaches cover first and turns to check on me. I dive into the shrubs a moment later and wave her forward. We’re still too exposed for comfort.
She doesn’t move. I gesture at her again, but she simply stares past me at the caravaners, her eyes wide with shock.
“Zivah!” I hiss. And then I finally follow her gaze.
I blink several times, trying to clear my vision, trying to clear my mind. The healer whom we’d seen with Baruva stands near the river, but it’s the woman he’s talking to that has me mistrusting my eyes. She shouldn’t be here, but there’s no mistaking the dark blond hair and wispy aristocratic frame of Commander Arxa’s daughter, the rosemarks on her cream-colored skin. Next to her is a plague veil that she’s cast off to drink from the river.
I turn to Dineas. “Is that Mehtap?”
Dineas nods, looking as perplexed as I feel.
We’re weeks away from Sehmar. The rosemarked need special permission even to leave our compounds, yet there she is. But she’s different. The girl I’d befriended in Sehmar City had been isolated, lonely, and desperate. This woman, though, stands straight and speaks to Baruva’s healer with a clear, steady voice. After they’re finished talking, she climbs back up the riverbank toward a caravan of three wagons, frowning at the oilcloth covering of one and readjusting it. Mehtap talks with each of the wagons’ drivers as well—all of them are umbertouched. I get the sense that she’s issuing commands. In all the time I’ve known her, I’ve never seen her so resemble her father.
You’ll likely travel the same path as her caravan. Stop and talk to them if you can. See if we can catch them in a violation—incorrect travel papers from Sehmar, forbidden foods in their wagon—her father’s stature can’t protect her from everything, especially with his recent disgrace.
I turn to Dineas. “Baruva’s trying to sabotage her.”
“Sabotage what?”
I don’t know. One of Mehtap’s drivers, a tall, umbertouched young man, approaches her with a ledger. They stand close, foreheads bent together as they look it over. What could she be doing? What is she delivering? I don’t know if Mehtap and I had parted as friends or enemies, but I don’t like the idea of Baruva scheming against her. She’s still worth a hundred of that loathsome physician.
I edge toward the open. “I need to warn her about Baruva.”
Dineas grabs my shoulder. “Are you out of your mind? That’s Arxa’s daughter!”
Yes, it would be folly to reveal ourselves to the daughter of the man who’s hunting us across the empire. But Mehtap helped Dineas and me escape Sehmar City. She likely saved both our lives. I can’t leave her without a warning.
A shadow passes over my head. The crows! I signal Scrawny down and rummage through my pack for a scrap of parchment. Baruva is trying to discredit you. Be careful not to be caught violating the quarantine rules.
Scrawny drops the note into the seat of her wagon. We don’t stay to see if she finds it.
“You might as well have handed that letter straight to Arxa,” says Dineas. The glare he shoots at me is milder now that we’re safely away, but still, he’s not pleased.
I know he’s right. After all that work to throw Ampara off our path, a note like that, if Mehtap recognizes my handwriting, could ruin everything.
“She did save our lives,” I say stubbornly. “You’d still be in the dungeons if not for her.”
“She saved our lives as one last favor, because you didn’t tell her father that she killed the emperor to make him a general. You’d be naive to think there’s more to it.”
Actually, there is more to it. Mehtap had asked a favor in exchange for her help. She made me swear that Dineas and I wouldn’t harm her father. Dineas does not yet know about the promise.
“Do you think she’s all right?” I ask.
“I guarantee you she’s faring better than we,” says Dineas.
We walk in silence for a while, heading east as Nush had advised. The terrain is hillier now and scattered with white boulders. Occasionally a groundhog jumps out of a hole and races away from us.
“I wish we’d gotten more from Baruva,” I say after a while.
Dineas gives me a curious look. “What did Baruva mean, saying he was your last hope?”
That question has been haunting me as well. “Perhaps he wanted me to t
hink he had a cure, but I’ve heard of no such thing.”
“Could he know something you don’t?’
“If he had a cure to the rose plague, he wouldn’t be able to keep it secret. Someone would find out.” At least, I think they would. I can’t afford the distraction of hoping for more. “There might be more to know in his scrolls. I’ll start working through them.”
We travel as fast as we can. It seems Nush was right about the garrisons in the northeast—if there indeed is a search for us, it is a half-hearted one. As we go farther north, the plants progress from grass to bushes, and finally to small trees, and the air becomes heavy with moisture and salt.
A week later, we stand on a ridge overlooking the black and choppy waters of the Monyar Strait. Foreboding gray clouds loom above. As I stand there, buffeted by winds that threaten to knock me over, I think it’s the most beautiful sight I’ve seen in a long time.
Dineas steals a boat from a fisherman’s shed, and we drag it to an isolated beach. He holds the boat steady in the water and gives me a crooked smile. “Ready?”
It’s one of his more charming moments, waiting there with that rakish grin. I think of our journey out here, getting on a boat to leave Monyar, barely able to stand each other. I don’t think I ever truly expected to return.
The boat rocks on the waves as we start rowing, and the occasional spray comes over the side. The sheer black cliffs on the Monyar side grow steadily taller until we can see the rocky beaches below them and the bamboo forests beyond. As Dineas pulls the boat onto shore, I rake my fingers through the sand and squeeze a grainy handful between my fingers. I’m home, yet I can’t shake the feeling that we’re bringing back disaster with us. When I glance at Dineas, I see the same mix of emotions cross his face.
“It seems like so long ago, doesn’t it?” I ask.
He scans the edges of the beach. “The cliffs make the beach easier to defend,” he says. “As long as we hold those, we’ll have at least some advantage.”
What little joy I felt shrivels at his words. “That’s it, then, isn’t it? Our home is now nothing more than terrain on a battle map.”
He looks at me, and his mouth twists. “I’ve never lived in a home.”
I think about the forest around my village, the long days I used to spend wandering the hills gathering herbs with my mother. “What’s the point of fighting if there’s no place to return to afterward? Herbs won’t grow in a trampled field.”
“They say there are some plants that thrive on blood.”
His cynicism scares me. “I refuse to give up before we even start.” I strike off ahead of him toward the forest.
“Zivah!”
I turn, another retort on my tongue, but Dineas is looking past me toward the bamboo. He signals for my silence with a quick lift of his hands. Casually, he picks up his sword from the ground, shaking it loose from its oilcloth wrapping. I reach for my blowgun.
“I know you’re here,” Dineas calls. “Show yourself!”
For a long moment, we stand there, muscles taut, scanning the edge of the forest. Finally a voice calls out, “Dineas and Zivah, is that you?”
Two young Shidadi men step out from the forest. Dineas lets out a relieved breath and jogs past me toward them. “It’s all right,” he says over his shoulder. “Frada and Gaumit are from my tribe.”
Frada is a heavyset warrior about Dineas’s age with pockmarks and a star-shaped scar below his eye. The second Shidadi is slightly younger, skinnier, and hunches when he walks. To my surprise, I see that he’s umbertouched. Other than Dineas, he’s the first umbertouched Shidadi I’ve seen.
Frada clasps Dineas’s arms in greeting. “We’ve been looking for you for weeks.”
“We made some detours, but they may pay off,” Dineas says.
“Detours? Or did you get lost again? You’re not great at finding your way around.”
There’s a stiffness to Dineas’s smile. “If I remember right, it was you who got lost overnight on the eastern coast.”
Frada guffaws, radiating confident nonchalance. “That wasn’t getting lost. Just some exploring that took longer than usual.”
A muscle twitches in Dineas’s cheek. “How are things here?”
“Quiet so far. Kiran hasn’t sent any troops since he’s announced his plans to attack,” says Frada. “He knows we wouldn’t let them in. Shall we send word to Gatha that you’re back?”
“No,” says Dineas quickly. “We’re going straight to the village and can send word from there.”
Frada shrugs. “Suit yourself.”
We enter the shade of the bamboo. At first, the wind whips the leaves around us, making it sound as if the waves have followed us onto land. But as we go deeper in, it quiets. Dineas doesn’t speak.
“I can’t tell if you and Frada like or dislike each other,” I say.
Dineas gives a wry smile. “I find him arrogant and obnoxious,” he says. “But I can’t dislike him too much.”
“Why?”
“He...” Dineas furrows his brow. “Frada carries my hair and blood.”
“What?”
“If someone saves your life, you give them a lock of your hair sprinkled with your blood. It’s an acknowledgment of blood debt that you’ll repay one day. Frada took an arrow for me some years back.”
“And you find him obnoxious even though he saved your life?”
The corner of his mouth raises slightly. “I find him more obnoxious since he saved my life.”
Slowly, the paths become more familiar. I recognize the field where I used to gather my cloudweed, and a small pond where we swam in the summers before I became rosemarked. The landscape is beautiful, and far too delicate.
“We’re nearing the village,” I say. “I can’t go much closer.” I try to keep my voice neutral, but Dineas’s gaze softens.
“I’ll let people know we’ve arrived. Will you be all right staying here?”
“Yes, of course.”
But my heart is pounding and my head feels light. It’s not that I want to run away. I’m desperate to see my family, but I’m also terrified of what I will find. Will they look the same? Have they changed? Will they find me different? Beyond that, has anything I’ve done in the past months made any difference? I’ve traveled so far and made so many mistakes. Have I really done anything to protect them, or have I made things worse?
After Dineas disappears down the trail, I pace back and forth. I strip the leaves from a stalk of bamboo and shred them into pieces. Footsteps approach, and my stomach does a somersault. I toss the leaves to the side, straining to identify who it is. If it’s not my family, I’ll have to get out of their way. But I see with a jolt that it’s my younger sister, Alia, charging down the path, followed by my mother and father.
“Zivah!” shouts Alia, and my heart swells. She skids to stop in front of me so abruptly that I jump back in case she’s forgotten to keep her distance.
My mother puts her hands to her mouth to stifle a sob. “Thank the Goddess.”
She’s older, and the bones of her face are more prominent. She raises her arms as if to embrace me but settles for hugging Alia’s shoulders instead. Father beams at me, his eyes moist. He too looks thinner.
“Where’s Leora?” I ask. Then I see my older sister coming around the bend. She walks slowly, rocking from side to side with each step, and I notice the roundness of her belly. Her eyes light up when she sees me.
Something overwhelms me—joy, hope, or grief, I can’t tell. “Leora, you didn’t tell me!”
She lays a protective hand over her belly. “News travels slowly across continents.”
“You must stay away from me,” I say. “For the little one’s sake.”
“I do not wish to,” she says. But she doesn’t come any closer, and I feel the distance in the innermost part of my chest.
It’s a relief when Alia claps her hands. “Come. We will go to your cottage and clean it up.”
“I should probably see Tal,”
I say. Our village leader was the one who sent me on this mission, and he’ll likely be awaiting news.
“He’s sending word to Gatha and the other Shidadi leaders,” says my father. “He’d like you and Dineas to meet with them later today.”
“So you have nothing to do now. Come on!” Alia says, and runs back the way she came. I’m about to follow when I see Dineas standing off to the side. There’s a strange expression on his face.
I meet his eyes. “Will you go find your people?”
He nods. “I’ll see you when the council meets.” He doesn’t look nearly as eager to find the Shidadi as I’d expect.
I take a step toward him. “Is everything all right?”
“Everything’s fine,” he snaps.
I stop, thrown back by his tone. He walks away before I can say any more.
I stare after him, aware of my family’s eyes on me and wanting to throttle him. But Alia calls for me to hurry, and I resolve not to let Dineas’s moods vex me. I keep expecting him to be someone else, when that person is long gone.
Alia keeps up a constant stream of talk as we head to my cottage. She tells us of her escaping goat, and of how the river flooded and three carts got stuck in the mud on the same day. Perhaps I imagine it, but her chatter doesn’t have the same old shine of enthusiasm. She’s more careful, her laugh just a little slower to come. When she runs ahead, I address my parents. “How are things in the village? How does everyone respond to the news of war?”
“Most are scared,” says Father. “The Shidadi have started teaching our young men and women to fight. It is good of them, and we’re fortunate to have their help. But it’s not what any of us wanted for our people.”
I try to imagine Leora or Alia fighting, and the pictures just won’t form. But then, had I ever imagined that I would break someone out of an imperial dungeon?
I hold my breath as we come into the clearing where I used to live. Part of me is surprised to find my cottage still standing, though it’s been less than a year. It’s certainly in need of repair. A corner of the roof collapsed in the rain, and the neighboring portions show signs of decay. The door to the shed has come off its hinges and is nowhere to be seen.
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