by Pam Brondos
Estos wrapped his arm around Nat’s waist and lifted her. “You have to help him!” Nat cried out. He carried her away, Andris’ glare burning into her. Estos kicked the door shut behind them.
The hallway on the other side of the massive door was quiet. She felt numb as he led her through the kitchen to the base of the stairs. He stopped and looked at her torn cloak and cheeks smeared with dirt. “You’ve looked better. Head upstairs, get some rest.” He sighed. “I’ll send Barba to talk to you in a little while.” He turned and Nat reached out, grabbing his shirtsleeve.
“Estos, is he going to be okay?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “The venom is deep.”
“But Annin was bitten, too, and she’s fine. Ethet can help him like she helped Annin, right?”
“It’s not that simple, Natalie. Annin’s guardian got her to Ethet a few hours after Annin was bitten.” He looked at her sadly. “His venom lines are running deep. The deeper the venom, the more difficult it is to stop the poison or the turning.”
“What does that mean, you’ll just send him back?”
“If Annin can erase his memory of this place. We can’t risk his revealing where we are.”
“So he could stay here, then,” she said, frantically trying to come up with a solution. “You can teach him how to live here.”
“Natalie, if he turns more Nala than human, he won’t survive here. He can’t survive here. Even Annin’s struggled with Ethet’s potions to aid her in this world. I’m sorry, but from what I saw, he’ll have to go back.” His voice was quiet and cold.
She stood mute. “I was just trying to help him,” she said finally, tears slowly welling in her eyes.
“I know,” he said, glancing down the hallway. “I need to return to the infirmary.” He looked at his sleeve. Nat was still pinching the fabric. She let go. “Get some rest. I’ll send Barba to talk to you in a few hours to find out what went wrong.” He turned his back to her.
Nat stood dumb for a moment, then said quietly, “We did it.”
“Hm?” Estos paused by the door.
“Soris and I did it. We destroyed the map and the Chemist’s tracker. Gennes is waiting for you at his camp in the northern canyon. You can go home now.” What a dismal triumph, she thought.
“You really did?” Estos asked, his voice filled with surprise.
“We did,” Nat responded and trudged up the stairs. She heard the thick wooden door slam shut as Estos ran down the hallway.
CHAPTER FORTY
The tunic, cloak, and dagger lay in an untidy heap in the corner of the bedroom. She’d done her best to clean up and remove the weeks of grime and filth from her body. Her pants and shirt stung her freshly scrubbed skin when she pulled them on. She’d examined the burning slice in her shoulder while cleaning up. It needed stitches and a round of antibiotics.
Nat tucked her phone into her backpack and shut the door to the bedroom with her left hand. The taxi would meet her a few blocks away from the costume shop near a steep embankment by the road. She wasn’t sure how she’d explain her injury to the campus health clinic. She’d make something up, just like she’d been making everything up the last few weeks.
The hallway was still. She pulled her coat gingerly over her shoulders, leaving the right armhole empty. Silence met her at the base of the stairs. She imagined the hive of activity beyond the door and down the next hallway, the preparations they must be making to return to Fourline and find Gennes. After what Estos had said, she knew they’d take Soris back, too. She closed her eyes. There was nothing else she could do, and everything she’d done for him had turned out wrong. She hesitated at the carved door. The kitchen was deserted. She silently padded along the carpet toward Ethet’s lab and the tunnel entrance.
Ethet placed a wet strip of linen across Soris’ torso. She put her finger to her lips and beckoned to Nat. She was the only person in the room with him. He lay with his eyes closed, looking peaceful.
“How is he?” she whispered. She pulled a stool next to him and brushed his hand with hers.
“I don’t know yet. The poison is deep. I had to sedate him. It helps slow the progression.” Ethet’s lips were set in a straight line. “If it’s safe, I’ll take him through in a few days. I know a Sister who may be of more help to him than I can be . . . if I find her.”
Nat rubbed her forehead, feeling helpless. “When he wakes up, will you tell him . . . tell him I’m sorry.” She traced her finger over his broad cheekbone. He was going back to Fourline a duozi, and there was nothing she could do about it. She swallowed.
“You did the right thing bringing him here, Natalie.” Ethet laid a hand on her shoulder.
Nat winced and coughed to cover up the pain she felt running down her arm. She slid off the stool. “Thanks,” she said stiffly and walked out the door, leaving them behind.
Excited voices spilled out from behind a door opposite Ethet’s lab. She heard Estos and Oberfisk and the clank of metal. She ran down the hall, away from the sounds. The doorknob leading to the costume shop felt cold under her fingers. It turned easily and she walked past row upon row of costumes. Flipping the lock, she opened the front door. The bell jingled. She looked back hesitantly as she stepped into the twilight. No one would come to see who was here. They were all heading home.
AN EXCLUSIVE SNEAK PEEK
On the Meldon Plain
Book Two in the Fourline Trilogy
CHAPTER ONE
The sky reminded Nat of stone.
She turned onto a side street, running in the middle of the road to avoid the ice patches and clumps of snow covering the sidewalks. She passed a row of dilapidated Victorian houses. Smoke curled from their boxy chimneys and blended into the gray sky.
Late afternoon traffic poured onto the street. A dirty yellow truck missed hitting her by a few inches, and the driver slammed on his horn. She jumped over a sheet of ice, skipped onto the sidewalk, and continued her steady pace without giving the driver so much as a glance. Her feet fell rhythmically as she ran block after block. Each breath brought an icy ache of air into her lungs.
At the red metal bridge spanning the Cannon River, she turned onto the limestone riverwalk. She tore down the walkway, scattering pigeons and winter crows. Restaurants, shop fronts, and offices flashed by. Her lungs and legs burned, distracting her from the pulsing pain of her shoulder wound.
A second bridge came into view. Intricate circles reminding her of the vine pattern twisting up her forearm swirled around the railing. She glanced at the tip of the vibrant vine and spear peeking from underneath her sleeve. The pattern had yet to fade as Sister Barba had promised. Instead, since her return from Fourline, its hue had only deepened, just like her guilt over Soris. She sprinted to the bridge, rapidly moving her legs and arms and pushing away thoughts of her Sister markings and her friend.
When Nat reached the bridge, she quit running. She pressed her hips against the cold metal railing and watched the river flow toward her. Water rushed around ice sheets, creating little clusters of dull bubbles. She gently massaged her shoulder, avoiding the center of the wound as she followed the course of the water with her eyes.
The river snaked past the bridge, auto repair shops, industrial buildings, and a warehouse fronted by a stucco building. A sign reading “Gate’s Costumes” hung from the front of the stucco structure. Nat pushed her green knit cap off her forehead and wiped the sweaty strands of brown hair from her brow. She watched the costume shop sign flicker on and off in the gray afternoon light.
Two months had passed since she’d pushed through the membrane tucked deep within the cliff wall behind the costume shop, leaving the world of Fourline and the Nala behind, but bringing her wounded friend Soris through. Her skin crawled as she remembered the humanoid Nala, with its lancing forelimbs and spiderlike fangs, slashing her shoulder and biting Soris. She placed her hands on the railing, the
numbing cold surging through her fingers as memories of her quest into Fourline tumbled through her mind.
She’d ventured through the portal to Fourline to help Estos, the realm’s young king, leave the safety of his exile in her world and return to his own. Estos’ loyal rebel band needed him to lead the fight against Lord Mudug, the corrupt usurper who’d ordered the murder of Estos’ sister, Queen Emilia. Nat had donned the garb of a Warrior Sister so she and Soris could destroy the Chemist’s tracking device and create a safe passage for Estos’ return to Fourline. But Soris had paid a price for accompanying her. She could only blame herself for not having protected him from the predatory Nala. Her journey with Soris had taught her that the Nala could turn humans into halflings called duozi with one bite from their venomous fangs. Unaware she wasn’t a real Warrior Sister, Soris had trusted in her ability to keep them both safe.
Nat shook her hands and cupped them around her lips, blowing warmth back into her fingers as she thought of all the things she’d done wrong in Fourline. Failing to take Soris straight to the membrane after the Nala bit him was her biggest mistake. The skin around his wound had already turned blue like the Nala’s by the time Annin helped pull his body through the resistant membrane. Nat hadn’t brought Soris to Ethet, the Healing Sister who lived in her world, fast enough to curb his transformation into a duozi.
What exists in only one of the worlds cannot exist in the other. Her guilt deepened as she thought of Estos’ words to her. He’d said Soris wouldn’t survive in her world, that the Nala venom had progressed too deeply through his body for him to remain on this side of the membrane. Sister Ethet told her he’d have to return to Fourline, where Nat knew he’d be condemned to live the life of a duozi, targeted by both the Nala and the humans prejudiced against halflings.
Nat’s legs, stiff from the sudden rest, cramped when she turned toward campus and ran away from the blinking “Gate’s Costumes” sign. Hot tears, turning cold in the frigid temperature, streamed down her face. I know you’re gone, Soris, she thought, feeling the familiar emptiness eating away at her. She brushed her arm across her eyes, and a sting of pain ripped down her shoulder to her arm. You’re gone, except in my nightmares.
“How many is that today?” Viv, Nat’s roommate, glanced up from her sketchbook. She scratched her face, and a black smudge appeared above her nose.
“How many what?” Nat carefully pulled her thin fleece sweatshirt over her head. An oozy gray stain from her weeping shoulder wound marred the fabric. She turned her body, keeping her shoulder away from Viv’s line of sight, and tossed the garment into the laundry basket. She gingerly touched the loose bandage taped to her shoulder.
“Miles, kilometers, leagues, rods, li, minimarathons.” Viv dropped the sketchbook on the floor and lifted herself out of the striped chair. Her blue hair was arranged in tiny topknots.
“Your hair looks cute,” Nat said halfheartedly.
“You’re evading my question, and I know for a fact you don’t think my hair looks cute. The last time I wore it like this, you said I looked like a pincushion with zits.”
“Your hair was red then.” Nat shoved her head through the neck hole of a clean shirt, wincing when she brought her arm above her shoulder. I’ll rebandage the wound later, she thought as Viv babbled in the background. Nat grabbed her new computer and slid it into her backpack.
Viv watched Nat change socks and slip on a pair of leather boots, her tangled brown ponytail skimming the floor when she tied the laces. Nat looked up and knew she wasn’t going to escape the room easily, not without a roommate interrogation. Viv crossed her arms and leaned against the door, barring her escape.
“Three miles this morning and three this afternoon. That’s how far I ran today,” Nat responded.
“Are you kidding me?” Viv’s brow creased. “Have you looked at yourself? I don’t know how much weight you’ve lost since you got back from January term, but your clothes are hanging off of you and your face is all . . . sunken looking. If you’d J-termed in the tropics and picked up a tapeworm, I’d get it, but you were in Canada, so what’s the deal?”
Nat stared at her roommate. If she had really been in Canada, everything would be different. She felt the tears well in her eyes and looked at the floor, pretending to struggle with her laces.
“You’re right. I need to eat more. I’ve just been busy.” She wiped her eyes, stood, and grabbed an apple from a dark-blue bowl on top of their minifridge. She took a bite. “I’ve got to get to my lab. I promise to eat dinner after.”
Viv stepped away from the door. “You won’t grab dinner after lab, because you’re coming to Butler’s. It’s his birthday, remember?”
“A night with a bunch of inebriated artists. Looking forward to it.” Nat took another bite to placate her roommate and lifted her jacket off the coat hook with her good arm, thankful Viv had yet to notice how left-handed she had become.
Viv plopped back into the chair. “It’s the best company you’ll get smelling like that.” She scrunched up her nose. “You’re turning me into a nagging roommate, Nat! Take a shower and eat, and you’d better be at Butler’s by ten or I’m coming to find you,” she threatened.
Nat slammed the door behind her. The late March wind stung her face as she plowed through the dorm’s heavy doors. The half-eaten apple pinged against the side of the metal garbage can next to the entrance and landed in a clump of dirty snow. She buttoned her coat and walked with her head down, passing through the parking lot toward the Student Center. Safety lights shone brightly on the cars. She looked up, searching for a distraction from her thoughts and the pain in her shoulder.
Yellow light illuminated the wide first-floor windows of the Speech and Theater Building set behind the Student Center. A figure moved into the light of one window, and Nat halted. Sister Barba, the Wisdom Sister from Fourline who had drawn Nat’s markings on her arm before sending her through the membrane, passed in front of the window. Nat veered away from the path between the two buildings. Her guilt over Soris was already ever present in her mind. With her shoulder wound and markings, she needed no more reminders of her quest. It’ll get better, she told herself. I’ll forget all of them. I’ll forget Soris. My wound will heal.
The Science Center loomed in front of her. She pushed open the glass doors and slowly climbed the stairs. A rush of students brushed past her. Someone’s backpack slammed into Nat’s injured shoulder, and she bit down on her tongue to keep from crying out in pain. She climbed the remaining stairs and leaned against a window, pressing her hot forehead against the cool glass. When the pain subsided, she walked into the lab. A graying sunset filtered through the lab’s floor-to-ceiling windows. The fading light left her with an unsettled feeling. Night brought no rest, only more nightmares.
Signe, her lab partner, looked up from their assigned table. Nat dropped her bag and jacket next to a metal stool, grabbed a pair of goggles, and pulled out her lab book.
“Testing for micronutrients, right?” she asked her partner.
“Yeah,” Signe said. Standing a foot taller than Nat, she pulled her white-blonde hair back into a clip and pointed at a small container of seeds. Nat reached for the container.
“What’s your rush? The teaching assistant isn’t even here.”
“We should check for copper, too, along with the other micronutrients,” Nat replied, thinking the copper test would take an extra half an hour—time she could use to focus on something else other than Soris, her shoulder, and her nightmares.
CHAPTER TWO
The glowing red numbers cast a tiny halo around her alarm clock. One thirty. Nat turned onto her back and sucked in a sharp breath when she pressed her shoulder into the mattress. Viv snored loudly from the bunk below. Nat listened to the sound of running water coursing through the pipes in the ceiling above her. After the noise faded, she scanned the room trying to stay awake, but sleep pulled her in. Her eyes fluttere
d closed, and she fell into a fitful dream.
Blades of grass tickled the back of her neck. She shifted onto her side and looked past Soris, who lay sleeping in the grass next to her, peaceful and healthy. From the top of the hill, Greffen’s stone cottage in Fourline looked tiny. Ris, Greffen’s dog, barked wildly and strained against a rope tethering him to the gate of a sheep pen. Soris’ eyes—green with brown flecks—flickered open.
“Where do you think Greffen is?” Soris tucked a strand of dirty-blond hair behind his ear.
“I don’t know, but something has Ris riled up.” Nat brought her hand to her forehead, shielding her eyes against the sun.
“Natalie, look.” Soris pointed to a figure near the sheep pen. A Nala crept on its angular arms and legs past Ris, hissing as the dog lunged toward it. It scurried up the base of the hill and lifted its bulbous head. Even in the distance, Nat could feel its concave silver eyes settle on them with a predatory gaze.
Soris leapt up from the grass and grasped Nat’s hand, pulling her to her feet. They plunged into the forest behind the hill. As they ran, the sun disappeared. Dense clusters of trees shut out all but the dimmest light. A cold darkness descended on the fleeing pair. Nat tried to hold tight to Soris to keep from losing him in the choking woods, but their hands slipped apart. Pine boughs pricked her bare arms as she ran farther into the woods, calling out his name over the sound of a nearby river. A glimmer of movement drew her eyes to the boughs of an enormous pine tree, and she stopped running.
A Nala, clinging to a bough, opened its black mouth, and a stream of venom dripped down and crackled on the dry leaves near her feet. Nat slowly eased away from the blue creature before turning on her heels and sprinting past the trees toward the river.
“Soris!” she screamed as she burst onto the riverbank. The slate-colored water roared, drowning out her cries.