by Traci Chee
She hadn’t realized Nin had hated Lon and Mareah so much, hadn’t realized she’d had to sacrifice everything because of them. But she’d joined the couple eventually, to help them build the house on the hill overlooking the sea, where the three of them had raised a little girl.
It had been an isolated childhood, but Sefia had been protected. And loved.
Glancing at the others, she felt a pinch of guilt for loving the people responsible for ruining their lives. For ruining Nin’s life.
And Archer’s.
She couldn’t reverse the damage her parents had done. But maybe, if she stopped enough impressors, if she saved enough boys, she could make up for their mistakes.
And then, maybe, she could look Archer in the eye without feeling like she was betraying him in her turncoat heart.
A rustling in the grass made her look up. She reached for the Illuminated world, readying for a fight.
But it was just Archer. His lean form was edged in stars, larger and more grand than his seventeen or eighteen years, than his body muscled with hardship. As he entered the lamplight, his features regained their definition, and he became a boy again, flesh and blood.
“I thought you’d be back sooner,” he said.
Placing a stalk of grass between the pages, Sefia set aside the Book, hugging her knees like she could soothe the ache in her chest if only she curled up tight enough. “The Book showed me my parents,” she said.
“Oh.” Archer sank down beside her, though they didn’t touch.
“They kept so much from me.” Turning out the lamp, she doused them in inky darkness. “Sometimes I wonder if I ever knew them at all.”
He said nothing. She twisted her fingers as each second of silence grew more painful. Blame. Guilt. So much had come between them in the span of a couple days.
“Maybe they didn’t know how to tell you,” Archer said at last. He pulled out the worry stone, glinting between his fingers. “Maybe they were afraid. Because of what they’d done.”
She looked at him then, daring him to argue with her. “I was their daughter. They should have told me.”
Trusted me. Believed in me. Tanin’s words.
“Would you still have loved them, if you knew?”
“I still love them,” she whispered apologetically, “even now.”
In the night, Archer’s eyes were a dark, searching bronze. She could’ve looked into those eyes for hours and still not have looked enough. He glanced away, and again she felt that guilt. Silently, he put his forehead on his knees, completely still except for his thumb, tracing the piece of quartz.
“Do you hate me for that?” she asked.
When he straightened again, the starlight gleamed on the scars that flecked his face and arms. “Sefia.” He shook his head. “I could never hate you.”
Before she could say anything, before she could even smile, he spoke again: “My first kill was a boy named Oriyah.” The words came out in a rush, like if he didn’t say them now, he might never get them out. “He was another of Hatchet’s candidates, almost as new as I was. Neither of us had fought yet, and Hatchet kept trying to make us train. But we couldn’t. I couldn’t. Oriyah was younger than I was. They’d broken his arm when they captured him, and it wasn’t healing right. I couldn’t hit him.”
Sefia froze, like the story was a spell and if she breathed too loudly it would break.
“When Hatchet realized we wouldn’t fight, even for practice, he got another impressor—Redbeard.” Archer glanced at her. Redbeard had been the one who burned the newly captured boys. “They tried everything: cursing us, beating us, ordering us to pick up our swords. But we didn’t. Oriyah was too scared.
“Then one day, Hatchet brought all six of us boys out of our crates. He gave Oriyah and me each a club and made the others line up.” Archer’s voice went ragged at the edges, but he didn’t stop speaking. “‘Fight,’ Hatchet said. He put his gun to Oriyah’s head. ‘Fight, or he dies.’
“Oriyah was in tears. He gave a halfhearted swing. I let him hit me. It didn’t hurt much. I wouldn’t fight him. I kept thinking, if only I refused long enough, if only I showed them I wasn’t what they wanted me to be . . .” Archer shook his head, shuddering. “Hatchet shot him. There was so much blood. I didn’t know we had so much blood in us. Oriyah buckled at the knees, and when he hit the ground, he was still.
“Hatchet didn’t even bat an eye. ‘Fight,’ he said, ‘or I’ll kill another one.’”
Archer swallowed again and again. His fingers were shaking so badly he dropped the quartz point.
Sefia caught it and slid it back into his palm, warm and slightly damp. “Hatchet killed him,” she said. “Not you.”
“It was my fault. Because I didn’t want to . . . Because I couldn’t . . .” He took a long quivering breath. “Because I was weak.”
“You didn’t put the gun to his head. You didn’t pull the trigger. Wanting the world to be a better place than it is? That doesn’t make you weak. That makes you the kind of person this world needs.”
Archer was still for a long time, like an animal crouched in the shadows, waiting for prey. But at last, his posture relaxed, his coiled muscles unwinding. With a sigh, he slipped his arm around her shoulders, and for the first time in over a week, he didn’t pull away.
Sefia closed her eyes. He smelled like dust and rain, though they hadn’t seen rain in a week, and when she leaned in to him, he made room for her in the crook of his arm, in the curve of his neck.
As the sky lightened above them, Archer reached out, tentatively, fingers first and then his whole palm. Their hands clasped.
They remained that way, not speaking, while dawn spread across the Delienean Heartland, and Sefia rediscovered the shapes and textures of his hands—the tender flesh on the inside of his wrist, and each of his knuckles, the hills and vales, the crescents of his fingertips.
And when they stood, finally, to stumble back to camp, she picked up the Book and felt the distant reverberation of questions still to be answered, secrets still to be discovered. But those tempests were slumbering. For now.
CHAPTER 9
Nobody Comes Back Unscathed
Eager to be on the road again, Archer roused the others as soon as he and Sefia returned.
Some of them grumbled and pulled their blankets over their heads, but Griegi was up in an instant, whistling happily as he stoked the coals of the previous night’s fire.
Archer was about to stop him when Kaito bounded over, seized a pot of water, and upended it over the ashes, which hissed and sent up a cloud of smoke.
“Rotten hulls, Kaito!” Griegi leapt to his feet, coughing. “What’s the matter with you?”
“Sorry, Grieg, we’ve got to get a move on.” With a shrug, he jogged away and began pounding on the prisoners’ crates. “Wake up, bootlickers! Time to stretch your legs and empty your bladders!”
Griegi looked disappointed. “Archer, come on, please?”
Shaking his head, Archer tossed his pack into the supply cart. “Kaito’s right. We have prisoners to unload,” he said. “I promise you can cook your heart out tonight.”
The boy’s face lit up. “You won’t regret it.”
Although almost everyone wanted to escort the captives, they agreed it was best to send in as few of them as possible: Archer driving one cart of prisoners, Sefia driving the other, Scarza to bring up the rear on his dun mare, and Kaito to ride ahead.
The nearest town was little more than a handful of weatherworn buildings and a single dusty street. At the north end, the jail was nestled between a general store and the messengers’ post.
As they passed the stables, Kaito rode back and forth along the carts, his hands continually going to his weapons as he checked the porches and yellowed curtains for signs of trouble.
When they reached the sheriff’s office, Kaito was
the first to dismount, followed by Archer, who brushed off his trousers and straightened his cuffs uneasily.
The boy grinned at his discomfort. “Relax, brother. Compared to last night, this’ll be easy.”
Archer ran his fingers through his hair as the sheriff, a plump woman with a gold star winking at her shoulder, approached. Two deputies with their own silver stars followed behind.
“I’d rather be fighting,” he muttered.
Kaito laughed, earning a scowl from the sheriff as she halted in front of them, tucking her thumbs into her belt.
“Sheriff.” Archer’s voice cracked.
Kaito snickered.
The sheriff raised an eyebrow. “Boys.”
Kaito nudged him, and Archer stumbled forward. The sheriff looked unimpressed.
“We’d like to turn over eight criminals we picked up south of here,” he said, motioning to Sefia and Scarza, who began unlocking the crates and pulling their prisoners into the light.
The sheriff’s gaze traveled over the captives, their bruised faces and wrinkled clothes. Her nostrils flared at the stink of them.
Their unwashed smell brought back Archer’s memories of wooden walls, split fingernails, soiled bits of straw.
His chest tightened. His pulse roared in his ears. Not now. He grasped for the worry stone. Not now.
“What’s the matter, boy?” the sheriff demanded.
Boy. He gasped. Tears squeezed from the corners of his eyes as he fought to control his breathing. I’m not back there anymore. I’m safe. I’m safe. I’m safe.
“Archer!” Sefia called. “Kaito, help him!”
Then Kaito’s hand was on his shoulder, his voice gentler than Archer had ever heard it: “It’s all right, brother. I’ve got you.”
At the words, the pounding in Archer’s veins eased enough for him to hear the sheriff mutter, “What’s wrong with him?”
Archer looked up as his heart slowed. “Nightmares,” he croaked.
The sheriff frowned. “I sent my deputies for the warrants. We’ll see about these criminals of yours.”
He pocketed the worry stone as the deputies came scampering back with sheaves of paper in their arms. Silently, the sheriff began perusing the wanted sketches. Her frown deepened.
“We’ve got wanted notices for five of your criminals. Assault, highway robbery, kidnapping, a couple are even wanted for murder. Bad folks you’ve got here,” she said. “But these three are clean.”
As she pointed at three of the prisoners, one of them adjusted his bandages with a sly grin.
“I can take the others,” the sheriff continued, “but not them.”
The quartz point dug into Archer’s palm. He couldn’t let them go. He’d promised Kaito. Promised.
Before he could speak, Kaito darted forward. “Let them go?” he growled. He opened his collar, exposing the pink scar at his throat. “Here’s what happens if we let them go.”
Startled, the sheriff looked up at him, then back to her papers. “Kidnapping,” she muttered. Her gaze went to the prisoners and back to Kaito’s scar. “Impressors? I thought they were just a story.”
Kaito’s green eyes gleamed like a coyote’s. “Some stories are true.”
“We should tell Allannah,” one of the deputies murmured.
Who? Archer glanced around. The rooftops and shadowed doorways would have been perfect cover for an ambush. At the rear of the caravan, Scarza adjusted his grip on his rifle.
The sheriff shook her head. “After what they did, why didn’t you—” She made a cutting motion across her throat.
“Believe me, I would’ve, but . . .” Taking a step back, Kaito clapped Archer on the arm. “I owed someone, and I always pay my debts.”
The sheriff chewed at her lower lip. “We had a boy go missing about two years ago now. Most folks thought he’d run off, but his aunt, she never believed it.”
Allannah. The bereft. The one waiting for a boy who’d probably never come back. “I was taken about two years ago,” Archer said.
And there are people waiting for me too. Or rather, waiting for the boy he used to be. But that boy was gone. He’d died in the dirt with Argo.
“His name’s Parker,” the sheriff added. “Fifteen years old. Yellow hair and blue eyes you almost wouldn’t notice behind his glasses. Any of you see him? When you were, you know . . .”
Abruptly, Scarza passed off his captives to Sefia and began leading his mare back down the road.
The sheriff raised her eyebrows.
The scar in Kaito’s cheek twitched. “No, sorry. Didn’t know him.”
“It’s all right. It was a lot to hope.”
The deputies took the prisoners from Sefia and began tugging them away. Over his shoulder, one of the trackers shot them a last venomous glance.
“You fixing to stay awhile?” the sheriff asked. “Knowing what you did, folks would gladly put you up for the night. Feed you pretty well too.”
“Thanks, but we have to keep moving.” Archer’s restlessness had returned, and all he wanted was to hunt and fight and break things, splintering the impressors crew by crew until they were no more than a dream, distantly remembered. “Got a place to water our horses and fill our canteens?”
She nodded. “You passed the stables on your way in. There’s a trough and pump out back.”
He tipped his hat to her.
“You’re doing good work here, boys. Keep it up.”
As they made their way back, Kaito drew up beside Archer’s cart. “We did see him,” he said.
“Parker?”
“He fought Scarza.”
“Oh.” The very fact that Scarza was here meant Parker hadn’t made it.
At the drinking trough, the silver-haired boy silently stroked his mare’s shoulder with his one hand. He had a generous mouth and cheekbones so sharp you could cut your knuckles on them, and over the past couple of days together, Archer had discovered he was quiet too—like a cloud passing over a landscape, so unassuming you didn’t realize he was there until he was right beside you.
As if he could sense Archer watching him, Scarza’s gaze lifted briefly before dropping again. “Kaito told you,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“I should’ve said something. I should’ve told them I killed him.”
“The impressors made you do it.”
Scarza laughed bitterly. “Is that what you tell yourself? That they made you?”
Archer looked away. They had, hadn’t they? Every life he’d taken, he’d done it because he’d had to. Because the choice had been forced on him: kill or die.
Right?
When they started back around the stables, they found a small group of people waiting for them on the main road. Arrayed around them were cloth-wrapped packages, small stoppered kegs, paper parcels tied with string, even a bundle of neatly chopped firewood.
One of the people, a woman with hair the color of straw and large powder-blue eyes, stepped forward. “We heard what you did,” she said. “We wanted to thank you.”
“Allannah?” Archer asked.
Scarza stared fixedly at the hills in the distance.
She placed a basket in Archer’s hands, and he caught a whiff of baked sugar, butter, and lavender. “After Parker’s parents died, I was supposed to raise him. I tried, but he . . . we could never seem to get along, you know? But he didn’t deserve . . .” She retreated, drawing a pale shawl closer about her shoulders. “Anyway, thank you.”
Archer gripped the basket. We didn’t save him, he wanted to say. Or, I’m sorry.
As he searched for the words, Scarza dismounted. He walked up to Allannah and took one of her hands in his. “Don’t thank us,” he said in his soft voice. “He’s never coming home.”
Tears formed in her eyes, and she clasped his hand tighter. “S
ome of you get to. Thank you for that.”
Then she embraced him and hurried back to the others, who began loading the empty carts with supplies.
Stunned, Scarza looked up at Archer as if for direction.
They’d hurt so many people. Scarza’s right arm had eleven burns—one of them for killing Parker. Kaito’s had nine. And every one of the others—even Mako, only twelve years old—had at least two.
Archer had fifteen, though his count was much higher.
He could picture each of their faces when he closed his eyes—boys, impressors, trackers—their jaws gone slack in death, mouths forming questions to which they’d never hear the answers.
Sometimes he felt like the dead would always be with him, hounding his steps, forcing him to keep moving, keep fighting, because if he tried to turn back, the dead would be all he saw.
He’d come back, all right, but neither he nor Scarza nor Kaito, none of them had come back unscathed. Their scars were just an outward sign of it.
But now, maybe they could save enough boys to make up for the ones they’d killed. Maybe they could save enough boys, and maybe when they were done, they’d deserve to go home again.
There was a touch at his shoulder, and Sefia’s fingers twined in his.
He gripped her hand. They had Frey and the boys. They had the Book. They were together. Nothing would stop them until they’d rid Deliene of the impressors.
One crew down.
Three to go.
The Corabelli Curse
Once there was, and one day there will be. This is the beginning of every story.
Once, before the union of the Delienean kingdom, when the noble houses still battled for scraps of land, the White Plague came out of the cold north. It swept across the land, stealing away the aged and the weak, and when there were no more aged and no more weak, it took the young and the strong as well.