by Jenn Polish
And I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready to have that conversation. Trying to explain away the fact that she’d questioned me without torturing me had been difficult enough; eventually the others accepted it as a scare tactic, a power show from a young, Izlanian Controller needing to assert her power.
Except what they don’t want to admit is that it’s working. With Mama and Aon imprisoned in the cage, everyone’s given up on even a glimmer of hope that we can avoid the Slicing of P’Tal, Zeel, and Aora’s newly born. Kashat assumes I was almost caught trying to contaminate the head Slicer’s equipment, and I let him believe it.
But giving up on interfering with the Slicing doesn’t mean the resistance is relaxing. Not exactly. Tamzel, Jax, and the other leaders are still insisting that we train to defend ourselves, our homes, our friends.
Mom’s fiery argument with Jax—the first I’ve ever heard them have—is still ringing in my ears. Without Mama around for the past few sunups to put her hand below her wing sprouts, to whisper to her, to rub lotion into her skin when she needs to calm down and talk something through, Mom’s been pretty on edge. Jax has been taking the brunt of it.
“Mom,” I’d interfered with my body language when Jax looked ready to cave, “none of the other faerie nears even look at me. The ones in the resistance do wild things like acknowledge my presence.” She gave me a wet, sad smile at that. “Let me go train with them. It’ll be fun, it always is. I’ve done it before, right? Only difference now is that Mama and Aon are locked up. But no one’s going to find out about the training, because even if anyone comes across us, it’ll look like a bunch of nears just messing around, anyway.”
Mom had closed her eyes, and I felt her resistance slipping away. “We’re healers, for Lunara’s sake, Ja, how can we teach our near to hurt people like this? To risk being hurt?”
Jax smiled softly at Mom calling me their near, and so did I. He took her hands into his lap, his muscles relaxed now that she’d calmed down. “She’s at risk of being hurt by just flying around in her own skin, Faye. They’ll be all right, Tamzel will take care of them. Let her go.”
And she had.
So here I am, steam pool sand between my toes and lining my calves, trying to find the balance in a faye glass sword with a hand that’s much more used to axes.
“Keep your wrist looser than that, Sade, you’re gonna strain something.” I roll my eyes at Kashat, who’s balancing two swords, straight up in the air, on the tips of his fingers.
Lerian swipes her axe in front of Kashat, knocking both his swords out of balance.
“Hey!” he squeals, and Ler and I double over hysterically.
“You should’ve kept your wrists looser, Kash,” I gasp through laughing. I raise my head slightly and almost bonk my forehead on Tamzel’s imposing torso. I swallow my last bit of laughter and look up nervously at her face. Her hands are on her hips, and steam from the cavern’s heated Flowing water rises behind her like she’s in command of the air itself. Sweat and mist droplets work their way down her chiseled abdomen, and I lower my gaze immediately.
“You two need to take this more seriously,” she scolds. “When the Mach invade again, they’re not going to be laughing.” She reaches over and jostles Kashat’s hair with her long fingers. “They’re not going to be, aimlessly balancing swords on their hands like Highland performers. They’re going to be distracting you by yanking at the Energies, and taking advantage to put these swords right through you, using their magic to make you unhealable.”
Kashat, Lerian, and I squirm like young ones. E’rix, the girl Lerian yelled at the other morning for ignoring me on the Way, averts her eyes, her sword poised in midbattle position. At least she’s pretending not to listen to us get scolded. The other nears watch with hungry amusement. Lerian and I catch eyes, and I know we’re thinking the same thing. Training to fight the palace is always more fun when P’Tal’s around. But Zeel is due to start having her contractions any time now, so P’Tal is probably swishing his tail impatiently with Aora near the infirmary, waiting for their newly born to arrive.
“Sorry, Tamzel, we’ll be more serious,” Lerian mutters.
The corners of Tamzel’s mouth twitch as she puts a sword back into Kashat’s hand and murmurs something in his ear before trotting away to supervise the other faeries and centaurs, about twenty of us in all.
“What’d she tell you?” I ask him.
He grins lopsidedly. “She says I should save performing for Lunamez, and in the meantime, swipe upward.”
He finishes his thought with a grunt as he swishes his sword chaotically, upward, right at me. I slam my wings into my sides, and they take me out of range. But I overshoot and bang my head on the cavern’s rock face.
“Dammit, Tamzel!” I shout as Kashat and Lerian clap their hands and whoop in delight. She barely turns around from her instruction, but the smirk is written all over her body.
I grin in spite of myself, rubbing my head and blinking hard to get rid of the spots in front of my eyes. Lerian looks me over as I come back down to her eye level, putting her face into the back of my head. “Not bleeding, good. Can you see right?”
She’s still grinning, but her eyes are worried. I respond by raising my sword to meet her axe. She parries and grits her teeth, thrusting forward so I have to pull my sword back and prepare for her strike.
Kashat attacks each of us in turn, so we both get the chance to fight off two people at once. E’rix comes to fight him one-on-one after a while, telling him he needs his own practice space. None of us mention that Kashat himself would never be on the front lines, that he’s only here training because it’s nighttime, and his growns are in the other corner of the cavern, and since Mama and Aon have gotten locked up, they barely let him go anywhere on his own, except the Gathering, to be with his Lunamez learning pod.
I think of Aon, who might be a tiny young one now, but is growing so fast que’ll be Kashat’s age-mate in less than a season, and I understand their feeling.
By the time the moon rises high enough to be angled away from the opening in the rock face at the top of the cavern, my limbs are shaking and my forearm is satisfyingly bloody from getting body slammed by an overly enthusiastic Lerian into an outcropping. She’s still fussing over all the blood when we hand our swords and axes back to Kashat’s growns, who fly them up to a storage space hewn into the rock, high up in the cavern.
Osley is waiting for us where the Forest meets the sand, eyes unmoving but quer ears twitching up a storm. Que isn’t exactly enthusiastic about water. Or sand. Or exposed areas.
“Your mom and Jax asked if I’d get you safely back to the Gathering, Sade,” que thumps out by way of explanation when I fly down low and look at quer questioningly. “I don’t know if they think I’ll be able to fight off a horde of Hands on my own if they try to arrest you again, but hey, I’m here.”
I chuckle and run my hand over quer fur. “Ah ah ah!” que trills. “Bloody!”
I withdraw my arm apologetically and wipe the stream of blood off on my tunic.
“I can try to heal you, Sadie! We learned some basic healing spells in one of my learning pods,” Kashat calls ahead from where he’s hung back with E’rix, but I wave him off. Lerian can’t be the only one who gets to look tough.
“Hey, Sadie, wait up!” Lerian scoffs and stamps away as E’rix approaches, Kashat behind her. She keeps glancing back at him, and he nudges her forward with his hand gestures.
“What?”
“I just…that Dreaming test they put us all through…it was scary. Getting arrested like that. Being…put to sleep like that in front of everyone. All that.” She glances at Kashat again, and I look sideways at Lerian. “None of us thought they’d ever arrest you like that, put you through something like that, on account of…well, you know.Anyway, I’m sorry. And I’m sorry about your mom and sibling. Que’s really cute. Que likes to fly to our learning pod before labor, and sometimes your mom lets me feed quer while she’s busy with a
patient.”
She must realize she’s rambling. She gulps and glances back at Kashat. He grins at her. “So um…right. I’m sorry.”
I stare at her watery green eyes and don’t really know what to say. Lerian spares me the trouble as a colossal, wet ball of sand flies through the air and lands right where E’rix’s chest starts to rise out of her shirt. I avert my eyes and her face turns redder than Aon’s wings.
“All right, all right, if you two are gonna make out or something, do it on your own time!” Lerian shouts, and I fly a flutter back from E’rix involuntarily.
“Lerian!”
“What? We get it, she’s sorry she was a horrible person, but your super-cool-and-dangerous-spy value rose a ton when you got arrested twice in a row so you’re all irresistible and she wants to be your best friend now! Can we all move on b—”
But the rest of her sentence is lost as E’rix launches her own glob of sand, right onto Lerian’s face. Osley dashes for cover and Kashat screams in delight. I dive for my own fistful of sand and Lerian charges, intent on revenge as she swipes the glob off her face.
The other nears in our group catch on and join in, distinctly avoiding throwing sand at me at first, but once I hit a few of them right under their wing sprouts, I’m no exception and it’s every faerie and centaur for themselves.
As I lean up against a tall, black rock to catch my breath, I look down and see Tamzel covering her face with her hand and shaking her head. She’s probably thinking how hopeless the resistance is if these are the nears she’s training to defend the Grove.
I drop a mess of sand on her head before flying away at breakneck speed.
By the time we all pour back into the Gathering, we’re breathless, sweaty and riled up, shoving into each other and whooping, gritty sand and blood streaked across our limbs. Our shouts ring out about who won which round of sand fight, who will get revenge on who with snow fights when the cold season, fading rapidly now, rolls around again.
E’rix starts nudging us to hush as we fully emerge from the Forest, pointing with her head at three Hands on rest day patrol. We stop and stare, and they stiffen and stare back. As one, the Hands move as one to block our path, raising their swords at E’rix and Kashat’s throats. I raise my chin up, doubled over with my hands on my thighs trying to catch my breath, and wait, entire body tensed. Ready.
I glance over the Hands’ shoulders at Mama and Aon in the cage. Aon’s sleeping, curled into quer own red wings like a dragon bulb in Mama’s lap. Mama herself has gone rigid, her back completely straight, staring out at the brewing confrontation without blinking.
Rada gallops forward, the sound of her hooves on the grass the only sound in the Gathering aside from our heaving breath, her arms outstretched, palms up, in surrender. Even the crickets have stopped chirping and the birds have paused their songs.
“Hey, slow down there,” she tells the Hands, her rounded stomach moving up and down rapidly as she catches her breath. My eyes fixate on the Hands’ swords and stay there. “You give these nears one day a week to rest from labor, and you think they’re not going to rough themselves around on the beach to let out some energy? They’re just playing. It’s almost Lunamez and they’re just nears.”
The lead Hand with his sword drawn at E’rix doesn’t acknowledge Rada, but his eyes flicker at the sound of footsteps approaching.
“We’re not afraid of rowdy nears on a rest day, now are we?” Iema asks the men she outranks, her voice light but her stance hard. Making her question an order. The Hand lowers his sword reluctantly, disdain clear on his face.
Whether his displeasure is about us or about the demand to lower his weapon, I can’t tell. For now, I don’t care. I grimace in pain from being so out of breath, so unable to move.
“They should be afraid, every last one of them,” Kashat mutters, his eyes burning at the retreating backs of the Hands as they stiffly shift back to their posts on the perimeter of the Gathering.
“You’d think she’d have recruited people who know better, seeing as she’s Izlanian,” Lerian puts in, the hatred in her voice for the Controller making my eyes lower. I want to have the same hatred in my voice when I talk about her. But I can’t. I don’t.
As it is, she jostles me like I’m supposed to agree with her and come up with the next quip about the Controller. Lerian nudges me again and I grunt in falsely enthusiastic affirmation. She stares up at me like she can’t quite make out whether she wants to hit me or ignore it, so she does nothing. I fly high enough to put my arm around her shoulders as we approach Rada’s growing platform, and I tilt the side of my forehead to her temple. Lerian sighs hard, placated. For the moment.
Lerian’s right, of course, about the Hand’s, about everything. But I look down at my own non-looking legs, and can’t tell if that means nons can’t be a decent sort, once in a while.
My stomach roils in guilt, in worry that maybe, just maybe, deep down, I am the traitor that everyone always suspects me to be.
Chapter Twelve
MY WINGS ARE covered in feathers, and my voice comes out as a victorious shriek. The barest tilt of my body lets me ride up into the wind, riding it like a river current. I can see the tiniest rustlings of the tiniest creatures on the ground beneath me, even when I’m peering through gaps in the clouds.
A call reaches my ears, but it has a strange lilt to it; it’s hollow, earth-low, compared to the cries that can pour out of my beak.
“Sade.”
A sharp thumping joins the chorus of the strange word, the strange tones, and then I realize that I am not a hawk. I am not soaring above the Highland’s mountains and valleys.
Lerian is calling me, shaking me. Osley is trying to tell me something.
I groan, and groan louder when the sound comes out in my own voice, not the majestic voice of that hawk.
Reluctantly, I blink a few times and take in the look on Lerian’s face, leaning inches away from mine. Osley’s thumping quer feet frantically near Ler’s hooves.
“What?” My voice is groggy but my body’s completely awake now, all traces of free flight gone.
“Rada,” is all Lerian says, and she tears off into the tunnel, heading up into the Gathering.
I blink in the darkness and fly off after her, but I head up and over the Dropoff, meeting her where the tunnel lets out. Osley is on her heels, and I fly down as Lerian sprints forward. “What happened to her?”
“They did another Dream test. Surprise. Extra creepy at night. They took Rada.”
My wings give out and Ler has to double back and yank me up into the air by my arm.
Rada. They took Rada. Because she failed a Dream test.
Because Rada could Dream.
The Controller is nowhere to be seen, but the Gathering is interspersed with people who just woke to the news, flying or trotting around in shock. None of them seem to know what to do beyond milling about in the one place where we last saw Rada.
There’s a developing convergence of people around her growing platform. Two Hands, one of whom I recognize as Richard, are dismantling it, taking apart the woven ground, the massive bowls that she would pour so much of her grown creations into before serving us all.
Confused murmurs are turning into angry murmurs, which are turning into shouts.
I look across the Gathering at Mama in her cage. Aon is sleeping, somehow, but Mama gestures for me to come toward the cage, away from the crowd at Rada’s platform. But Lerian grabs my arm and Osley nips at my ankle, and I don’t move.
I wish Mom and Jax were here, but they’re both inside the infirmary, the tent closed to the chaos outside. Zeel must be giving birth.
Giving birth in the midst of all this.
Rada.
“Where did they take her?”
“The Pits…”
“The things they do to growers in the Pits…”
“Did you know she could Dream?”
I take in all the shouts; I don’t know how people are shouting. I
can’t even remember how to open my mouth.
The Controller is nowhere in sight and Richard’s neck muscles are tensing with each passing moment at the emerging yells, piece by piece gutting Rada’s growing platform. The prominent vein in his forehead is pulsing, and now I’m terrified.
Because the Controller is nowhere in sight, and Richard let his Hands shoot Lerian the last time a lot of Grovians surrounded him.
But I’m too angry to let fear take over; fear, instead, buoys rage—Rada was a grower, one of the ones who helped make sure we don’t have to kill anyone to stay alive; she was my friend—and I find myself surging forward with the rest of the centaurs and faeries, demanding to know if she’s being taken to the Pits. We shout for her to be brought back to us.
Because Rada is tough, but no one is tough enough for the Pits.
My bones are on fire and my muscles are overheating. My fists are clenched and they are above my head.
I didn’t know she could Dream. I’ll never be able to ask her about it, now.
Across the Gathering, on the infirmary platform, Mom and Jax are helping Zeel give birth to a newly born.
On this side of the Gathering, lives are probably about to end.
I yell louder, the collective rage of all they’ve taken from us coursing through my bloodstream.
The shouts, the accusations, the pleas for them to leave Rada’s platform alone don’t you have any respect—like she’s already dead, but yes, she might as well be—finally all cascade in the second-in-command’s face.
“That’s enough!” Richard screams in a tongue that’s not ours, but none of us cede any ground.
I surge forward to try to stop a lower-ranking Hand from taking down the tapestries Rada liked to hang in the back of her platform. I grab his arm and pull.
Richard glances at a fellow Hand, who considers me for a moment. His eyes scan up and down my non features, and he raises his dead tree flesh club.
He doesn’t strike me.
He strikes Lerian.