Lunav

by Jenn Polish

  The Underland! I remember vaguely. My Dream. Another invasion.

  I try to sit up. My throbbing head and subtle pressure from Zaylam’s tail makes clear what an absurd idea that is. I crack both sets of eyelids open again, slower this time. Even the moonlight hurts. I close my outer eyelids quickly.

  My ears start working again, sorting out specific sounds from the dull ringing. Lots of faeries hovering, wings fluttering but tense. Zaylam’s triple heartbeat in her broad chest, thin underbelly fur slick with sweat. I touch my forehead and my hand drips with the dark pink heat of my own blood.

  The rustle of skyflower petals, poised to resist axes and fire. The Controller’s voice, dignified and firm.

  Evelyn’s voice.

  I pull myself up, more carefully this time, bit by bit, so I can see over the curve of Zay’s wing. Evelyn is standing in front of an entire deployment of heavily armed soldiers: the Mach, all covered in chain mail like I Dreamed.

  I have to blink several times to interpret what the Mach are doing, to make sure it’s not my bleeding head making me see things. No. It’s true. The Mach have their magic-enhancing weaponry drawn and raised at…Evelyn.

  It can’t be.

  And then I realize with a dull jolt that she is standing just flutters in front of us, directly between the invading force and Zaylam’s curled-up body.

  Their weapons, then, are raised at Zay. At me. At the lone dragon, impulsive where her elders were restrained, flown out of the forced shelter of the Plains to protect the Underland.

  Yet the Controller has positioned herself between us and a small army. Her back is poker straight, and I imagine the look on her face. Steely. Dignified. Calm.

  I see her silhouette through half-opened eyes as her full form radiates in the moonlight. She is without hesitation. Chin raised, her hands are distinctly away from her bow. Her white skirt sways in contrast with the stiff uniforms of even her own soldiers, who are scattered behind her, surrounding us. The nearest Hands look distinctly uncomfortable, glancing sidelong at Zaylam with a combination of fear, curiosity, and hatred. They are the dividing line between us and the crowd of centaurs caught between both forces. Many of their bows are drawn at the faeries hovering above our heads.

  Most of her own Hands seem unsure if they will actually defend their Controller; by the tilt of their bows, the flexing of their fingers, and the hatred in their gazes, they seem more ready to attack the resting dragon, the wide-eyed faeries, the unarmed centaurs, than they are to defend their Controller against the Mach soldiers she is holding back with only her posture.

  All except Iema, arm healed by now, who walks steadily in the midst of the growing silence to stand near Evelyn, knuckles purple on the hilt of her sword. Ready to protect the Controller. And, by extension, me and Zay.

  I blink rapidly, trying to focus enough to actually interpret what she’s saying, the Highlander non harsh on my buzzing ears. “I can’t understand how engaging in military operations in a Grovian province without the approval or foreknowledge of the Controller of the Grove can bear any productive fruit for the king.”

  An angry whisper goes through the Hands, who are looking more and more ready to cross her and join the regiment with their weapons poised at her chest. Even I can see that with my pounding eyesight. Only Iema doesn’t flinch at her words, and my heart twists a little.

  My dragging eyes find Lerian in the crowd of people, between the shoulders of two Hands. She looks ready to fight. She glances at me briefly and nods sharply. She looks back at the horses many of the Mach are riding. The four-legged newcomers look ashamed to be bridled. Lerian lowers her eyes and flexes her shoulder muscles, her jaw set.

  “You dare question the orders of the good King Xavier?” an unpleasantly thick voice rings out. “You’ve been trained better than this, Evelyn.” My breath catches and I duck down behind Zaylam’s flesh dizzyingly. I know that condescending voice, that sneer, that gray beard and deathly white skin.

  The Commander of the Mach is—Reve, the man in the Forest with Evelyn the night I saved Iema. The one who clubbed me, who was charged with protecting Evelyn.

  “You misunderstand me, Commander,” Evelyn retorts calmly. “I am not questioning His Majesty’s orders, simply your sloppy protocol.” A few amused gasps rise up amongst some centaurs and faeries. They are shushed immediately. “When you return with the proper verification that the good King Xavier has commanded you to route this place, I will gladly allow you to proceed and will make security arrangements accordingly. But as it stands, you come bearing no documentation of His Majesty’s orders, which all of his Hands, Mach or otherwise, as you well know, are required to carry at all times.”

  A small rumble goes up amongst the Hands at that. My jaw drops slightly. She’s talked them into a corner where the action perceived as most loyal to the king right now is to defend the Underland. “Well played,” I mutter, and Zaylam’s heat patch glows.

  I can’t see what’s happening now, because I can’t risk Reve spotting me, but I hear the trotting of a horse, right up to where Evelyn is standing. A strange tugging on the Energies carves its way into the pit of my stomach the closer the horse gets, and it feels vaguely familiar, from the night Reve hit me. I strain my ears to hear.

  “Don’t think Xavier won’t be informed about this, Evelyn. You will regret these actions, mark my words.” He’s speaking softly, but not soft enough. Maybe no one’s ever told him that faeric hearing is much better than nons’.

  “Controller,” Evelyn says, projecting for us all to hear as though Commander Reve weren’t standing right in front of her. “At my current station, my title is the Controller of the Grovian Provinces, Commander. Do well not to forget that again if you return with those authentications from the king. You’d do well to remember too that I serve the king, not any man who marches into the provinces that the king himself appointed me to keep safe from rebel activity. Come back with King Xavier’s seal and you shall receive my full cooperation.” A pause. “You’ve been dismissed, Commander.”

  I almost laugh out loud. I slam my fist into my mouth to stem the sound, and more blood pours from my head. I slide down Zaylam’s underbelly, unbearably woozy again.

  I hear Reve’s angry, poorly whispering voice again, but can’t make out his words. A low thundering rises up, and it must be the Mach turning their horses around and retreating. Some scattered centaurs and faeries whoop alongside the even more victorious cries from birds and insects and groundlings of the Forest and the Underland, who must too have been excellently concealed, poised to fight. My moms’ voices approach me like we’re under the Flowing’s waters, and there is nothing else.

  THE FAINT LIGHT of Lunamez’s floating lanterns seeps under my outer eyelids. I blink once, twice, three times. Groggily. Painfully.

  The inside of the infirmary tent swoops in and out of focus. The medicinal lanterns hanging from three parts of the roof burn softly, dimly, at this time of night. Jax’s low workbench, Mom’s higher one, both full of their healing styles. Mom’s is ordered and sensible, not a vial out of place; Jax’s is chaotic and messily strewn, not a vial in place. Jax is awake and puttering quietly with some salve or other at his bench. If he’s realized I’m awake, he doesn’t let on.

  Mom’s steady breathing nearby lets me know she’s fallen asleep on the platform floor next to my cot. I realize groggily that her hand is reaching up even in her rest, still locked with my fingers. I smile faintly and turn my head carefully to the cot next to mine.

  I gasp and almost sit bolt upright, but my throbbing wound keeps me in place. Evelyn starts speaking immediately.

  “It wasn’t one of mine that hit you.” I blink rapidly, trying to make my thoughts clearer somehow. She uncrosses her legs with a soft hiss of pain, like she’s been sitting there so long her foot’s fallen asleep. I glance wildly at Jax. He doesn’t turn to look at me. What they discussed, if anything, while I was unconscious, I will never know. Because I won’t ask. But I do wonder vag
uely if Mom is feigning sleep or if she really is out.

  Evelyn continues through my confusion. “I confronted him before he rode away. He claims that he was thinking you were going to attack, because you were flying so fast, and there was a dragon above you.” I’m pretty sure she rolls her eyes, but my head is still stiff and throbbing, so I can’t be sure. I am sure, though, that she’s speaking in my own language, which might be more confusing than her being in the infirmary in the first place. “Most of you fly quickly. His ignorance of your habits could have cost you your life. Though I will say, flying out of the Plains with your dragon in tow was perhaps not the wisest idea.”

  I try to sit up again, and she reaches out a hand to stop me, pausing just before her skin touches mine. “Your dragon flew away safely.” My entire body relaxes.

  She stares at me, her eyes flickering to the thick wrapping on my head. Is she trying to ask how I’m feeling? Apologize for the pain I’m in?

  “If they do return with true orders from the king, I won’t stop them.” Is that preemptive regret in her voice? A warning? A threat? An apology? My head swims. Jax keeps his eyes fixed on his work, but his hands are still. I wonder why the Controller seems so much older than she is. I shut my eyes to try to focus.

  She’s gone when I look back up. I turn to Jax, opening my mouth to ask him for water and an explanation for what is happening to my life, but a rough voice cuts into my thoughts as the infirmary tent flap is thrust open again.

  “What, the Controller’s giving you house calls now? Must be nice, being ugly enough to attract her so much.”

  Lerian calling me ugly has never, ever hurt before.

  Until right now.

  “Lerian,” Jax says in his warning voice, and Mom sits bolt upright on the floor, squeezing my hand before letting it go and flying up to Lerian’s eye level.

  “I’m sorry Jax, Faye, but Sadie needs to hear a few things.” Mom hesitates, but relents after putting her forehead to my cheek, zipping out of the tent into the night. I would feel abandoned, but I actually feel grateful. I don’t want her to hear what I know Lerian’s about to say, and somehow I think she knows that too. Jax wheels protectively but quietly over to my cot, his expression neutral, checking the bandages on my head.

  “Ler, I’m sorry I got you hit when they took Rada, but hey, look, we’re even now.” I grin crookedly and point to my forehead. My stomach is so knotted I don’t think it’ll ever come undone. Lerian just scoffs.

  “You think I’m mad because I got hit? I’d get hit for you any day, Sade. I took an arrow for you, didn’t I? And what, you think it’s funny? You think it was fun for me seeing you drop out of the sky like that today? Who do you think… You know what, just…” She sighs deeply, like she’s steeling herself for something, and I brace myself, lips pursed and breath held.

  “You used to be one of us. You used to only be like them when you were risking your neck for us. And then the new Controller came, and sure, I know she’s arrested you twice, but you’ve gotten reckless, like being arrested makes you special, like it gives you some kind of credibility. But she didn’t put you in that cage, Sadie, and she didn’t ship you to the Pits. Because you…she… You’ve been taking risks that you can get away with on account of you look like them, but it’s like you don’t even care anymore how it affects the rest of us. Did you stop to think what would happen to the rest of us when you went after that Hand the night they took Rada?”

  “I didn’t go after—”

  “It doesn’t matter, they were just dying for an excuse, any excuse, and you gave it to them when you knew they wouldn’t take it out on you, not on the Controller’s little non pet!”

  I start to sit up, and Jax, his eyes anywhere but my face, pushes me back down gently.

  “The Controller just saved the Underland—”

  Lerian lets out a harsh laugh, and her fists open and close rapidly like a washed up fish gaping, trying not to suffocate, on the beach.

  “You can’t seriously be defending her? To me? You think nons like her can save us, Sadie? Is that what you’ve been trying to do this whole time, save us with your dashing non looks?”

  Every word penetrates my skin like burning knives laced with acid. Hot droplets run down my face, and I know they’re not blood.

  “Your precious Controller said it herself; she was only waiting to get proper orders from her damn king. She was protecting herself, not us, just like she was protecting herself when she Healed me, because she wants to be obeyed. She needs to be obeyed, or don’t you remember that her own people are being killed by the palace occupation every single day too? She should know better, she should fight with us, but instead she’s scrambling for whatever ounce of palace-approved power she can get, and who cares, but I spent all these harvests thinking you were different, that you wouldn’t be tempted by… I defended you, I—”

  She’s spitting now, and her stormy gray eyes are about to pour. Jax studies his fingers carefully.

  “You’re my best friend, Sadie, but this woman is gonna let my home be destroyed. My home, my people. I thought we were your people too, but you keep defending her. You’ve picked your side.” Lerian’s face has hardened now, a mask of all our memories together frozen in time. “Let me know when you remember who your real people are.”

  She turns on her back hooves and tosses the flap of the infirmary tent aside.

  “Lerian!” I call after her, but I can’t move beyond following her with my eyes. The subtle but firm pressure of Jax’s hands won’t let me do anything else. I screw up my face, closing both sets of eyelids. I try to breathe.

  “She carried you here, you know, Sade. She insisted. She loves you.”

  I crack open my outer eyelids and stare up at him. “You sure I’m not too non for her?”

  Jax sighs heavily and releases me. He leans forward, elbows on his widespread knees. His fingers trace the merperson markings on his neck thoughtfully. “She loves you. She’s just scared you won’t always love her.”

  I try to sit up and he pushes me back down by my shoulders firmly. I grimace. “That’s ridiculous, why wouldn’t I—”

  “She has eyes, you know. So do we all. Life passing as a non in the Highlands with someone with the Controller’s kind of power would be a lot easier than life as a faerie here.”

  He starts to wheel away, but I make a clumsy grab for his chair. It’s ineffective, but he sees the motion and stops.

  “Jax, I wouldn’t abandon my family. And you guys are my family as much as my moms and Aon.”

  He smiles sadly at me, leaning over to ladle some steaming tonic out of his creation bowl. He passes it to me and I drink. “I know, sherba. I know. I’m just not the one who needs convincing. No, no arguments! I don’t want to hear how ridiculous and irrational she’s being. I want to hear you breathing deeply, not talking. Asleep. Now, Sadie.”

  I give him a lopsided grin that is sincerely trying to be a glare, but whatever tonic he gave me takes over my body.

  I sleep.

  When I wake up, daylight is creeping into the infirmary, and there’s a small, warm body lying on my stomach.

  “Os,” I croak, to let quer know I’m. See if que’s awake too. Que is. So is Mom. She’s half lying on the cot Evelyn sat on last night, watching over Osley and me while she rubs skyflower fruit oil onto Mama’s skin. Mama has her own hands full with Aon, who’s grumbling halfheartedly as she twists his hair into short braids.

  “You wanted it like this, don’t complain,” she tells him with a small grin. He glares, but it’s got a smile underneath it.

  “Hi, Sadie!” he enthuses. I grunt at him. “Mom, why can’t you just fully heal Sadie’s head?”

  “The Energies can only fix so much, Aon. Only soul keepers can heal certain injuries completely without rest time—you know that.”

  He narrows his eyes. “I do know. That’s why I want to be one.”

  Osley trills in mild amusement.

  “So Jax tells me you ha
d an active night, Sade,” Mama ventures, glancing at me as she shifts so Mom can reach her knees with the oil.

  Memory crashes over me. Evelyn. Lerian. Lerian. Evelyn.

  Lerian.

  Unexpected tears flood my eyes and my vision fogs. “You don’t think I’m some heartless non traitor, do you?”

  Osley rubs quer head against my stomach, and Aon’s eyes widen sadly. Mom flutters over to my cot, putting her forehead to my arm. “Sherba, no, you…” She glances over her shoulder at Mama, whose fingers relent from Aon’s hair.

  “Sade, you and the Controller just—”

  But I don’t find out what Mama thinks about me and the Controller, because Mom and Jax’s names are being shouted from across the Gathering. Mom darts up and out of the infirmary, thrusting its door flap open wide, wide. I flinch and close my eyes away from the growing light. Mama puts her hand in front of my face to block most of it, and Osley leaps down from my stomach as Mom twists the Energies to lower the platform for Jax to come in from where he sleeps nearby. To let their new patient come in.

  Aon zips to the edge of the tent behind Mom, trying to see who would be calling so desperately for a healer.

  He lets out a gnarled scream as he speeds past Mom toward the sounds.

  And with a jolt, I recognize the voices. Mama does too; I see it in her eyes. “Stay here, stay still,” she tells me, and flies even faster than Aon out of the infirmary.

  Toward P’Tal. Toward P’Tal and Aora and Zeel, because they’re galloping, fast, toward us, shouting. Their hoof steps get louder and louder the closer they get. Osley crouches down next to me, quer body tensed.

  My eyes widen as half a dozen figures fill the door flap of the infirmary tent. Aon is still screaming, shouting, a name, a name, over and over again.

  Blaze.

  Que is dangling in Zeel and Aora’s arms, Mom leaning over quer, mostly blocking quer body from my view. P’Tal’s upper torso has collapsed against Mama’s arms, and she’s cooing to him, quieting him as he gasps, trying to explain what’s happened.