by Kaylin Lee
Lucien nodded slowly. “But surely there was someone older, more qualified—”
“I have a way with sources.” I met and held his gaze. “I always have.” I pointed to my cheek then pulled a loose lock of hair over my shoulder and held it out. “I look Western. My family is Asylian, has been for generations, but my coloring makes me stand out in Asylia. Commoners feel …” Better than me. “Like they can tell me anything. I’m a good listener, and a good writer, too. Grandmother sent me instead of our other reporters because she knew I’d get the story, just like I always do.”
Lucien pressed his lips together. “It’s going to take more than good listening to do this story.” Then he gave his head an abrupt shake. “Regardless, that doesn’t answer my question. You already told me she sent you because you’re the best.” Skepticism colored his voice. “That doesn’t explain why you went along with it.”
“Because my Grandmother is an unstoppable force when she wants something done.”
Lucien frowned. “So, you’re risking your life because you can’t say no to your own grandmother?”
“No! Well, not completely.” I tapped my spoon on my bowl. “I’ve spent the past five years of my life hunting down the victims of aurae, and the sellers who profit off the mourning and suffering of their fellow citizens.” I paused, remembering, before I shook my head. “No, it’s been longer than that. Aurae entered Asylia just before the plague. Grandmother began covering aurae at the Herald twelve years ago, dragging me along with her to every interview. Aurae is poisoning our city, she always says.”
Pausing, I looked down at the bowl of dry, crumbly victus in my hands. “But it’s also poisoning my life. Every waking moment revolves around aurae—this new victim of overuse, that child left fatherless and alone, yet another cold-hearted dealer selling little vials in the alleys of the River Quarter. I get the lead, track down sources, tell their story. And before that article is published, I’m on to the next story. I might save five lives by exposing some bit of the darkness and helping the Quarter Guards and the royal government to intervene, but the next day, I learn of fifty new lives already thrown away in some other shadowy corner of our city.” My voice had gone dry, and I cleared my throat. “I can’t do it anymore. I just … can’t.”
Lucien rested his arms on his knees, watching me without speaking. There was an unfamiliar look on his face, an odd softening of his normal expression.
The quiet understanding I sensed from him spurred me to keep going. “I know you can’t tell me the nature of this story. But when we got your note at the Herald, we knew it had to be aurae. Grandmother and I—almost everyone at the Herald, really—we’ve devoted our lives to ending aurae’s spread. And I … I want to live a real life. My own life. I’ll never be able to turn my back on the Herald, not until our city is free of aurae.
“So I had to come with you, whatever the risk. It was the right choice—for me, for everyone.” I watched Lucien for a reaction, but his eyes told me nothing. He hadn’t contradicted me yet, though. “It is aurae, isn’t it?” The words slipped out of my mouth of their own accord, my voice barely a whisper, like deep down, I knew I shouldn’t be pushing my source for more than he was willing to give.
He paused for a long moment, then spoke. “Aurae is only the beginning.”
Chapter 12
Four days later, on a moonlit night, Lucien found my camp once again. “Ruby.”
At the sound of his now-familiar whisper, I jolted awake and sat up straight, my hands already reaching for the water and victus I knew he’d be holding. After four days of travel, we had a routine.
We didn’t bother speaking. I took a long drink of water, then I began to mix the victus, too hungry to complain about how tired I was.
Lucien set his pack down, laid out his bedroll beside me, and sat down.
“Why won’t you walk with me during the day?” I asked around a mouthful of victus. “We haven’t seen or heard a Badlander in four days.”
“We’re almost to the city.” Lucien’s voice was tense and low. “We’re more likely to see another Wolf than a Badlander this close to Draicia.”
“Oh.” I’d forgotten what he’d said about Wolves making a yearly trek through the Badlands. I swallowed my bite. “How close?”
“We’ll be in view of the city gates tomorrow. Should be entering the city by evening.”
The bowl slipped from my hands and landed in my lap. “Tomorrow?” I wasn’t ready!
“I can’t enter with you. Can’t take any chances.”
I took a deep breath. “I know. You’ve only told me five times.”
He looked away. “You should wish I’d come in with you.”
I set the bowl of victus aside and wrapped my arms around my knees. “I do wish it. Of course I do.”
I sat in silence for several minutes, staring at the tops of my knees, lost in my worries about what I’d find in Draicia. Then I started at the feel of his hand brushing my hair away from my face. I looked up to find his unreadable face just inches from mine. I held my breath.
He ran his fingers over the lock of hair, then he looked me up and down with a scowl. “Why are you so clean?”
Oh. I should have known he’d disapprove of my bath.
I pushed his hand away from my hair. He leaned back. “You told me yesterday that we were drawing nearer to Draicia. I found a stream today and took the chance to clean up a bit. I wanted to be ready for the city. But I hadn’t guessed we were so close.”
He sat back, his brows furrowed. “What have I been telling you this whole time?” His words were terse. “The only way to make it through the city unscathed is for the clansmen to think you’re just another desperate Badlander, hoping to make a better living in the city. You don't look anything like a Badlander now.”
I crossed my arms. “I’m sorry. I’ll fix it, all right?”
“Ruby …” Lucien studied me for a long moment. Something on his face shifted, and his cold, empty expression made me shiver. “Go home.”
I felt my eyebrows shoot up. “Are you serious?” I kept my voice quiet, as always, but after eight days together in the Badlands, he should have known better than to say such a thing. “I’ve made it nearly all the way to Draicia, and you think I’ll turn back now?”
“I think you’re sensible enough to know better than to take on more than you can handle.”
“I can handle this,” I ground out. “I’ve told you already. I always get the story.”
Lucien’s nostrils flared. “Believe you can, and you will, is that it? A true Asylian. You know nothing of our city, nothing of the hardship we live with. Stay in the Badlands. I will enter the city and return for you in a few days to help you get back to Asylia.”
“No! Absolutely not.” My heart pounded, and it was a fight to keep my voice low like his. “I know nothing of hardship?” I held out my hand, my skin stark and pale in the moonlight. “I'm the only person in Asylia who looks like a Westerner, Lucien. You want to know why I grew up following on Grandmother’s heels on every assignment?”
Lucien’s guarded expression didn’t flicker, but after a moment of silence, he nodded.
“Because the first time I ventured out alone after the plague began, some overzealous commoners tried to throw me on a plague bonfire.” Someone had stopped the man, and it hadn’t happened again. But I’d never forgotten. The nightmares wouldn’t let me.
I shivered and wrapped my arms around my legs. “Even now, even though the plague has ended, everywhere I go, someone blames me for it. I’ve lived my entire life in Asylia. I’ve never been to the West, but they don’t care. They can’t resist blaming me. The constant fear and accusation—it’s like a knife in my gut, every time. So don’t tell me I know nothing of pain.”
Lucien’s eyes crinkled slightly, and for a moment, he looked … worried? But then his expression hardened, and he shook his head. “Their words hurt, do they? Just imagine how much it will hurt when someone stabs you with a real k
nife.”
My stomach dropped. “I …”
Lucien got to his feet and shoved his bedroll into his pack. “I’m not doing this, Ruby. I’m not taking you into the city. I’m not helping you do this. You’ll die, and it will be on me. I have enough to worry about. You need to go home. Stay here. I’ll come back for you in three days.” He met my eyes, his expression unyielding. “You’re too soft. You don’t belong anywhere near my city.”
~
After Lucien left, I dozed for a few hours, waking in fits, always certain I’d heard him approaching, certain he wouldn’t really leave me at night. Finally, while the moon was still bright in the sky, I gave up on sleep.
I stood and stretched, then shook out my blanket, folded it, and stuffed it in the top of my pack.
Lucien had left me with the canteen of water and the small canister of victus. Perhaps he’d wanted me to survive three days alone, or perhaps he’d been too angry to bother taking them from me. I rubbed my eyes, then shoved the victus and water into the top of the pack and buckled the pack’s opening.
I pulled the pack onto my shoulders and stood for a moment in the deserted woods, despair making my body feel heavy and sluggish. After eight days of walking, Draicia was less than a day’s walk from here. I eyed the upward slope I’d been climbing most of the previous afternoon and evening. If I finally crested this hill, would I see Draicia?
You’re too soft. You don’t belong anywhere near my city.
I massaged the back of my neck and tried to silence the memory of Lucien’s condemning voice, but I couldn’t. It was just like Grandmother had always said—I was too soft, too easily distracted. I cared too much about frivolous things. And now, I’d gone and lost our source because of my own silly vanity. I hadn’t even thought twice about freshening up in that stream.
I was too upset to sleep now. And I couldn’t stay in one place—what if someone found me?
I could either wander aimlessly around this hill waiting for Lucien, or I could search out my first glimpse of the city of my nightmares.
What would Grandmother expect me to do?
I looped my fingers in the straps of my pack and started ascending the hill. It was the right choice, even if I didn’t want it to be.
~
I hiked the rest of the night. Just as the sky began to lighten, the hill leveled out. My legs burned and shook, but I didn’t stop—I sped up. Just a little closer.
I reached the top of the slope and climbed onto a large boulder, slipping on crumbly rocks in my haste.
The northern plains stretched as far as I could see, disappearing into a dark, hazy line broken by a single landmark—an enormous, smoky blot on the horizon that had to be Draicia. I’d found the city.
It was stunning. And it was horrifying. The whole expanse, Draicia included, spoke of death and despair. It was exactly as heartbreaking I’d imagined, and yet at the same time strangely compelling. I couldn’t look away.
Dry ravines and dirt roads carved through the arid ground like veins stretching through an emaciated body. As in the Badlands around Asylia, there didn’t appear to be any life in the plains, only the occasional grove of thin, dead trees.
I shivered as cool wind whipped my hair up around my face. How could I give up, after enduring eight days in the Badlands to reach Draicia? And yet, without Lucien’s promise of support, did I dare enter the forbidding city on my own?
“Just do it, Ruby.” I’d made it all the way here. I couldn’t turn back now. And if I ever wanted to be free of aurae, I had to do this. I tucked a loose lock of windblown hair back into my bun and descended the boulder, grabbed my pack, and shoved my arms through the straps, moving quickly so I didn’t have a chance to question my choice.
Because if I allowed myself to dwell on it for any longer, I’d be unable to deny the truth—the words I’d sworn to Lucien were about to come true.
Chapter 13
“Lodging! Rooms for rent!” A man’s voice rose above the dull roar coming from inside the city.
It was twilight. I paused just outside the city gate, my heart pounding and my stomach twisting with apprehension. The air was heavy with the smell of smoke, and garbage littered the ground.
After nine days in the barren, lonely Badlands, the sound of city life was utterly overwhelming. I couldn’t imagine entering. What would I find inside the high, crumbling wall?
“Rooms! Clean blankets guaranteed! Washroom extra!”
I fingered the straps of my packs and chewed on my lower lip. How could I—
“You! Quit blocking the gate.”
A brusque hand shoved my shoulder, and I stumbled to my knees as two women clothed in rags hauled in a shabby hand cart full of kindling.
“Sorry,” I mumbled, but the women—Badlanders, I supposed—were already inside.
I took a deep breath and got to my feet. I cast one final glance around the Badlands, my gaze resting for a moment on the large swath of green farmland adjacent to the city wall to the east. It was heavily guarded by whatever clan farmed the lot. No doubt the crops on the land and the grower mages who enabled them were priceless in such an impoverished, lawless place.
The stark contrast between the lush farmland and the decrepit, crumbling ramparts kept me frozen in place. I was about to enter a city with no government. That meant the clans controlled everything. The money. The mages. The food.
The farmland was encircled by silent, unsmiling guards, but not a single man guarded the city gate. Anyone could enter from the Badlands. A shiver ran down my arms. What did that say about Draicia?
“C’mon, Ruby,” I whispered to myself. “You can do this.” The longer I stood outside, the greater chance someone would notice me, not that I was currently worth noticing. I’d rubbed dust into my skin and hair when I reached the base of the hills. I didn’t have a mirror, but I was so dirty, I couldn’t even see the freckles on my arms. That had to be a good sign.
I pulled the straps of my pack a little tighter, lowered my head, and walked toward the gate, letting my hair hang over my face.
I held my breath as I passed the piles of garbage. Then I entered the city.
A cacophony of sounds assaulted me. Barkers shouted at passersby, their words jumbling together and making my head spin. Grimy fomecoaches sped by, moving twice the speed of the fomecoaches in Asylia. A continuous, earsplitting rattle came from every direction, and I finally realized it came from the wiry, two-wheeled contraptions that darted between the fomecoaches in a death-defying dance.
“Beds for rent! Eight beds to a room! Free blankets for new renters!”
A grizzled man approached me, smiling widely to reveal three missing teeth. “Rooms for Badlanders! We take barters, too.” He winked, then gripped the back of my pack and pulled me toward an old fomewagon that looked like it was one sharp turn away from falling to pieces. “This way, little miss. Fifty marks a night.”
Fifty? Grandmother had only given me 500 marks for the whole trip. “Let go of me.” I dug in my heels and pulled back until he finally released me. “No, thank you, sir. I’ll pass.”
He hissed a curse and strode away, approaching the two older women who’d entered before me. They seemed to be bargaining intensely with another man.
A man with greasy, dark hair and a narrow build approached. “We’ve got cheap rooms. Cheap beds. Way cheaper than that rogue was offering. How much do you want to pay? You tell me, miss.”
I tugged on the ends of a loose curl of hair. “I …” I’d need to reserve money for food, courier fees for correspondence with the Herald … and how long would it take me to get to the bottom of Lucien’s story? Two weeks? Three? I scrambled to do the math in my head. “No more than ten marks per night, please.”
“Ten?” His friendly, yellowed grin evaporated. “You’re crazy.” Another curse. I flinched. The man spat at my feet and walked away. Then he paused and looked back. “Try that one,” he said, jerking his head toward a rail-thin, white-haired woman who snoozed in th
e front seat of an ancient, rusty fomecoach. “She’s crazy, too.”
The other barkers must have heard my desired price per night because, as one man, they descended on the other two women. Apparently even desperate Badlanders had more to spend than I did.
I released a breath and approached the ancient-looking woman on her rusty fomewagon. If she couldn’t meet my price, I didn’t know what I’d do. “Excuse me … Mistress?”
She stirred, then she began to snore.
“Mistress?” I said louder. “Excuse me, Mistress!”
She blinked. “Rooms for rent,” she murmured sleepily before shutting her eyes.
I stepped closer. “Yes. I’d like a room, please. How much?”
The old woman cracked open her eyes. “How much do you want to pay?” Her voice was suddenly crystal clear.
I peered at her from behind the curtain of my dirty, tangled hair. “No more than ten marks per night.”
“Get in.” She sat up straight and started the fomecoach. It shook and rattled for a moment, then it purred to life.
“Ten?” I hovered by the passenger door. “You’re certain?”
She smiled, deepening the heavy grooves around her eyes. “Ten it is, little Badlander.” She winked. “Now get in.”
I pulled off my pack, stuffed it on the floor of the fomecoach, and climbed up to the seat next to her. She started driving the moment I touched the seat, entering the speeding traffic without checking to see if any fomecoaches were in the way and ignoring the screeching of tires that sounded in our wake.
I gripped the edges of the seat to keep from hitting the door as she swerved to the edge of the road. If I survived the trip to the boarding house, what would I find there? “Why so cheap?”
She accelerated and swung the fomecoach around a corner, cutting off two other coaches without flinching. “Don’t be scared. There’s nothing to worry about.”