by Zoe Marriott
I watched the terrible lines of strain and worry on his face ease a little as he slowly nodded. “What happened to you in that fire? You’re different.”
“No. I’m the person I was always meant to be.”
“The sun’s almost down,” Arian said quietly.
“There’s plenty of light left,” I said, straightening from where I’d been bent over, squinting at a scuffed mark in the dry dirt. I rubbed my stinging eyes with the heels of my hands.
On the hillside above, in the far distance, I could see the dim figures of another party of hill guards moving downhill, probably intending to go back to the camp for the night. I looked past them to search the shapes of the mountains as if they might offer me some clue.
At the core of me, where fear and self-doubt had always lurked, there was … something new. I didn’t have a name for it yet. I didn’t really understand it, or its limits. Maybe it was the courage that Luca had always told me was mine, though I didn’t feel particularly brave. I just knew it was up to me to find him and bring him home.
“They’ve already searched here,” Arian said, sounding frustrated. “I’m sure they wouldn’t have missed anything.”
“Maybe not. But look – the ground is rough here, and there are so many patches of undergrowth and trees, they couldn’t have searched all of them. And these landslides were recent. I’m betting all these rocks would be nearly impossible to get over without turning an ankle or taking a tumble.”
“I don’t understand—”
“If you were Luca, if you knew these hills like the back of your hand, if you were … maybe injured and running from an enemy, you’d come here. This is a perfect hiding place. Come on.”
I plunged past him into a stand of thick bushes. Leaves slapped my face, branches tore at my skin. I tripped, and only Arian grabbing the pack on my shoulders kept me upright.
“Luca!” Arian yelled. “If you’re here, answer me!”
There was no reply.
“Frost—”
“Just a little longer,” I said. “I’m sure we’re going to find something.”
Arian muttered under his breath, but did not argue. I had the feeling that he didn’t dare to. If he argued himself out of hoping, what would he be left with?
A moment later I nearly fell out of the thick cover of leaves. This time Arian didn’t catch me in time, and I went down on my knees, hard. I barely noticed. Above us was a towering pile of great, bare rocks that ended in a sheer drop. I could see the midnight-blue glitter of the river below. Above was another thick stand of trees. Perfect cover – and just what Luca would have been looking for as he made for home.
I tried to distinguish marks in the dusty soil, but I could barely see anything now. The red-gold light of the setting sun was shining on top of the rocks, but down here it was twilight.
“Up,” I said. “We have to go up.”
Arian didn’t bother to argue this time. We scrabbled and grunted our way up the thin strip of earth next to the rockfall, sending pebbles and earth cascading down behind us.
“What are we looking for?” Arian asked me, stopping to wipe sweat and dust off his face.
I looked up at him – and froze. My finger trembled as I pointed. “That.”
There, on one of the rocks next to Arian’s shoulder, was a smear of dried blood. It was the shape of a hand. A large, long-fingered hand.
Arian whispered something under his breath. It might have been a curse, or a prayer.
My eyes skittered over the rocks until I found a gap between two boulders a few steps to Arian’s right. I pointed again. Arian fell down on his knees and tried to crawl inside, but he was too broad. “I need light. I can’t see anything in there. Luca! Luca, can you answer?”
“Get out of the way.” I nudged Arian forcefully aside, wrenched my pack off my back and squeezed myself into the gap, my shoulders scraping painfully on the rough rock on either side.
“Luca?” My voice emerged as a croak. There was no echo in the tiny, damp space.
I groped through the moist dirt, stretching out my hands blindly. My fingertips fell on cloth, then the unmistakable shape of a muscular wrist.
“Luca.”
“What can you see?” The rocks couldn’t muffle the urgency in Arian’s voice.
“It’s him. Help me.”
Luca’s skin under my hand was ice cold, and the only sound I could hear in the tiny space was my own shallow breathing. I clamped my fingers down and pulled, inching backwards. The angle was wrong. I couldn’t get my legs under me. Arian caught hold of my waist and dragged me. I grunted as my joints protested against the strain.
There was a ripping noise. I skidded backward in a cloud of dust as something gave way in the dark space. My burden came with me, sliding out of the cave into the last light of the day.
Arian let go of me and turned away with a deep, hurt noise, one hand slapping against the nearby rock to keep him upright.
It was Luca. The fine planes of his face were unmistakeable, even swollen, bruised and caked in blood, even with his glorious golden hair shaved painfully short, so that his scalp glinted through the ragged fuzz.
His uniform was in rags. Deep bruises showed on his arms, chest, and in a choking necklace of fingerprints around his neck. Blistered burn marks formed precise cross-shapes on both of his cheeks. The traitor’s mark.
He lay still, limp and lifeless.
Something – a sob, a scream, I did not know what – caught in my throat and choked me. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. The world came loose of its mooring in the heavens and wheeled crazily around me as the sun sank behind the horizon, plunging us into darkness.
No.
No.
No.
Luca let out a faint moan.
Air flooded my chest in a dizzying, painful rush. The world steadied. Impenetrable blackness became dusk. “He’s alive. Arian, he’s alive!”
Arian whipped round, his face a staring mask of disbelief, of hope. Then he scooped up Luca’s body, lifting the taller man in one movement, as if he weighed nothing. I leaped to my feet, snagging my discarded pack.
We ran.
The journey back to the camp took an agonizing eternity; moments stretched out into hours. The harsh sound of my own breathing deafened me. I slid and slipped down the slope ahead of Arian, holding back tree limbs, stamping down roots – not for his sake this time, but for Luca’s. Whenever I glanced back, I saw Luca’s head rolling bonelessly against Arian’s shoulder, his face a merciful blur in the dusk. Arian’s face was turned down, always. I didn’t think he was even looking where he was going.
Finally, I caught sight of the orange flicker of torches through the trees. I pushed through, breaking into the clearing and leaving Arian behind as I pelted through camp to the small tent pitched next to the makeshift infirmary. I shoved up the tent flap.
The torchlight revealed Rani in a tangle of pillows and blankets, with Livia curled next to her. Both healers jerked upright, instantly alert. Livia’s hair stood out around her head like a silvery mess of straw.
“What? Who – Frost?” Rani’s eyes narrowed.
“We found Luca. He’s hurt. He needs help.”
Rani was flinging back the covers and dragging on a pair of breeches before I had finished speaking. “Light the lamps. Hurry!”
Livia rushed to comply, fumbling with her still-bandaged bad arm. I went to help her, and in a moment the tent was flooded with golden light.
“It’s really him?” Livia asked.
I looked up and met her eyes. Whatever she saw in mine made her tanned face go pale.
Before we could say any more, Arian walked in. He gently laid Luca down on the spare bedroll in the healer’s tent. Both Rani and Livia gasped as they saw his face.
Livia ripped open her healer’s bag.
“Go outside now,” she said, eyes not leaving Luca. “Go out and wait. We need space.”
Arian stood motionless, staring down at Luca�
��s bloodied form. Livia jerked her head at me. I caught hold of Arian’s hand and tugged at it, and he followed me. Outside, the camp lay still and quiet.
The moment I let go of Arian’s hand he folded up on himself, dropping to the ground as if his legs could no longer support him. Slowly, I sank down beside him, drawing my knees up and wrapping my arms around them.
“He’s going to be all right,” I said, not sure if I was talking to Arian, or to myself. “We got him back. He’s going to be fine.”
Arian didn’t answer. I doubt he even heard.
It seemed like a whole night had passed before Rani finally poked her head out of the tent flap. Arian scrambled clumsily to his feet. I stayed on the floor.
“It’s bad,” Rani said, without waiting to be asked. “His wounds … they’re appalling, but they aren’t serious in themselves. They must have wanted to keep him alive. The burns on his face, though … the marks…” She paused, hands clenching on a piece of bloodstained bandage. “They’re infected.”
“What does that mean?” Arian demanded roughly.
“I don’t know if – it’s possible he might not make it through the night.”
I clutched at my ribs, rocking gently. “He’ll make it. He will. He wouldn’t leave us like this.”
Arian turned silently and walked away into the camp.
“Go after him,” Rani said. “There’s nothing you can do for Luca now.”
She made as if to slip back into the tent, then stopped. Her eyes met mine squarely for the first time since I had attacked Livia. “Thank you for bringing him back. For not giving up. If you hadn’t found him, he would probably have been dead by tomorrow. At least now he has a chance.”
I sat on the ground for a long time after Rani had gone back inside, trying to deny the stomach-churning pain. Trying to force the feelings away into that dark ball under my ribs like I always had before. But I couldn’t. I had changed. There was no empty, cold place where I could huddle up hope and fear within me any more. No way to isolate myself or run away from these feelings to make it easier. I had to accept them, and I had to do it without breaking. I had to, because Luca needed me. He needed me to be the person he had always believed I was. Brave and strong. Strong enough to get through this, and bring him through it too.
Slowly, slowly, I got myself back under control again. I was able to breathe, to uncurl myself from my tight ball of misery and sit up straight. I got creakily to my feet and just stood there, dazed, for a little while. Then, leaving my pack in the dirt, I went after Arian. Rani was right. Luca wouldn’t want his brother to be alone.
I found Arian in Luca’s tent. When I pushed the flap open I saw him sat on my bedroll, clutching the bedding to his face. As he looked up, the moonlight silvered the lines of moisture trailing down his cheeks. I let the flap fall closed so that darkness blocked out the sight.
“He’s all I have,” he whispered, his voice as thin and frightened as a child’s. “He’s all I’ve ever had.”
Moving through the shadows on memory, I knelt down on the bedroll next to Arian and reached out, embracing him tightly.
“Not any more,” I said, staring into the night, dry-eyed. “It’s going to be all right, Arian. You’ve got me now.”
Twenty-nine
Arian was gone when I woke.
I sat up in the mess of bedding where we had huddled together in the night, clutching at each other for comfort like the abandoned orphans that we were, and covered my face with both hands. I wanted to scream and sob and wail. But, just as the night before, I could not seem to find my tears. It was as if they had dissolved into my blood along with the overpowering emotions still surging there. My eyes were as dry and gritty as if they were full of sand. There was no relief from the crushing sorrow.
Then I realized: Rani had not called me in the night.
Luca was alive.
A starburst of golden exultation exploded inside me. I leaped out of the bedroll – I had fallen asleep fully dressed – and ran outside.
The moment I left the tent, I knew that Livia or Rani had informed the hill guards about Luca. An air of grim watchfulness hung over the camp. It was long past dawn, but no one made any pretence at following the normal drills or doing chores. Hill guards gathered in groups outside their tents, talking quietly, their faces turned towards the healer’s tent. As I passed them I received nods and bows and grave, grateful looks. I nodded back uncomfortably as I hurried to Livia’s tent.
Inside, Luca lay with his bandaged hands folded on top of a blanket; the wounds on his face were hidden under layers of white cloth. The rags we had found him in had been replaced by a clean, white shirt, and the dirt had been combed out of his shorn hair so that it glowed on the pillow, like a halo of light. His breath – a dry, almost imperceptible crackle – was the loudest noise in the space. His swollen eyes were fast shut.
Rani was asleep too: a blanket-covered lump in Livia’s bed. Arian sat on the floor by Luca, his legs folded up to leave space for Livia, who had taken a low stool near by and was mashing herbs into a paste. They both looked up as I came in. Livia gave me a weary smile. Arian’s gaze slid away from mine, and he shifted a little and leaned over Luca, as if to readjust the blanket. The scene was peaceful and normal, and although my heart ached at the sight of Luca’s bandages, my joy that he had beaten the odds was enough to soothe it. He was going to be all right.
Then Luca screamed.
The hoarse, agonized cry was so terrible that at first I didn’t even realize there were words in it. And as soon as I understood them, I wished I hadn’t.
“Ion, no! Please, Ion! Ion!”
Luca was staring right at Arian, his bound-up hands scrabbling at the sheets. Arian shot to his feet, almost falling in his haste to get away, as Rani jerked upright in the bedroll. Livia had dropped her pestle and mortar and made no effort to retrieve them. They all stared at Luca in horror, seemingly frozen.
I did the only thing I could think of.
I sat down in the space Arian had left.
“Shh,” I murmured, taking one of Luca’s bandaged hands in mine. I kissed the tips of his fingers – the only part I could get to – and gently brushed my fingers through the soft remnants of his hair. “Luca, you’re safe. You’re home. You’re home with me.”
Luca stopped struggling. He turned towards the sound of my voice, the bruised slits of his eyes falling closed. Tears trickled out, soaking into the bandages on his face. I carried on stroking his hair and talking nonsense until the tension had leached out of his body and he went limp again.
Life in the hill-guard camp continued in a strange repeating pattern. The soldiers drilled and practised, cared for their weapons and armour, and carried out the patrols that Luca had ordered before he went on his last rescue mission. No one suggested leaving, or sending to the king for further orders. No one else offered to take charge. Everyone was waiting. Waiting for Luca to wake.
Three days passed, during which Luca’s fever rose and fell, rose and fell again. Rani and Livia worked desperately to coax him to take food and water and medicine, and it seemed to do some good. The wounds in his cheeks stopped seeping and closed over, and finally his temperature broke.
For a little while Livia was jubilant. But Luca still didn’t wake. When he did open his eyes it was in terror, shouting his brother’s name. At times like that I was the only one who could calm him. I wanted to believe it was because Luca recognized me, but I didn’t know how that could be when he didn’t even seem to realize where he was.
After that first day, Arian was reluctant to re-enter the tent. He visited several times and hovered, half in and half out, his eyes always fixed on Luca with a look that I couldn’t interpret. He came again on the eighth day after Luca’s fever broke, while Rani was catching a few moments’ sleep. Livia – having assured me with some tartness that she had no trouble carrying a mere food tray – had gone to fetch breakfast. I didn’t think it was my imagination that Livia’s injured arm was slow
ly gaining strength. But I could just have been comforting myself again.
“You should take a turn sitting with him,” I whispered to Arian, not wanting to disturb Rani’s well-deserved rest.
Arian was staring at Luca as if he had never seen him before. “His face…?”
I nodded. “The infection’s gone. The only thing that’ll make it better now is time.”
Rani had removed Luca’s bandages the day before. The wounds on his hands and body were closed and pink, the bruises faded to faint yellowish smudges, barely discernable. The swelling of his face was almost entirely gone. Only the burns remained red and encrusted. There was no reason why Luca shouldn’t come back to himself, open his eyes and get up.
Unless he didn’t want to.
“Rani says Luca might be able to hear our voices,” I persisted. “Having you near by would comfort him.”
“I’d only frighten him again. It’s you he wants.” Arian shrugged. “Can’t blame him.”
He left before I could ask him what he meant.
That evening I persuaded Livia and Rani to go for a walk together after dinner. I told them – and myself – that it was because they were both exhausted by caring for Luca, and they needed some time away from the healing tent. It was only when they were gone that I admitted to myself why I was so determined they should go.
Alone with Luca for the first time since we had found him, I took up his hand and held it, pressing a kiss to the palm, and then to each of his fingertips. His strong, slender hand felt all wrong, in mine, bony and fragile. It was as if he were shrinking away inside himself, just as Ma had done. I couldn’t stand it.
“I miss you so much, Luca. I didn’t know I could miss anyone like this. All my life I’ve been alone. It was only when you made me stay here, when you made me one of your men and one of your friends that I knew what it was to be … something else. To be something that wasn’t frightened and lonely and always looking for a way to escape. I don’t want to be that person again. I need you to wake up. Please wake up. Please, Luca. Wake up for me. Because … because…” – I clutched his hand between both of mine – “I love you.”