by Janice Hardy
“Thanks.”
“So,” he said with a sad smile, “what’s the plan?”
I smiled back. It should have been Aylin asking that. “I want to see if we can get up on the aqueduct. It’s our best way in past the guards, and if we can climb down into a tree or onto the roof, we might even be able to get in and out without ever touching the ground.”
“That pynvium is as good as ours, then.”
And with luck, our families too.
SIXTEEN
Siekte and her leeches were waiting for us in the main room. “Nice disguise,” she said, blocking my path.
“Whatever I can do to avoid getting caught,” I said. “I know how upset you’d be about that.”
She scowled at me but didn’t threaten to lock me up in my room. Of course, she didn’t get out of my way either.
“Excuse me,” I said, “but I have a lunch date.”
“You swore you wouldn’t leave.”
“I never agreed to that.”
She leaned in close, smelling oddly of cinnamon. “You really don’t care that you’re putting all these people at risk?”
“I have people at risk too, and they’re in a lot more danger than yours.”
A door opened. I didn’t turn to look, but from the way Siekte stepped aside and squared her shoulders, it had to be Onderaan.
“Siekte,” he said, “let her be.”
“She’s a security risk.”
“No, she’s not. Nya, report to me when you return.” He spoke again, this time low to someone else. A moment later Jeatar appeared at my side.
“Let’s take a tour of the city, shall we?” He grinned at Siekte, but there was nothing friendly about it.
“Lead the way.”
We left the villa and moved with the ever-present crowd toward where the aqueduct crossed over the inner wall. Too far above the buildings here to reach it, so we followed it through the city, all the way to the outer wall. Rows of tall boardinghouses butted up against the aqueduct supports. I smiled. It was the first good luck we’d had in days.
“I think that’s our way up,” I said. The roofs of the boardinghouses were almost even with top of the aqueduct. Getting from the top floor to the roof might be tricky, but we could do it.
“Maybe a three-foot jump from the roof,” said Danello.
“Could be more.” Jeatar didn’t sound as pleased. “Hard to judge distance from here.”
“Worth trying though,” Danello said.
Jeatar hesitated, scanning the block and the buildings. “Worth trying. If we figure out how to get inside and avoid whatever Vyand has prepared for us.”
A man smacked into me, heading the other way. Then another, and a third. I stepped aside, pressing myself against the building. Jeatar and Danello did the same.
“What’s going on?” Danello asked.
People were hurrying, scared looks on their faces. They glanced over their shoulders and picked up the pace.
“If we were home, I’d say soldiers were coming.”
Jeatar frowned. “Worse.”
Three Undying came into view, their pynvium armor shimmering in the sun’s light. Folks got out of their way, and those who didn’t move fast enough found themselves knocked aside.
“What do we do?” I whispered.
“Don’t move,” Jeatar said.
The Undying came toward us. My heart thudded in my chest, and I wished I had some of that shifted pain to use.
“You three,” the first one said, pointing at us. I sucked in a slow breath. “Come with us.”
“What?” I said, as Jeatar nodded and said, “Yes, sir.”
Go with them? Had he lost his mind?
The Undying went to the next building, a boardinghouse with bright yellow and green shutters on the first and second floors. They marched up the front steps and kicked open the door. Faint cries drifted out.
“Do what they say—they think we’re soldiers,” Jeatar whispered before following them inside.
We went up the stairs, our footsteps light, theirs heavy and foreboding, like they wanted to sound as scary as possible. Doors slammed, people yelled. Thumps and thuds of all types echoed off the walls.
The Undying stopped at a door on the second floor. Two stood back while the third kicked it in. He stepped aside, and the other two charged into the room.
“Make sure they don’t get past you,” the third Undying said to us before following.
Jeatar blocked the door, waving us up to do the same. “We have to,” he said softly.
Screams came from inside. Loud crashes, glass breaking.
“Leave him alone!” a woman cried. “He hasn’t done anything!”
“Mondri Belaandrian, on the order of Duke Verraad, I hereby arrest you for conspiracy to commit treason.”
Jeatar tensed, his hands clenching. He shot me a worried look that spoke volumes.
Saints! He knew him. He might even be part of the Underground.
“Speaking your mind isn’t treason,” the same woman said. “Get your hands off of—Ah!” A louder crash, like a body slamming hard against furniture. A man cried out, started swearing, then—
“Fenda, no!”
Metal clanged against metal, then a girl screamed in pain.
“She’s just a child!” the man sobbed. “How could you?”
Jeatar closed his eyes, looked away. Danello paled.
“This isn’t right,” I whispered. We had to stop this. Jeatar’s eyes flew open and he looked terrified.
“Don’t do anything but what they say.”
“But—”
“Do nothing!”
A woman sobbed, a man screamed in anger. I heard nothing from the child. Two Undying dragged a man out between them, his shirt and pants covered in blood. The third had a woman by the arm.
“Please, don’t just leave her there,” she said, tears on her cheeks. “I need to get her to the Healers’ League.”
One of the Undying scoffed. “You can’t afford the League.”
Jeatar caught the captured man’s stare. Held it, as much pain in his eyes as I’d ever seen, let alone carried. The man glanced into the room. Jeatar nodded once, so slight I would have missed it had I not been staring.
The Undying shoved the woman into Jeatar. “Deal with her.”
“Yes, sir.” Jeatar seized her arm, his face blank.
She didn’t even look at him, kept crying, struggling, calling for Mondri and her child. The Undying hauled him down the stairs and out the door.
“Thessa, it’s me,” Jeatar said, his hold loosening but not releasing. I pushed past him and raced into the room, Danello on my heels.
The girl lay in a pool of too much blood. She was thirteen, maybe fourteen. An old sword lay on the floor next to her, its blade clean. She’d never even hurt them.
I pressed my hands against her heart and head, felt my way in. Nothing but silence and death.
“Is she…?” Danello whispered.
“She’s gone.” Healers knew best how to kill.
How could they do this? Kill a girl just for defending her father? She was never a threat to them.
Men in blue dragged Grannyma away. I ran forward.
“No, Nya, stay back,” she cried.
Soldiers turned to me, hands on their swords. I grabbed a book off Grannyma’s desk and threw it at one.
“Let her go!”
He drew his sword, stepped toward me. I raised my fists.
“Hey!” the other soldier snapped. “She’s a child. Leave her.”
Why hadn’t I said those same words to the Undying?
“This is wrong,” I whispered.
“Yeah.” Danello stood there, hands clenched at his sides as if he wanted to punch something.
Jeatar brought Thessa into the room. She collapsed by her daughter, gathering her in her arms and burying her face in her hair. Dark, glossy black. Beautiful hair.
I moved away, walked to the window. “I should have said someth
ing.”
“You couldn’t do anything.” Jeatar raised a hand toward my shoulder and I flinched away. His hand dropped.
“I should have tried. I should have spoken out, flashed their armor—something.”
“You didn’t even know if they had any pain stored.”
Leave her. She’s just a child.
“I should have tried.”
He sighed. “If you had, we’d all be dead. Thessa, Danello, all of us. Except you.” He stepped closer, putting himself between me and the window. “You’d be on your way to the Duke. On your way to being something worse than they are.”
“I am worse than they are. I didn’t do anything to stop them.”
“But you will. We all will. Soon.”
I looked at the girl. “Not soon enough.”
Danello comforted the mother while Jeatar cared for the daughter. He brought the undertaker and helped carry her to the cemetery outside the city. Told Thessa when she’d be wrapped and buried. I followed the three of them to the villa.
Angry voices greeted us, Barnikoff, Siekte, others from both the Underground and Geveg shouting over each other. We stepped into the main room and the shouting stopped.
“Mondri was arrested,” Jeatar said, his voice cold. “Fenda’s dead.”
Siekte gasped, both hands flying up and covering her mouth. She ran to Thessa and threw her arms around her. Fresh tears poured from both. Siekte led her away through the door I hadn’t been behind, into the rooms the Underground shared.
No one spoke. We just stood there, useless.
“What was going on here?” Jeatar asked.
Barnikoff stepped forward. “It can wait. Now’s not—”
“Just say it.”
He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry about the family.”
“That’s not what you were arguing with Siekte about.”
“No. I know this is a horrible time to say this, but it’s been four days and we want to go home. I truly am sorry, but we have families of our own to think about. Businesses, livelihoods. If we could leave on our own, we would, but you promised you’d get us home to Geveg.”
Jeatar closed his eyes, cocked his head to one side as if trying to hold back the screaming I knew he wanted to let out. I felt it too.
“Not now, Barnikoff,” I said. Did they not care? An innocent girl just died because her parents wanted a better life for her. The same life we wanted for our families. One without the Duke. We of all people should understand that.
“You’re right,” Barnikoff said, “this is a bad—”
Jeatar grabbed a chair and flung it across the room. It smashed against the wall and clattered to the floor. “No, you’ll leave now.”
Danello took a hesitant step toward Jeatar, his hand outstretched. “This can wait, I’m sure.”
“I want these people out of my house,” Jeatar yelled at Danello.
Barnikoff backed away, looking ashamed. The others wouldn’t look up at all.
“Wait upstairs in the kitchen,” Jeatar said. “Pack food for three days, no more. I’ll be there as soon as I change and wash Fenda’s blood off my hands.”
Barnikoff ushered them all out, casting a sorrowful look my way.
“They’re just Baseeri,” he muttered as he passed. “Who cares if they die?”
I looked away. It sounded so horrible, but I’d said similar things before. I shouldn’t care—they were just Baseeri—but it felt hollow now. Baseeri were trying to stop the Duke, same as we were. He didn’t treat them any better than he did Gevegians. They weren’t all bad. And no child deserved to die for defending her father, no matter who she was.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can get them on a boat,” Jeatar told me. “Don’t do anything impulsive while I’m gone.”
I nodded, still numb.
Jeatar headed upstairs. Danello came to me, slipped an arm around my shoulders. Comforting as it was, it didn’t make the urge to throw a few chairs myself go away.
“Aylin,” I said. “I should shift her pain.”
“The plan was to give it to me tomorrow morning.”
I slipped out of his arm and headed for the door. “No, I’ll take it now.”
“Why? What’s wrong? Talk to me.”
He wouldn’t understand. I needed that pain to remind me how terrible it was. How dangerous. How deadly. Because all I wanted to do was find all the Undying and make them hurt too.
SEVENTEEN
“Nya, it’s been two days,” Aylin said, standing over my bed with her arms crossed. Shadows played against the wall of our room. “Give me the pain.”
“No.”
I kept seeing Fenda, lying there. Like all the other faces of the people who’d died. I couldn’t save any of them unless I became worse than the Undying. And Saints save me, right now I wanted to. Carrying the pain hadn’t crushed my desire to strike back, destroy the Undying, and take away everything the Duke used to control us.
“This is foolish. You didn’t even know her.”
“I could have been her.” I sat up, muscles screaming as the blanket fell away. “We have to stop him. He can’t keep killing people.”
“Who? The Duke?”
The door opened and Danello walked in with a tray. Steam floated above a bowl. “Lunchtime.”
Was Tali having lunch now too? Was she even still at the foundry? I needed to find a way into that stupid place, but I just couldn’t get Fenda’s face out of my head. Until I did, the anger would win—and I couldn’t let it. Saints knew what I might become if it did.
Danello sat next to me on the bed and dipped the spoon in the soup. “Eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You’re eating this if Aylin has to hold you still while I pour it down your throat.” He moved the spoon closer to my mouth. “You’re in no condition to fight me, so you’d better do it.”
I opened up. He poured the soup into my mouth.
“And another.” He filled the spoon again.
After a half dozen spoonfuls I sighed and took the spoon out of his hands. “I feel like I’m five.”
Danello grinned and handed me the bowl. “You’re acting like you’re five.”
“Sorry.”
“We forgive you.”
Aylin snorted. “I don’t. Not until she gives one of us her pain.”
“She will.” Danello grinned again, but he looked worried. “Aylin came up with a plan.”
She nodded. “If Vyand won’t leave on her own, we trick her into it. We’ll go to the docks, act like we’re trying to hire a boat home, and wait until she hears about it. She’s not the only one who can spread rumors.”
“She probably has men watching the docks anyway,” Danello added.
Draw Vyand out. If she thought I’d left Baseer, she probably would follow. She wanted me more than Tali, and wouldn’t care what happened to her if I wasn’t here. It wasn’t a perfect plan, but I could work with it. “We’d need Baseeri clothes.”
“I can get them from Neeme. She’s about our size.”
“And Danello?”
Aylin rolled her eyes. “Will you let me take care of that?”
We’d need to find a boat captain who would talk, someone disreputable who Vyand would think I’d be desperate enough to hire.
That would get Vyand out of the way, but I doubted we could we break into the foundry with just two of us. Danello would have to go with me. Jeatar too, maybe Neeme or Ellis if we needed more. We could steal a lot more pynvium with more people. Enough to really help the Underground.
And once we broke into the foundry, I’d do more than just steal pynvium and save our families. I’d destroy whatever it was that was making the armor. Break the molds, burn the enchantment recipes, whatever I had to do to make sure no Undying were ever created again.
I handed Danello the soup bowl. “Get the clothes. Find us maps of the city.”
“And after, you’ll give me your pain?” Aylin asked.
“I will.”
She smiled. “Now I forgive you.”
Siekte glared as Danello and I left, but with Onderaan there, she didn’t try to stop us. Just grumbled to her team and acted sullen. Jeatar was gone again—no surprise there. It hadn’t been easy for him to get the Gevegians out of Baseer, and he’d had to spend a lot of favors and money to do it. Ever since, he’d been sullen and withdrawn, coming and going at all hours and avoiding me. Aylin had been keeping tabs on him, but he was a lot sneakier than she was.
The noon heat blasted the crowded streets, and I was actually grateful for the blousy sleeveless top and knee-length pants. I’d be happier if they weren’t purple, green, and orange triangles, but at least they kept me cool. We blended in well enough, following the small map Neeme had drawn in a notepad.
A quarter gate loomed ahead, but these gates were just basic ones, and Neeme had given us seals to pass. She swore as long as there was no trouble nearby, the quarter gate guards didn’t hassle anyone. I held my breath anyway until the guards waved us through.
River breezes hit me as we reached the docks, cool and fresh after the cloying heat of the city. I followed my nose, past carts filled with goods, coils of heavy rope, and sailors who looked to be loafing.
“Who do we talk to?” Danello said.
“The ones who look like they wouldn’t ask questions and might be willing to leave in the middle of the night.”
“You can tell all that just by looking at them?”
“Sure, can’t you?”
He chuckled. “They all look a little untrustworthy to me.”
We reached the docks and stopped. Ships lined a wharf so long I couldn’t see the other end, a mile at least, maybe more. Piers extended deep into the river, longer than even the large ferry docks in Geveg. They curved out on both sides of me, creating a U-shaped harbor guarded by ships with tall masts and wide hulls. I’d never seen ships that size before.
Danello whistled. “That’s a lot of ships.”
My hope sank. There had to be dozens of entrances onto the docks, and hundreds of boats. The odds of me asking the right captains and it getting back to Vyand required more luck than I’d ever had in my entire life.
“Do you still know who to talk to?” Danello asked. “Vyand couldn’t have the entire docks covered.”