Still shirtless, Alessa loped up out of the river, drew her glowing sword, and with her mind raised a shield of river water before her, just in time to stop two flaming arrows from striking her in the face. She left Elaina and Jaimin to deal with Jaimin’s flaming pants, and she took off up the bank after the shooter.
Jaimin tried to keep his leggings entirely underwater as he removed them. The flames died down while submerged, but whenever a corner of fabric breached the surface it flared up yellow and hot.
As Jaimin was struggling to remove his pants, a Frakker girl sprinted down the bank, screaming a wild war-cry. She leapt at him, with her short sword held high, angled to pierce his back. Elaina reacted swiftly, yanking up a plume of river water, which hooked the girl under the chin, flipping her backward three meters onto the sandy bank. Elaina drew her own nano-sharpened sword and slogged out of the shallows to confront the girl.
The Frakker girl shook off the impact and hopped to her feet. Bellowing a guttural roar, she rushed Elaina, coming in for a thrust, which Elaina parried, shearing off the top half of the girl’s sword. Elaina made the quick decision to kill. With a firm backhand slice, she cut diagonally into the girl’s shoulder and all the way down through her heart.
Meanwhile, up on the rim of the gully, another young Frakker was reloading her cannon and searching for the best target. Suddenly, someone kicked away the cannon and pounced on top of her back, jerking her head back by the hair. “Quit aimin’ at my friends, bitch,” growled Maya. The Frakker girl groped for her dagger. “Lookin’ for this?” Maya had the dagger, and she used it to slice the girl’s throat.
Elaina ran back to Jaimin, who had successfully freed himself from his pants. His long underwear was scorched black. The couple scrambled onto the bank and crouched in a patch of high brush. Things seemed to be calming down in the camp. At least the screaming and exploding had stopped.
“Are you burned?” she asked him.
“A little. Not too bad. I saw what you did to that girl.”
“I did what I had to,” she said.
“Well, you were brilliant.”
Elaina smiled, not because of what he’d said, but because she thought he looked beautiful in his ragged state.
Just then, they saw Captain Rosner stagger down the bank a few meters from them, clutching his chest with his left hand, while trying to keep a grip on his sword with his right. A Frakker—a teen boy—was pursuing him. Jaimin hopped up, sword drawn, and ran to help. Elaina stayed back.
Before Jaimin could get to him, Rosner stumbled and landed on his side in the rocky shallows. As the Frakker raised his sword to finish Rosner off, Elaina and Jaimin saw the blue glow on the edge of the Frakker’s blade. It was one of Jaimin’s honed swords! At the last possible moment, Rosner raised his own honed sword to parry. Bzzzt! A shower of sparks illuminated the water’s surface. The two modified swords would not cut each other.
Elaina, from afar, tried to knock the Frakker out by shifting the blood in his head. This caused the Frakker to fall forward right on top of Rosner, with the two infinitely sharp blades sparking between them. Rosner let out a wail, and so did the Frakker, who seemed to be having a seizure.
“I’m sorry, Captain,” Elaina shouted. “Jem, pull him off!” Jaimin grabbed the spasming Frakker by the back of the collar and threw him off of Rosner. The enemy boy thrashed violently in the shallows, squealing like a dying pig. Elaina’s attempt at disabling him had damaged his brain. Jaimin thrust his own sword through the Frakker’s heart to put him out of his anguish. He then knelt by Rosner, who had managed to sit up.
“Your Highness,” Captain Rosner squeaked. He coughed, and blood drained from both corners of his mouth. He lifted his hand to show Jaimin where he’d been stabbed through the chest.
When Jaimin’s hand neared the captain’s wound, a white light appeared at his fingertips.
Startled, Jaimin pulled his hand back. The light withdrew.
Do it! Elaina called to him in her mind as she approached. Don’t stop!
But Jaimin was afraid of the light—or rather, of being its instrument.
Rosner suddenly fell unconscious, and Jaimin caught him by the shirt. When Elaina reached them, her own hands were glowing, and she knelt down and hugged Rosner’s body, letting the healing light flow. Filaments of the divine glow flooded through Elaina into Rosner’s body, reaching for a soul to connect to.
But it found none. Rosner’s head hung limp.
Elaina could do no more for Rosner than to make his body perfect. “He’s gone,” she said.
“No!” Jaimin yelled. “He had more time than that! He was just speaking to me…”
“I can’t help him. It’s too late. We tried.”
“It’s my fault,” Jaimin said.
“We tried.”
Alessa and Makias ran over and saw that Rosner was dead. Jaimin was shaking in horror at what he had not done.
“Is the fight over?” Elaina asked Makias.
“I think we killed the last of them,” Makias said. “We’re just making sure.”
Alessa, wearing an oversized jacket she had found, helped Elaina lift Rosner’s body and carry it over to the dry bank.
Alessa and Makias then spent the next few minutes drawing arcs of water from the river to extinguish all the flames they could, while troops carefully dragged whatever was still coated in burning gel into the ice-coated stream and left it to fizzle.
Marco found that Rosner was the only fatality on the Arran side. Others had minor injuries and burns.
The advance group of Arran soldiers soon arrived, having heard and seen the explosions from their camp nearby. They helped salvage what they could. Some set off into the darkness to retrieve horses that had escaped.
Four of the horses from Jaimin’s group were found, so in all they had eleven mounts for sixteen people, which would require more of them to ride double.
“Traveling in two groups isn’t working,” Jaimin told Marco. “We’d be stronger together.”
“Agreed, Your Highness,” Marco said. “We’ll travel as one from here.”
Marco and Jaimin toured their charred camp. Only about a third of the supplies were intact, and none of the tents had made it.
“We fought well today,” Marco said. “We only lost one.”
“One too many,” Jaimin said, furious with himself for not healing Rosner when it looked like the divine spirit was giving him the chance. “But yes, we showed strength. Damn these little fire-breathers.”
When Jaimin spotted one of the messenger falcons, Termeah, picking on the flesh of a dead Frakker, he asked Marco for a writing stick and a few sheets of note paper, and as the falcon feasted on Frakker flesh and made bloody foot-prints on a rock, Jaimin composed two notes for the bird to carry: one was addressed to his mother, and the other to Rosner’s family.
Meanwhile, Maya and Alessa poked around to see what they could save from the supplies. “It’s not like them.” Maya said. “Usually they kill a few and kidnap the rest. The plan this time was to kill us all.”
“Radovan doesn’t want to miss another chance,” Alessa said. “Not after Audicia. By the way, great work tonight, kid.”
Maya smiled.
“You’re alright with it?” Alessa asked.
“I’ll kill a hundred more times,” Maya replied. “A thousand more. When it’s the right thing to do, you just know—and it’s okay, you know?”
“Yes,” Alessa said. “Yes, I know.” She hugged Maya with one arm. Maya welcomed the support.
Marco soon came to Maya with a sealed scroll he had found on a dead Frakker boy. She cracked open the scroll case, eagerly unrolled the document, and read it.
“It’s a supply docket,” Maya explained. “They were carrying a few things they were going to drop off in Wichita. There’s a note requesting the commanders of M company to sign for the goods when they are picked up.”
“Purple army commanders are headed for Wichita right now?” Alessa asked.
“I don’t know,” said Maya. “It doesn’t say when the stuff will be picked up.”
“We just need to get to Wichita before anyone else does,” Alessa said. “Our sisters there are depending on us.”
CHAPTER NINE
The group of sixteen reached the ghost town called Wichita just before the sun peeked over the horizon. The sky was lit up pink. The sun-bleached wooden homes and shops, long abandoned, had been remarkably preserved by the dry air. There was no approaching this tiny town stealthily; one could see forever on the flat desert plain—so the best they could do was to split up and converge on the place from different directions.
Guards and soldiers rode up and down the dusty streets and alleyways, searching for signs of the enemy’s presence. Finding none, they allowed Elaina, Jaimin, Alessa and Makias onto the town’s main street.
“Where is she?” Jaimin asked Elaina. They were riding double.
“There.” From afar, Elaina had seen movement behind the basement window of the decrepit saloon, and she knew it was Eleonora. Elaina rode up to the saloon and dismounted. Hearing the cellar doors on the side of the building creaking open, she ran to help open them fully.
Wearing only a robe, Eleonora stepped out into the frozen dawn, holding her sleeping, blanket-wrapped child tightly against her.
Elaina and Eleonora could not take their eyes off each other. “You’re real,” Eleonora said. “I’m not crazy.”
Gently, Elaina embraced her sister. She breathed in the sweet scent of Eleonora’s skin and hair. Was it familiar? Yes, yes! And Eleonora’s eyes and smile were unmistakably family. Differences in personality, and all the years spent apart, suddenly meant nothing.
“I…feel like I remember you,” Eleonora said. “But that’s impossible. How long has it been?”
Elaina let her tears loose. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Thank you,” Eleonora said. “Thank you for coming for us.”
Alessa and Jaimin came around to the side of the saloon, while Marco kept watch from a distance.
“This is Princess Alessa,” Elaina told Eleonora. “My teacher, and my best friend.”
“You don’t remember me, but I helped your mother watch over you when you were tiny,” Alessa said. Eleonora gave a polite bow.
“And Jaimin,”
Again, Eleonora bowed. “And this is Ia.” She lifted the lip of the blanket to show them Ia’s face. “Princess Ia.”
“Princess for sure,” Alessa said, her heart melting.
“We’ll leave soon,” Elaina said. “We’ve made good time, but we need to assume the enemy is headed this way.”
“The basement is stocked with supplies,” Eleonora said. “Take everything you can. Well, take what’s fresh…”
“I’ll get some empty sacks,” Jaimin said, and he headed back to their horse.
Eleonora watched him go. “He’s young for you dear,” she told Elaina. “But what a fine looking young man. Is he obedient?”
“Obedient?”
“Never mind,” Eleonora said. “I trust you have things well in hand.”
Marco rode up and handed Eleonora the clothing and light armor Elaina had picked out for her. While Eleonora went below to get changed, Elaina took a turn holding her baby niece. Ia’s eyes opened halfway. Elaina kissed the baby’s cold little nose, and felt incredibly protective of this tiny girl. She was getting a hint of the powerful feelings she would experience should the divine spirit allow her to be a mother herself.
“Your mama and I look the same,” Elaina told Ia. “But I suspect we are quite different.”
The sky had lightened above Arra’s forest, but the sun wasn’t yet over the ridge when Nastasha finally spotted the “bear sigil” in her scope. She had been searching for this one tree all night. Using infrared dye, Shadow Children would tattoo symbols onto the bark of trees to mark their hideouts.
Nastasha next had to find the unlocking root, which didn’t take that long—this particular tree had such dense branches, the ground around the trunk was mostly clear of snow. The unlocking root was a real root, sewn into an elaborate locking mechanism. Nastasha tugged on it using the pattern Maya had taught her. Somewhere a counterweight descended, and at the base of the trunk a mat of soil and woven roots slowly parted. Signaling to her guards that she would go in first, Nastasha followed a tight tunnel down into the ground beneath the tree.
The hollowed-out space was completely dark—only the scarce sunlight from behind her showed her where to place her feet. In the cool, thick air, the smell of rich, fermenting humus mixed with the subtle fragrance of fresh honey-cakes. She raised her infrared scope. The Shadow Children had to be here.
Three figures glowed orange in her scope, very close.
Suddenly, she felt a sting on her neck.
She reached for the spot. A dart! Shit! She yanked it out and backed away slowly.
“I’m a friend,” she said. “Please! I need your help.” She stumbled backward into the dirt wall behind her. Her head grew heavier by the second, and her scope fell from her hand.
Each pounding heartbeat was spreading some complicated toxin throughout Nastasha’s body.
As the world spun, she felt one of her guards catch her and drag her out of the tree, back up into the forest, setting her gently on the leaf litter. The world whirled angrily; still, she managed to retrieve something from a little brass box she’d been carrying in her pocket. She rolled the tiny, hairy pill into her mouth and bit down on it with her back teeth. Just as she lost consciousness, she heard her guard fall to the ground beside her.
“Do you feel it?” Jaimin asked Elaina. They were riding together on the same horse. Wichita had grown small on the horizon behind them.
“Has she been captured?” Elaina whispered.
“I don’t know. Something’s happened. I felt danger, and now…nothing. Has she been killed?”
“No.”
“You sound so sure,” Jaimin said.
“Nastasha is not going to die now or any time soon.”
“How do you know this? Something you’ve seen?”
“Yeah,” Elaina said weakly.
I want to kn… Jaimin thought.
Don’t ask me, Elaina interrupted.
“Alessa,” Jaimin called out. Alessa was riding with Makias, and she pulled their horse alongside.
“Sorry, I have nothing,” Alessa told Jaimin. “Nastasha must have eaten one of those hairy pills she was making.”
“That’s it!” Jaimin said. “But that’s…bad. She would only eat that if she were captured, and she could be dead by the time that pill wears off.”
“She’s not going to be dead, Jem,” Elaina insisted. “Trust me.”
“And we couldn’t help her from all the way out here in the desert, anyway,” Alessa said. “Best to keep your thoughts here with us. I, too, feel that we’ll see Nastasha again very soon.”
Riding across the bleak wilderness, the travelers passed the morning in solitary thought or quiet conversation. The air was so clear and settled they could see all the way to the coastal range on the western horizon. They could even make out the dip in the range’s profile that marked the unfamiliar pass they would need to cross.
Noon passed, and they didn’t seem to be any closer to the range. Following Aldo’s maps, Marco was leading the procession up a network of dry riverbeds, which made the group slightly less visible from afar. But it also made the journey take longer.
Maya wanted to speak with her hero, Eleonora, but whenever she tried to ride up beside Eleonora, nerves held her back.
Every so often the queen’s falcon, Sacreah, would bring back a baby rabbit, a vole, or some other animal, and Makias would give those nearest to him an expert briefing on the critter and how it lived.
Just before dusk, Maya pointed out two clusters of dots far to the south, which she identified as Eleonora’s prison and the baby mill.
And when the travelers turned aga
in to the west, it seemed they were getting closer to the mountains at last. They could now make out the blanket of snow-dusted trees that hugged the mid-altitudes below the bare, snow-capped peaks. Still, it would be another day before they were over the pass.
Darkness and cold rushed in to replace the light. As if to counter this dreary transition, the crescent moon rose quickly and blazed bright white in the clear sky.
A few hours later, Eleonora declared that she was just too exhausted to continue. Marco found the deepest, most sheltered spot he could find and he called a pause to the journey. The group set up camp in a dry riverbed.
Elaina and Jaimin shared a sleeping pouch, which helped with warmth. Jaimin held Elaina tightly from behind and buried his face in her hair.
“Jem, the light…” she said softly. “It’s nothing to fear.”
“I’ve felt the light,” he said into her ear. “When you brought me back to this world, it penetrated me. I had no choice but to surrender to it.”
“But it’s wonderful,” she insisted.
“You can have no secrets in the light,” he said. “No pretenses. No delusions. The light is entirely honest.”
“And how is that not wonderful?” She flipped to face him.
“Well maybe I’m not comfortable yet being honest. Even with myself. I’ve always had secrets. I’ve always talked myself into things that aren’t true.”
“You’re afraid of becoming a different person,” she said.
“I suppose that’s it.”
“It’s okay to let go of the person you were,” Elaina said. “Whoever you become, I will love. Wherever the light leads you, I will follow you there. And Alessa, and your mother, and everyone who loves you will support you, because it’s the same light that guides us all.”
Meanwhile, Nastasha came around. One of her arms was asleep. The air reeked of wood smoke. Before she opened her eyes, she could feel that her hands were bound behind her back, and that her legs were tied together. She was lying on her side, with her cheek resting on something woolen. A campfire crackled nearby.
Opening her eyes a sliver, she saw a man there on the other side of the fire: a middle-aged fellow in a purple army uniform, puffing on a tiny cigar. Well-built. Receding brown hair. Spectacles. He was scrutinizing the blade of her dagger.
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