Kas nodded in Harvi's direction in agreement. “He was unconscious, then they dragged him to that short tree, the one on the Kardanx side of the camp, tied him with rope and left him there.”
“They've let the Kardanx feed him, but they haven't said how long he's going to be there,” Pilar said. “Probably not long. As Harvi says, they'll want him back at work.”
“And the others?” Min asked.
“Others?” Kas asked.
“The ones who helped him.” Taya said it hesitantly, because she didn't think they needed a new fight. “One, maybe two others.”
Kas stood.
“Where are you going?” She grabbed his legs, she had no energy left in her to stand.
“To speak to Fayda. He's the elder they all seem to look to. Either he finds the men who helped Ketl, or we do.”
He bent and pried her hands off his legs and was gone.
She started to rise, but Quardi lay a heavy hand on her shoulder. “Let him, love. He needs to do something. He didn't like feeling helpless. It's how we've been feeling since we were taken, but you going missing brought it home like nothing else.”
“He'll get hurt.”
“No. I think Fayda is tired of this mess. He'll find the men. He'll hand them over. They want to keep the peace as much as we do. There's enough to worry about without in-fighting.”
“All right.” She sighed. Used Quardi's wheelchair to pull herself to her feet.
“Where are you going?” Min asked.
“To wash the glow off, and then go to bed.”
“Are you sure?” Noor tugged playfully at the hem of Taya's ruined tunic. “You're a handy lamp.”
She smiled, then swiped her finger down her arm, reached down and drew the tip along Noor's forehead, leaving a streak of luminescence behind.
Noor's squawk of protest and the laughter of the group as Taya pulled Min to her feet and then staggered off toward the river, arm in arm, warmed her more than the fire and the food in her belly.
There could be no more biding time. The moment had come for escape.
Chapter 24
Time was difficult to measure in the dim glow of the floor lights that had flickered to life after the big ship's door had closed.
He and Aidan had enough provisions each for at least a day, which took one worry away, and there was nothing Garek could do to speed things up, so he forced himself to relax.
He reached into his sack for the three letters from Taya he'd taken in Haret, the light coming from the cargo hold just enough to read by. He'd been strangely reluctant to read them before, and hadn't had the time, anyway, but now, with the chances of finding her much better, he pulled them out, and opened the first one.
He held it for a bit, rubbing it between his fingers, and eventually unfolded it.
Kas says even though it's your second year, the same rules apply as if it's your first. So letters aren't allowed. I simply can't accept that. It's a stupid rule to begin with, and even more stupid and cruel to be extended into the second year. I miss you. I want you here, or at least to be where you are, wherever that is. Your absence is an ache I cannot ease. I find myself wandering up to the meadow above the village and lying there, remembering.
Garek could hear her voice in his head, the low, husky sound of it. He closed his eyes, tipped his head back, and hated Gara just a little bit more.
When he opened his eyes again, he saw he'd scrunched the letter into a ball in his fist, and he carefully smoothed it out on his thigh and folded it again.
He opened the one he'd taken from the middle of the pile. The tone was cheerful and quiet, with a dry humor that was just exactly Taya, filling him in on everything that was happening in Pan Nuk in a way that made him long to be there, even though while he had been there, his only reason for it was Taya herself. Or so he'd always thought.
He'd always known she worked hard, but reading between the lines of the letter, she'd used his absence to throw herself into the small business she'd begun to build up just before he'd left. At the time of writing, she had discovered a way to make a new shade of green, and she was excited about it, talking about the technicalities with him as if they were sitting together at the end of a long day, discussing their work.
He hesitated before he unfolded the third one.
It was the last letter she'd written before she'd been taken by the sky raiders.
He turned the letter over in his hands, and then went very still when he saw the crinkles where splashes of water had fallen on the paper.
Taya had cried writing this letter.
He unfolded it slowly, and braced himself. Despite what Luca had told him, Taya could easily have decided it was time to move on. That she couldn't live with the heartache any more.
I'll tell you a secret. I don't think you're getting these letters. If you were, you'd find a way to reply. I know you well enough to know that, although I have a terrible feeling, as the months slip by and it's been close to two years since you kissed me goodbye, that I don't know you as well as I used to.
Change is inevitable.
I've changed, too. But however much Kas might wish it were otherwise, your place in my heart seems to grow bigger, not smaller.
I think of you, and my heart pounds just as hard as it did when we used to sneak up to the meadow above Pan Nuk.
I believe that even if you aren't getting my letters, you would find a way to let me know if I'm no longer the one for you. You told me I'm your world the day you left for Garamundo, and I believed you. I'll keep believing until I hear otherwise.
I love you, Garek, and there are less than three months until your second year is up.
If you don't come home then, I am coming to you.
Garek slumped back. His hands were shaking, and he was glad he was alone in the capsule, that Aidan wasn't a witness to this moment.
It shook him and soothed him all at once.
He folded the letter and put it with the others back in the satchel as carefully as if it were a precious jewel. The need to hide it, to keep it safe, was instinctive. It felt like he was safeguarding his heart.
He'd always thought he was lucky to have Taya. Now he knew he was the luckiest bastard alive.
She wouldn't have had to come to him, the idea was almost ludicrous, but that she had any doubt about it was something he wanted to wipe away completely.
Not even sky raiders could stop him.
Which brought him back to the present.
No sky raider had come into the cargo hold since they'd taken off.
Garek debated with himself about getting out and exploring.
He had gotten this far, he didn't want to do anything to jeopardize finding Taya, but he was also uneasy that they had no idea where they were going and what was in the cargo hold with them.
Eventually he decided it was worth the risk and drew all the air to him, creating another bubble before he opened the lid on the strange walking machine he was in and dropped to the ground.
He looked toward Aidan's machine, gave the guard signal for all was well, forefinger and thumb forming a V, the other three fingers bent.
He walked down the line of crates, interested to see nothing was in any sort of order. Crates of silk were on top of crates containing kettles, irons and spades, which were next to shoes.
As if the sky raiders had not bothered to work out what was what, and didn't care, either way.
Further down the line he found food; root vegetables, flour, and spices.
At the very back there was a large container, as big as some of the shepherd huts on the levik farms around Pan Nuk, and Garek decided to risk another minute of his diminishing air and open the door.
He pulled down on a large handle and it swung open.
Garek was enveloped in a cloud of cold air, the swirl of cloud obscuring his vision momentarily, and when it cleared, he saw fruit, meat, and bread, even pastries, stacked in the cool space.
It was like a cold store, dug beneath a ho
use, only the cold didn't come from being below-ground or because of ice blocks, but from some mechanical method.
He was so amazed, it took him a moment to realize something was making a noise; a loud, repetitive beeping.
He heard the sound of voices coming from behind the container, and closed the door, running to his machine.
He had just gotten the lid closed when two sky raiders walked into view, talking to each other, neither looking particularly worried.
They checked the door, found it closed, and looked around for a few minutes, chatting as they did so.
Neither looked armed and neither looked particularly alert.
They couldn't conceive of any real threat, he realized.
They had written off the people of Barit as no danger to them, and they must have control of these skies, or be the only race with access to their technology.
They were smug in their own superiority.
He sat quietly, watching them as they completed their inspection, walking past him and Aidan without a second look, and then eventually returning to the front of the ship.
Garek was close to hitting the button to raise the lid and climb out for a second time when he felt the vibration of the deck below his feet, a rumble that was more sensation than sound.
He felt the surge of adrenalin, the pure excitement of something about to happen, just as he always had when he'd been on patrol, walking the walls of Gara, and had spotted a sky craft.
Every sense sharpened, every muscle tensed.
The rumbling shook the crates, made the machine he was in shudder, and for a moment, he was worried he would tip over.
He had the sensation of dropping suddenly, his stomach left behind for a moment before it caught up again, and then the ship seemed to settle on the ground, almost like a bobber, settling into its nest.
The ramp dropped, and light flooded into the bay.
Garek craned his neck to see out.
There were some structures, a tent of some kind and what looked like a jousting flag flapping in a brisk wind.
Nothing happened for a good five minutes, and then men and women started walking up the ramp.
He stared.
Eli walked past him, picked up a crate, hefted it in his arms and then walked away.
Eli. Breathing the air normally. Walking free.
The five minute wait must have been to let the sky raider air out, and the Barit air in.
Garek allowed himself a moment to close his eyes and simply let the relief envelope him.
He had found them.
He waited, hand near the button to open the dome, gaze fixed outside to make sure there were no sky raiders to be seen, until Eli returned for another crate.
There were others, two women he didn't recognize, and four or five other men, but he let them come and go.
As soon as Eli walked past him again Garek opened up, dropped softly to the ground, hit the close button and then ran to Aidan's machine.
Eli's head had come up the moment the dome opened, eyes wide, but Garek put a finger to his lips.
Eli was a farmer, one of the many in Pan Nuk, and he'd always been big and strong, but now Garek saw his muscles were defined, his shoulders broader and bulkier than they'd ever been.
He had a sharper, harder look.
Eli slowed his step, looking over his shoulder and taking his time to get to the crates, but not stopping, which told Garek there was someone supervising the unloading.
He hit the button at the center of Aidan's machine and it opened, and Aidan jumped down.
Garek could tell he was holding his breath, just in case, and grinned.
“Breathe, princeling.”
Aidan shot him a filthy look, and then caught Eli watching them.
“I don't know why I'm surprised to see you, Garek.” Eli shot a quick look out the back of the bay, stepped forward and thumped Garek on the back and then pulled him into a bone-crushing hug.
He was far happier to see Garek than he'd ever been before.
“You always were a crazy bastard. Should have known you'd come for her.”
“How do we get off unnoticed?” Garek asked, heart lifting at the mention of Taya, and Eli looked out again.
“I'll go first, trip and drop my crate.” He picked up a crate, handed it to Aidan, then took another and shoved it at Garek. “Take these and wait for the guard's attention to swing to me. Deliver your load to the store, you'll see the others coming and going from it. Then hide behind it 'til I'm finished and can come for you.”
He set aside a couple of other crates.
“What are you doing?”
“Finding something that won't be damaged if I drop it.” Eli lifted the crate of shoes and turned, ready to walk back down again.
“Where is . . . ?” Garek found his throat was tight and speaking almost impossible.
“On day shift. She'll be back tonight.”
She was alive. He would see her soon.
As if he could read Garek's face, Eli nudged his arm with an elbow before turning and walking away.
“She'll be just as happy to see you.” He looked over his shoulder, giving Aidan a curious but friendly look, and then stepped aside for two of the men coming back up the ramp.
Garek watched him go.
“Come on, get moving.” Aidan bumped him, and he forced himself to focus. The two men Eli had maneuvered around gave them both a startled look, and he simply nodded in greeting, then looked down at the crate in his arms.
He had the one with the kettles, irons and spades, he noticed, which surely also wouldn't have broken if dropped, but which was a lot heavier than shoes.
Aidan had already started walking and Garek picked up the pace to catch up. The air was strange here, different, and he realized he hadn't even asked Eli where they were.
Not that it mattered. It could be the shadow pits of Dethbarelle for all he cared. As long as Taya was here.
Chapter 25
The store was a sturdy canvas tent, large and full, set up with a wooden platform made of old crates inside so nothing rested directly on the ground.
The two women who'd been ahead of Eli stepped out and then stopped at the sight of them. Their eyes were as wide as the men's had been, but they said nothing either, their gaze flicking to the guard who stood, grim and massive in his mechanical machine, above Eli on his knees, throwing shoes back into his crate.
Aidan nodded politely and stepped out of their way, and Garek belatedly did the same, allowing the women to edge past them and head back toward the transporter.
He ducked into the gloom of the tent, found a place for his crate and waited for Aidan to do the same. Then he walked to the back and rolled under the canvas, coming up in a crouch amongst a small village of tents and shanty houses, built out of anything the prisoners could use for cover and protection from the elements.
The jaunty flag he'd seen earlier snapped and flapped in the cold wind above a white and red tent that dominated the other structures, sitting in the middle like some kind of temporary town hall.
Aidan joined him, but when Garek looked over at him, he wasn't taking in the small, makeshift town. His gaze was fixed upward.
“Look,” he said, pointing, and Garek tipped back his head.
Froze.
A planet hung above them, white and blue, with a tiny white crescent beside it. The crescent had a strange shadow on it, one that Garek recognized. It was what distinguished Lanora, Barit's moon. Which meant he was looking at Barit. And that meant . . .
“We're on Shadow?” He breathed it out, in wonder and in disbelief.
“You certainly take me to exciting places,” Aidan choked out. “When you're my head general, I hope this travel bug will have worked its way out of your system. Or you'll have West Lathor conquering the whole of Barit.”
Garek shook his head, so stunned at the idea of where they were, it was easier to focus on Aidan's words instead. “Why would I want to be your head general?”
&
nbsp; “Because you'd be very good at it, and West Lathor would be untouchable. No one would attack us if they knew they'd be facing you, and the other Illian states would finally stop looking at my father's domain as a good place to expand.”
Garek considered it. “That logic has something to recommend it.” He'd been prepared to run with Taya, but his instinct had always been to stay and fight. And Juli, the West Lathor capital, wasn't Gara. Was most likely better.
“But you're not the liege yet, princeling, and between the Gara town master and the guard master, I'm either marked for assassination or more forced conscription.”
“You suspect this, or you know?” Aidan cocked his head to the side.
“When I got home and found out the sky raiders had taken my whole village--”
Aidan sucked in a breath at that, and Garek sneered at him. “You didn't know a whole village under your father's protection had been taken?”
Aidan shook his head, and Garek shrugged it off, there was no point in being angry about it now.
“When I found my village was gone, and I headed back to Gara to use the sky craft I'd brought down to look for them, I passed a whole party of guards headed in the direction I'd just come from.”
“You think they were coming for you?”
“I know it. Utrel hates me, but the town master thinks he needs me. He tried to get me to sign up as a permanent guard before I left for home, but I told him I'd think about it. I hadn't seen my family for two years, and I just wanted to get back.”
“Would you have gone back to Gara?”
Garek shook his head. “I'm no lapdog. I'd have refused to follow Utrel's orders sooner or later. He was already scared I'd take his job. I wasn't prepared to spend my time waiting for someone to try and push me off the wall. And besides . . .”
He didn't finish. He was going to say he would never bring Taya to Gara. And that he would never again be where she wasn't, but the thought of her was too big at the moment. It swallowed him up and made him completely mute.
For the last two months, as he'd walked the walls of Gara and looked up at Shadow, lit up like a second, enormous moon by the Star, Taya had been there, trapped. He'd been looking right at her, and hadn't even known she was gone.
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