Skylark

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Skylark Page 28

by Meagan Spooner


  Oren gazed hard at me. It was as though he was searching for something in my face, and I was glad I had not had to lie. I felt certain he would have known. That gaze was so forceful—such a mix of human concern and animal ferocity—that I had to close my eyes and block him out. I expected him to insist I sit down, rest, eat something, that my closing my eyes would make him think I was on the verge of collapse.

  “You said ‘what you are to me,’” he said instead. There was something strange and unfamiliar in his voice that prompted me to open my eyes and look at him, startled. It was very faint, but I had come to know that face and its subtleties, and I saw it for what it was: surprise.

  “Yes.”

  “You know that I’m a monster.”

  What good was arguing with him now? I swallowed and whispered, “Yes.”

  He closed his eyes and then dropped his head. When he looked up again, the moment of surprise was gone and he was as quiet and unreadable as ever. My legs felt weak, felt like the weight of his hands might drive me to my knees.

  As if he could detect my weakness, he let his hands fall to his sides. “We should get moving,” he said, his voice rough. “Dawn is coming.”

  “We,” I repeated. I had meant it as a question but my voice emerged so softly that it was only an echo.

  He took a step back, looking at me. I had not realized how close we’d been standing. “We,” he said firmly. “You didn’t free me and expect me to leave you here alone?”

  “I can’t go with you,” I whispered. The hollowness in my stomach was a yawning pit, threatening to swallow me from the inside out. Was this what people felt like in the city when they had been harvested?

  “You have to,” said Oren. “I need you. To stay human.”

  I shook my head. The pace and a half between us gaped like a canyon, and I stared across the gulf at him. “I’m not a Renewable,” I said. My voice didn’t sound like my own—it was as if someone had taken over to explain the situation to him. I let the voice continue, too fearful to take control back and soften the blow. “I’m an experiment. The Institute created me, gave me the power, everything. I have nothing left. I used the rest of it opening that lock. If we leave here together then it will be only a matter of time before . . .”

  It was as if I’d managed to steal the years from him. His shoulders sagged like an old man’s, the sharply angled face suddenly hollow-cheeked and weary. “Before I turn, and I kill you,” he finished for me.

  I nodded.

  “You should have let them kill me,” he said quietly. “You let me think that if I could suffer to be kept, if you stayed by me, I’d stay whole.” His face had changed, the eyes cold and glittering. “You let me think I’d stay myself.”

  “I couldn’t let them kill you,” I said. I felt like the phonograph. I repeated the words over and over and every time they seemed to hold less. “I couldn’t,” I said again.

  “Why would you think I’d want to live if—” His lips pressed together. I wished he’d look away, be unable to look at me, turn his sudden anger onto some other target. But he only stared, and I burned and twisted but couldn’t look away.

  “Because even being a monster is better than being dead.”

  He stood staring at me, cold and tense. My eyes began to water with the effort of gazing back at him, and I blinked the tears away and dropped my eyes. “You should go,” I said tightly. “If dawn is so close, you need to be moving before daylight to avoid being seen.”

  Oren said nothing, jaw still clenched.

  “Cut north from here,” I said. “That’s where the grove is. There are apples there—you can bring some with you for supplies. Keep north when you leave; that’s where the scouts are thinnest.”

  “Lark,” he said, trying to interrupt me.

  “If you move quickly, maybe you can make the nearest pocket of magic before you—before you change.”

  “Lark!”

  “Be safe,” I said, staring at his threadbare T-shirt, unable to lift my head and meet his eye. “Please, Oren, be saf—”

  He took a step forward and covered my mouth with his hand. He smelled of blood and grass and the wild wind. “Be still,” he said fiercely. “Do you never stop talking?”

  He curled his fingers into the hair at the nape of my neck. He touched his lips to mine. The lips of a monster. I must have made some small sound, for he drew back abruptly. He scanned my face. I was too stupid with the ringing in my ears and burning of my lips to know what he saw in my expression.

  Whatever he found there changed him. He stepped forward, closing the gap between us again. This time there was an urgency to his kiss that broke my heart. I could taste him— the metallic tang of his mouth. The taste of blood.

  A monster. A murderer. A cannibal.

  I shoved him away, gasping for air. “Don’t,” I panted. “Don’t touch me.” I shuddered, revulsion coursing through me.

  I could feel him watching me, though I did not dare lift my head to look at him. I could imagine the hurt there. How many times had I told him he wasn’t a monster? I longed to turn and put my arms around him and tell him I didn’t mean it, but I knew that if I did I would be lying. How could I let hands that had torn people apart touch me?

  No. What I wanted was to go back, unlearn what I had learned, make him again just a boy, helping a girl, lost in the wilderness.

  Neither of us spoke to fill the silence. In the distance I heard an early bird give a questioning chirp. There was a horrible lightness to the east.

  “Go,” I croaked.

  “I’ll find you,” he said, turning away from me as if the sight of me was enough to remind him of what he was. He rubbed a hand over his face, leaving it clamped over his mouth so that it muffled his next words. “Even in the dark—” and I knew he did not mean nighttime when he said dark—“I can see you. You shine.”

  “Please go,” I said. I wanted to change what I had done, let him leave believing things could be different. But I couldn’t take back what I’d said. And dawn was near.

  “Monster or human I can’t not follow you. I’ve tried.”

  “Oren,” I begged, shaking with the effort of staying put. “Please go. Please.”

  “If I find you—and if I’m not me—promise me that you’ll kill me, Lark.”

  “Oren—”

  “Promise me!”

  He had never shouted at me, not with such force and such intensity. Once the fierceness of his gaze would have terrified me. Now I only saw the fear behind his own eyes. He was trapped like an animal in a corner. And like an animal, he lashed out.

  “I promise,” I whispered. Behind me I heard a faint groan, a response to Oren’s shout. The scouts were waking up. “Now go.”

  He turned back around, as I feared and hoped he would. I knew it would be the last time I saw him—certainly the last time I saw him as he was now. He was watching me in the expressionless way that had once driven me so crazy, but now only made me feel as though my bones were slowly turning to water. The hot metal of the blade tucked into my waistband was cooling again, adjusting to my body temperature. I grabbed at the handle and stretched it toward him.

  He shook his head. “Keep it. I won’t need it where I’m going.”

  Where I’m going, into the dark. I closed my fingers around the handle of the knife so tightly my hand shook.

  “I would have kept you safe,” I whispered.

  He smiled, the expression sudden and uncertain and surprised—but he smiled nonetheless. “I know,” he said. He halfturned, reaching out to swing the cage door closed again with a tiny click. And then he hesitated for a long moment, his weight resting against the top of the cage. Then he pushed back from it and walked away, the first glow of dawn only enough to see him until the edge of the houses. After that there was only shadow, and the sounds of the birds waking to the dawn.

  Chapter 30

  I went back to the house, stumbling in the dark and shaking. I had to get my supplies, gather what I needed
to survive on my own. My bird. Oren’s lighter. My pack. And now, of course, a knife.

  My hands shook as I began shoving things into the badly frayed fabric that served as my pack. I dropped things, cursed under my breath, bit back sobs. My mind wasn’t working, instead playing back the moment. Oren’s lips; his fingertips curling in my hair; the smell of grass and wind. Over and over, like the record player, like the pocket with the ghosts. I was so shaken that when a hand reached out of the darkness to cover mine I barely jumped. I just stared, breathing hard.

  “Take this,” said Tansy, kneeling at my side and pressing something cold and leathery into my hands. I looked down, running my hands over it. A backpack. A proper one.

  I looked up. Light from outside barely illuminated her cheeks. My mouth worked, but I could think of no words.

  “You’re running, aren’t you?” Despite the words, it wasn’t a question. Tansy took over, transferring food and belongings into the new backpack.

  “Tansy,” I croaked. My voice had frozen in the time since Oren had left my side, and I struggled to clear my throat. “I’m not a fighter. It isn’t—”

  “I saw what you did, helping the prisoner escape. You have to go, or you’ll be the one in the cage.” She added food to the belongings in the pack, taking what I would not have dared to take. Apples, skins full of water. “You cured him.”

  I shook my head, eyes burning. “Not cured. He’ll turn back eventually. I just couldn’t—not after everything. I couldn’t watch him die.”

  Tansy was quiet a few moments, adding the last few things to the pack. “You said you’re not a fighter, but you’re wrong. You fight for the people you love.” She cinched the pack shut with a jerk and then lifted her head. I could just make out her expression—sad and a little hurt. But determined.

  I realized I was still wearing her coat. I started to pull it off, but she reached forward and put her hands on my shoulders. “Keep it,” she said. “Too small for me anyway.”

  Our faces were only a few inches apart, our voices low in the quiet of morning. Her parents still slept.

  “Why are you helping me?” I whispered. “I’ve destroyed everything.”

  Tansy gazed back at me, her expression strange, unreadable for the first time. “Because I try to fight for the people I love, too. And still, iron bars might have stopped me.” I realized what was in her expression that I hadn’t been able to identify: admiration.

  She leaned forward, wrapping her arms around me for a moment. It was awkward, both of us kneeling, the pack between us. But after a few seconds I put my arms around her, too.

  “Thank you.”

  And then she was gone, pulling back and rising to her feet, immediately on alert, on the prowl. She melted away, vanishing through the door to join the scouts on duty. It was too early for her to relieve anyone, but I knew she didn’t want to see me go. I wish I could have found the words to tell her that I’d fight for her, too, if I could.

  But that would have been a lie. If what Dorian said was true, I could have destroyed the incoming army. I just didn’t have the strength.

  •  •  •

  I headed east. Now and then I could still see the beings of light I’d seen while trying to open the lock, as though they were afterimages burned into my retinas. It was as though opening the lock had opened something else, some second sight. I could see the network of power, the energy and the iron muffling it.

  All around in the iron trees were the scouts, watching for any sign of intruders. The city’s forces weren’t expected until night fell again, but Dorian wasn’t taking any chances. They were well-trained from the years of defending the Wood from the shadow people.

  From Oren.

  I pushed the thought away. I couldn’t afford to think of it, not now. I could see the positions of the scouts—each a tangle of white-gold threads, shining in the muffled blackness that was the forest of iron trees.

  There—a gap in their network. They were far enough apart that perhaps, if I were careful and quiet, I could slip through unnoticed. Just because Dorian was letting me go didn’t mean the scouts wouldn’t stop me.

  I made for the gap, moving silently enough that Oren would have been proud.

  My thoughts lurched and I cast the name away. My lips throbbed, and I touched them with my fingertips like a child who has burned her mouth. They would be bruised. If I live long enough for bruises to form.

  The city would be coming from the east. When I reached the edge of the iron trees I could cut south, and give the oncoming forces a wide berth. I could make for the summer lake, perhaps, or the world of the bees, if I could retrace our path. Perhaps there I could survive long enough to figure out where to go next.

  Could I abandon the Wood to its fate? Did I have a choice? I could not believe Dorian really intended for me to destroy the oncoming army. Administrator Gloriette was the last person in the world I ever wanted to see again, but I couldn’t imagine actually killing her. And Kris would be out there somewhere, too.

  Oren’s knife lay cold and snug in my pocket, against my leg. I had kept it as a tool for survival—not a weapon for killing, as Oren had used it.

  Hadn’t I?

  The Institute, wanting me to participate in the destruction of a whole village; the Iron Wood, begging me to slaughter an entire army of my own people; even Oren, demanding that I kill him, and every other shadow person I encountered, because there was no redemption for them. I shifted the straps on my pack and hunched my shoulders against the morning chill, ducking through the forest unseen. Running away.

  Like Basil did. Now I knew why he left. But did he sneak away while everyone was asleep?

  Besides, the village was well-fortified. The scouts had years of training fighting the shadow people. They knew the city was coming. They were ready. Perhaps they could win.

  My mind, so desperate to alleviate my guilt, seized upon the idea, echoing it until I had no choice but to believe it could be true.

  I focused upon the second sight, tracking the movements of the scouts by the white-gold trails of power they emanated. I stumbled more than once, but when I tripped over something soft my body automatically shifted its weight to avoid stepping on it, and I fell heavily.

  I picked myself off whatever I’d landed on, and my heart stopped as I saw what—who—it was.

  Tansy.

  I stared, uncomprehending. How long since she’d left the house? She wasn’t even yet to her post. Her face was lax, unresponsive. I shook her, and her head lolled to one side. Why hadn’t I seen her aura of power? Unless—Oh God, no. Please. Tansy.

  I fumbled for her wrist, too panicked to detect a pulse. I leaned close, putting my cheek to her lips. It took several long moments before I realized that there was a slight warmth stirring the hair at my temple. She was breathing. I realized that I hadn’t seen her power because it was a clear, dry day—not wet enough for it to manifest as clearly as it did with the other scouts. Now that I was close enough I could see tiny flickers around the edges of my vision.

  I reached again for her pulse, this time at her throat. My fingers encountered the tiniest of holes, now barely more than a red welt against her skin. I’d seen a mark like that before, once. Kris. After he’d been stung by Nix.

  I stared at Tansy’s unconscious form, my mind refusing to process what I was seeing. Had Nix returned? But if so, why would it attack my friends?

  As I stared, I became aware of the tiniest hints of a sound at the edge of my hearing. The muffling effects of the iron kept the magical hum to a minimum, but I could hear the sound of clockwork, hissing silently through the wood.

  Pixies.

  One darted into the area, the dim light of dawn glinting off its wings. It looked the same as the ones in the city—lacked Nix’s larger size and eyes—except that, like Nix, it bore a long needle at the end of its abdomen.

  I held my breath, cursing that I had no power with which to smash it, but it didn’t notice my presence. It zipped by as I
ducked down, covering Tansy’s body with my own.

  Of course. They had no eyes—only sensors for magic. Tansy barely had any power and they still detected her. I no longer had any at all.

  All across the Wood, my second sight picked out forms that were falling from trees and slumping over where they stood. The silent advance of the pixies was taking out the scouts, one by one.

  But it was too soon. The city wasn’t expected until tonight at the earliest. In my mind’s eye I saw the harvester machines plowing through the Wood, destroying the houses, tearing apart the home that had adopted me. Walkers crushing the orchard, brushing aside the wooden bridges and rope ladders like spiderwebs. I carefully dragged Tansy toward the sheltering crook of a tree, praying no one would find her.

  They didn’t know pixies here. Nix was the only one they’d seen, and what reason did they have to fear it? They couldn’t know—couldn’t hope to defend themselves. Unless someone warns them.

  The sun was rising to the east. Through the gaps in the iron foliage I could guess that it was cresting the mountains. Somewhere nestled in a pass was the summer lake. I took a long breath, and then turned my back to the sun, and ran back toward the village.

  Pixies swarmed past me, never once registering my presence. The cold autumn air tore at my lungs until spots swam in front of my eyes. One of the pixies buzzed so closely by my face that its copper wing drew a tiny line of fire across my cheek.

  When I burst back into the square, expecting to see scenes of battle and carnage and pixies screaming madly through the air, I skidded to a halt. All was silent. For one bright moment I thought I might have beaten them to the village, until I caught a glimpse of copper flitting from one of the windows.

  The pixies were slipping in and out of each house, delivering whatever soporific venom they carried. The scouts posted around the square, who had been stirring and coming awake as I left, were now still and silent.

  The fight for the Iron Wood was over before it had even begun.

  As I stood, I saw the lines of power all around me waver and flicker again the way they had when I was trying to open the lock.

 

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