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For Danielle and Theresa,
my own sisters in arms
1
There was a world outside Arketta, of course—but you never felt the full weight of that truth until you stood at its border yourself.
It looked no different to Aster on the other side. The same trees grew in Ferron, their spring green leaves shimmering in the wind, and the same road snaked between them like a wide, brown river. But here, in Arketta, there were dustblood debts, and raveners on hellhorses, and welcome houses full of children, and vengeants to cry out at the cruelty of it all.
And there, in Ferron: freedom.
Aster shifted in the delivery wagon’s driver’s seat, gripping the reins tightly in her sweat-slicked hands. Raven, always a girl of few words, was even quieter than usual, her face set in a carefully neutral expression as they approached the border checkpoint. This wasn’t the first time for either of them smuggling a girl into Ferron for the Lady Ghosts, but it hadn’t gotten any easier with experience. Aster had never known the border agents to be lax in their duties.
The crates in the back jumped as Aster brought their wagon to a stop. There was one wagon ahead of them in the inspection line. Beyond it stood an armyman’s guard tower, one of dozens lining the border and standing high as the tree line. Aster could just make out a gray-uniformed Arkettan soldier standing atop the nearest tower, a voltric rifle in his hands, pointed down at the line of wagons below. That was the arrangement the two nations had struck to protect their border—Arketta provided the men, and Ferron provided the weapons.
One shot from that gun would arc through a man like lightning.
“Do me a favor and double-check the guarants are still in your bag, will you?” Aster mumbled under her breath.
“You know damn well I just checked for them a mile back,” Raven reminded her.
“Well, check again. I don’t need us getting up there and finding out we lost them between there and here.”
Raven’s lips twitched up in a smirk, but she complied, sifting through her satchel with slender fingers to make sure that the government documents were there. Raven had always been a striking girl—tall, lithe, with russet brown skin that was dappled with patches of white. Her long black hair was twisted into sisterlocks, and her favor, a cascade of raven feathers that shimmered in the light, was only partially obscured by the high collar of her dress. She and Aster were dressed as merchants’ fortunas, and the guarants were the official papers, signed in bewitched ink, that would prove their identity. It was illegal for a dustblood to cross the border into Ferron without one, and the Arkettan government usually only issued them to the few extraordinary dustbloods who had worked off their debt and earned their freedom. But there were rare exceptions to the rule, and one such was for Good Luck Girls who had been purchased outright by a brag as his personal consort—or fortuna—and who might need to cross the border with him.
Not that Aster belonged to anyone, not anymore. The guarants had been given to her by the Lady Ghosts, secured for them by one of their anonymous allies in the government. The papers were impossible to forge and had been incredibly expensive for the ally to obtain. If they didn’t stand up to scrutiny, it wasn’t just Aster and Raven’s lives on the line—it was the whole network the Ladies had built.
“See? Right where we left them,” Raven murmured, showing Aster the documents. Aster felt her expression relax ever so slightly. “Nothing to worry about, boss.”
Boss. The word rang false in Aster’s ears. At nineteen, Raven was a year older than Aster, and she had been with the Ladies longer, too. But Aster had been put in charge of their missions given her experience on the road—as if herding her half-feral friends across the Scab was anything like trying to lead organized rebels. She took pride in the respect the other Ladies paid her, but the expectations that came with it could be overwhelming. She couldn’t afford to fail.
It had been near a year since Aster and the other Green Creek runaways found the Lady Ghosts. Since then, the public had been told that all of them were dead, captured and killed by the brave lawmen on their trail. Aster suspected that Jerrod McClennon, head of the wealthiest landmaster family in Arketta, had spun the lie to save his own reputation after they’d escaped his estate. In truth, Clementine, Tansy, and Mallow had all been borderjumped into Ferron.
The only exception, of course, was Violet, whom they’d had to leave behind.
But Aster, in her stubbornness, could not bring herself to believe that Violet was dead.
If McClennon was lying about the rest of them, then he was lying about her, too. He had to be. Violet would have survived that night. She would have survived whatever McClennon had put her through since. Maybe she would have even escaped on her own, somehow. And as soon as Aster got proof, she was going back for her. Her conscience would not let her rest until she did, no matter how many other Good Luck Girls she borderjumped to safety.
Focus on the task at hand, Aster thought roughly, before her guilt could sink its teeth in any deeper. The girl in the back of their wagon now was hardly safe yet.
The good news was that these border agents, along with most of the rest of the world, believed Aster was dead. Beyond that, she looked completely different now. She had shorn her hair into a military crop. She had changed her favor from an aster flower to a sunburst. And she was dressed like a high-end fortuna, not a bandit on the run. There was no reason for anyone to recognize her or suspect she was anyone other than who she said she was.
But still …
Two armymen waved the wagon ahead of them through. Aster snapped the reins and led the horse forward, tightening her mouth as one of the armymen approached. He was tall, clear-eyed, cut like canyon rock, with no shadow at his feet: a dustblood, like the majority of the rank and file of Arketta’s armed forces—a lifetime of service would see his family’s debts forgiven. The gold buttons on the man’s immaculate slate gray uniform winked in the late afternoon sunlight. Like his companion in the guard tower, he was armed with voltric weapons: twin pistols that whined at the edge of Aster’s hearing like the drone of flies.
“Papers,” he said to Aster in a bored tone, holding out a hairy hand. Then his eyes widened as they fell on Aster’s and Raven’s favors. “You girls have guarants?” he asked more roughly.
“Yes, sir, right here,” Aster answered evenly. “We’re transporting goods for our keeper. Be meeting him right on the other side of the border.” She handed the guarants over to the armyman, along with export documents for the cargo. He fixed a lens over his eye and scanned the papers slowly. If the guarants were legitimate, the bewitched ink, seen thro
ugh the lens, would glow.
“‘In the service of Anthony Wise,’” he read aloud slowly. He glanced up at Aster and Raven, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Well, aren’t you the lucky ones, finding that one special brag who’s willing to make you his forever. Tell me, what’s Mr. Wise doing sending his Luckers to do his business for him? Doesn’t seem very wise to me.”
Aster tensed, but Raven shook her head imperceptibly.
“It’s strange country, Ferron. Mr. Wise gets lonely up there,” Aster said, keeping her tone level. “We’ve made this run half a hundred times to visit him. Just so happens this time we’re bringing some cargo with us. Why should he pay someone else to do it when we already know the way?”
Doubt passed over the armyman’s face. Aster didn’t break her gaze, forcing her body to remain still even as her mind whipped itself into a frenzy. If he’d been at this post a long time, he might know they weren’t the same Good Luck Girls sent for Anthony Wise in the past. The Ladies were careful to account for these things, but there were so many moving parts, so many places for this to go wrong—
At last, the armyman put his lens away and handed the guarants back. Aster let out a low breath.
“Says here you’re carrying a shipment of tobacco chaw,” he said, holding up the export documents now. “I’m going to need to take a look in the back.”
“Of course, sir.”
Aster flashed a reassuring smile at Raven before climbing down from the driver’s seat. But behind her smile, her mouth had gone dry. They were carrying boxes of chaw—but of course that wasn’t all.
Aster led the armyman around back, conscious of his gaze dragging along her like the slow drip of molasses. He was following her too closely, his breath damp on the back of her neck, the whine of his gun setting her teeth on edge. Aster swallowed her anger, swallowed the old fear churning in her gut and crawling up her throat. The armymen had been some of the worst back at the welcome house, desperate and frightened, or drunk on their limited power, looking for girls to break between their scarred hands. If this one didn’t try anything, it was only because he respected the authority of her keeper.
“All right, let’s have a look,” he muttered, pushing impatiently past Aster to survey the boxes stacked in the back of the wagon. He looked down at the export documents again, then hopped up to begin his inspection. Aster held her breath as he took the crowbar from the sideboard and pried the nearest box open. She had expected this would happen—an inspection of the supplies. There was nothing criminal for him to find in this first box, but if he found the false bottom in the last box on the left …
He picked up a small pouch of chaw, turned it over in his hand, and put it back. Moved on to the next box. The Lady Ghosts grew and packaged the tobacco themselves. It was necessary to maintain the fiction of Anthony Wise. It was true that they would make valuable shine from selling it, but that wasn’t the point. The point was getting across the border.
Eventually the armyman came to the final box. Pried it open, rummaged through its contents.
Aster tensed, mentally begging the girl inside to remain still, remain calm.
Then, satisfied, the armyman sighed and let the lid fall.
“That’ll do,” he said, hopping down from the wagon. “Get on out of here.”
Aster felt a rush of relief. She hurried back up to the driver’s seat, where Raven was waiting for her.
“Well?” Raven asked under her breath.
“We’re good,” Aster murmured, taking up the reins. The armyman waved them forward, and she started down the road. But before they’d gone more than a few feet, his partner whispered something to him and he ran back to Aster’s side, hand at his holster.
“Hold there,” he said.
What the hell?
Aster exchanged a panicked look with Raven. For the briefest instant, she considered spurring the horses into a gallop and barreling through the checkpoint. They could be across the border and half a mile down the road by the time the armymen mounted up.
But the sniper in the guard tower—
No.
That wasn’t the Lady Ghost way. Nothing about Aster’s fight-or-flight instinct was the Lady Ghost way. It was only by keeping a low profile that they had lasted this long.
She had to stay calm.
“Sir?” she asked, meeting the armyman’s eye.
“My partner tells me a girl about your age has been reported missing from the Firegulch welcome house. Let me see them favors again.”
Aster turned down her collar to expose the rest of her favor, the rays of the sun stretching down the side of her neck. Raven did the same, showing the armyman the cascade of feathers on her neck.
The armyman narrowed his eyes, then nodded. He stepped back and waved them through.
“Tell Mr. Wise not to send his women to do his work next time, hear?” he hollered after them.
Aster didn’t respond. Stay calm, she told herself. But she wasn’t calm. She was tense, waiting for a sudden shout of recognition, for a shot of lightning to rip through the wagon. It wasn’t until they had rounded the bend a mile down the road that her heart began to slow. She exhaled, looking at Raven, who pulled out a silver flask and took a short swig.
“You can relax,” Raven told her, smiling a little. “The worst of it is over.”
“It can always be worse. I’ll relax when I’m damn well ready,” Aster muttered. But she felt herself grinning back at Raven all the same. “Honest to the dead, for a second I thought I was going to gut that bastard back there.”
“So did I,” Raven said with a snort. “But you kept a cool head. You’re getting better at this, you know.”
The praise gave Aster a warm rush of pride. Raven had always reminded her of a cat—aloof to most, but fiercely loyal to those who earned her respect. If, after three of these missions, Aster was finally winning her over, that had to be a good sign.
They continued down the road, Aster again struck by the realization that she had entered a different world. Ferron was not a perfect place, she knew—far from it—but unlike Arketta, it had never been a prison colony for the old Empire, had never seen hundreds of thousands of people dragged to its shores from the Empire’s countless other conquered lands. Generations later, dustbloods were still paying their debts, no longer to the fallen Empire but to the enterprising landmasters who had taken its place. The Reckoning: where every meal a dustblood ate, every stitch of clothing they wore, and every night they slept in a landmaster’s tenant camp was added to a never-ending tally that no workingman’s wages would ever satisfy. And for women, the only “escape” was a welcome house.
But somewhere in Ferron’s capital, Steelway, Aster’s sister and their friends were now living in a much truer freedom.
A sudden, unbearable ache of longing filled Aster’s chest as she thought of Clementine again. She had never been apart from her sister for so long. She felt unbalanced without her. Perhaps this was how it had been for her ancestors when they’d had their shadows cut away. And then there were Tansy and Mallow, whose good humor Aster had missed more than she’d ever imagined, and Zee, whose steadfastness she had come to rely on so much that the ground felt unsteady beneath her feet without him now.
By the dead, how tempting it was to simply keep riding and disappear into a new life with them …
But you have work to do.
At last Aster and Raven came across two young dustblood men on the side of the road sitting in the back of an empty wagon. The boys both wore denim coveralls over thick, long-sleeved flannels. Aster didn’t recognize them, but they fit the description of the Ladies’ contacts in Ferron. The one on the left hailed Aster with his hand held high. Then he vaulted over the side of the wagon and walked over to greet them as they pulled to a stop.
“Fine day for a stroll,” the boy said neutrally.
“Looks like rain,” Aster responded, completing the passphrase. As soon as she did so, he broke into a smile.
; “You’re late,” he said. “Had us worried.”
Aster climbed down from the driver’s seat and clasped his hand. “We got held up at the checkpoint. Nothing serious.”
“Well, I’m glad you made it.” The boy and his partner began transferring the crates from Aster’s wagon to the empty one. The last crate on the left was heavy enough that it took both of them to lift.
“Most valuable cargo in this one?” the second boy asked.
Aster nodded. “Take good care.”
“Always do.”
And true to their word, they handled the box gently, easing down from the back of Aster’s wagon with it and climbing into the back of the next. When they opened it later, the girl inside would step out into a new life of her own.
“And if you could do one more thing for me,” Aster said furtively as the boys made their way back around to the front of the wagon. She handed the first boy a small, folded piece of paper. Maybe she couldn’t see her sister, but damned if she wasn’t at least going to write to her. “When you get to Steelway, ask for the girl with the clementine favor and pass this along, please. Tell her it’s from Dawn.”
2
By nightfall Aster found herself back at the Lady Ghost headquarters, in the bedroom she shared with Raven and two other escaped Good Luck Girls, Hannah and Lucille. While the others had already gone down to the mess hall to eat supper with the rest of the Ladies, Aster and Raven changed out of their merchants’ dresses from the mission. Warm, yellow lantern light spilled across the room from a single side table that stood between the two bunk beds, and rumpled clothes were scattered across the floor. There were no windows down here, of course—the abandoned mine the Lady Ghosts called home was a quarter mile underground—but Raven had put up some leadpoint drawings of Arketta to give themselves a taste of the outside world. The Scab descending into dusk, the Goldsea rippling in the wind, the city of Northrock twinkling beneath a sliver of a moon … there was a haunting beauty to her art, the deep shadows and heavy lines betraying something of the darkness that Raven and the other girls all shared.
The Sisters of Reckoning Page 1