by Emily Colin
“I suppose,” I say, on safer ground. “But then how did Kilían find out? And why tell you now?”
He cradles the bowl of the glass in one hand, running a finger along the rim. “Kilían says he found out from my parents. It could hardly be otherwise—the records are sealed. You’d need a master hacker to break into them.”
“I could do it,” I say impulsively.
One of his eyebrows creeps upward, a black arch above the moss-green of his eyes. “You’re that good?”
I give him the eyebrow right back. “You want the truth, or false modesty?”
His expression alters subtly, absorbing this. “Hmmm. You have many worthwhile talents, apprentice mine. A gift with edged weapons, a flair for distraction, uncanny aim, speed to rival my own. Few fears. And now this. What else are you hiding?”
“I’m not hiding anything,” I retort, affronted. “It just wasn’t relevant before. I volunteered the information, didn’t I?”
“I suppose you’re right.” He sets the glass down again, his fingers drumming a broken rhythm on the wooden counter. “I’ll keep that in mind, Eva. It might come in handy sometime. But to your other question—if Kilían’s to be believed, he told me now because he’s been keeping an eye on me, at my parents’ behest, and he thought I was ready. Before—well, I was too young. I wasn’t trained, I would have been a liability.” He shrugs. “He said the Brotherhood is building an army to rival the Bellatorum, composed of the best warriors they can find. They’re camped outside the Commonwealth, waiting.”
I snort, amused. “Don’t flatter yourself overmuch, Bellator Westergaard. You’re gifted, sure—but that’s not the only reason they’re trying to recruit you.”
Ari’s fingers pause in their assault on the countertop. “What do you mean?”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it? They have something over you. Your desire to find your parents, now you know they exist—that you weren’t conceived in a test tube like the rest of us—assuming Kilían is telling you the truth. As long as they have something you want, you’re less likely to run screaming to the High Priests and the Executor than your average bellator, sworn to uphold his oath and devoted to the cause.”
Ari bares his teeth at me, eyes narrowing again. “I’ll not be easily foresworn, Eva. Not for a handful of hollow promises. But if there’s any truth to what Kilían told me—I have to find out. And if he is right—then my oath means nothing, for I have sworn it to a cause that doesn’t exist, save in the minds of delusional, power-hungry zealots.”
Treason, I think, but the word holds less weight than it ought to. All my life, I’ve felt that at the heart of the Commonwealth is not the purity we’ve been led to believe, but rather an insidious, infectious rot. I felt it when the Mothers told us stories of the selkies, stripped of their skins and abandoned on the shores; when the High Priest ordered a man put to death for stealing wine; when Instruktor Bjarki was shamed for wanting to learn. But why should I trust Kilían or Ari, who might well be positioned to sniff out any scent of sedition? I have always been alone in my convictions—except, it occurs to me, for the moment in Clockverk Square when Ari held my gaze.
If the Priest had noticed his defiance, Ari would have been cruelly punished. Why did he chance it? From a soon-to-be-warrior’s appreciation of the risk I’d taken? Pity? Or empathy, because down deep, he felt the same?
* * *
Then there’s the way the Executor is so closely guarded, in the absence of any visible threats—why? And the malice and competition amongst the bellators—as if we are being trained for war, not the maintenance of a civil society. Seen in the context of this resistance, the pieces suddenly fit.
“Why tell me?” I ask, my voice little more than a breath of air. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll betray you?”
“You won’t,” he says, his finger tracing the whorls in the wood.
“Sure of yourself, aren’t you? May I remind you of the last time you decided to act on your hubris where I’m concerned?”
He chuckles, remembering, as I am, the moment I knocked him from the tree and pinned him to the wet ground. The smile fades from his face as he thinks, doubtless, of what came afterward—if he’s ever stopped thinking about it. I know I haven’t been able to.
“I’m not likely to forget anytime soon,” Ari says, clearing his throat. “But this isn’t pride, Eva—it’s faith.”
“In me?” My voice arches upward, cracking. “Why?”
“Oh, a thousand reasons. Because I remember a little girl who stood up to the High Priest on her first execution day. Who ordered oatmeal when she could have had skyr and cinnamon apples, rather than see a woman suffer. But if you want the simplest one—you’re curious, aren’t you? You want to know the truth, just as I do. Admit it.” His eyes are on me, his gaze coolly amused.
A shiver runs through me at his words. Manipulation—or the truest insight I’ve ever had into his heart? “All right,” I say irritably, concealing my fear. “But they do say curiosity killed the cat, Ari Westergaard. How are you so sure this will be any different?”
Ari tilts his head to one side, considering me. “It’d be worth it,” he says, so softly it’s hard to hear, “dying with you.”
Unnerved, I look down at my hands, resting on my chakram and the hilt of my dagur. Would I say the same—that I’d sacrifice my own life with peace of mind, if Ari were with me? I can’t say I’d go willingly to my death, no matter my companion. It seems the worst kind of foolishness—and whatever else Ari Westergaard might be, I have never figured him for a fool.
But then—why?
When I glance upward, having found no answer, he’s still watching me. “So you’ll come?” he says in that same quiet voice.
“You want me to come with you? My voice cracks with surprise. “Into the tunnels—and out, into what lies beyond the fence? The ruins and the hordes?”
He lifts one shoulder and lets it fall. “Who else?”
“By the Sins, Ari—”
“It’s a simple question, apprentice mine. Yes or no. You choose.”
Could it be Kilían is telling the truth? And if so—if there’s a world where I’m not alone in my belief that mercy may outweigh justice—how can I refuse to see such a place with my own eyes?
Suddenly there isn’t enough air in the room. With what’s left to me, I try to formulate a solid defense. “Listen to yourself. If there really is a resistance—and we leave the Commonwealth to find it—then what? What if Kilían is a plant, designed to test our loyalty, and we creep through those damned tunnels only to be slaughtered on the other end? What happens if we can’t get back in, and we’re stranded…out there? Or if we do get back in, and get caught?”
Ari folds his arms across his chest. “I don’t think Kilían’s lying, Eva. And what if we do get stranded? Would that be so bad?”
“What in the nine hells are you talking about? We have no idea what’s out there! The drowned cities—the exiles bent on vengeance and sin—the Outsiders whose idea of morality is corrupt at best—you want to be stuck out there with them?”
He looks down at me, frowning. “How do we know that’s what’s on the other side of the fence? Because the Priests told us so? We’ve always believed them, Eva. We took for granted this was how things had to be. But what if we’ve been lied to? What if there’s more?”
His words are like the fairytales the Mothers used to tell us when they tucked us in—the cursed girl who pricked herself with a needle on account of her beauty and was doomed to sleep for a hundred years, the scullery maid who was saved by a dance and a glass slipper, only to spend the rest of her days locked away in the castle she sought to rule, mourning the price of her vanity. Like Lachlan and the Selkie—a warning against the dangers of attachment, of surrendering to our baser emotions and indulging the weaknesses of the flesh—they are a warped version of reality, a seed of honesty grown wild, too wayward to be true.
“More?” I say hoarsely. “More—what?”
&nb
sp; “I don’t know,” he says, meeting my eyes. “Just—more. Don’t you feel things could be different, Eva? Better? What you said to me about how we can’t erase what happened between us—I’ve been thinking about it ever since. That, and what Kilían said about how there are people out there who believe there’s another way to live. That the world we’re living in is wrong, skewed. I know it sounds crazy. But if there’s the slightest possibility it’s real—don’t you think we owe it to ourselves to find out?”
Though it’s treachery to think it, I can’t help but wonder if leaving the Commonwealth for good would be the answer to all my problems. No struggle to reconcile my conscience with the inexplicable joy I feel when I take a blade in my hand, the sense of triumph that washed through me when I sliced Riis’s belt and carved Karsten’s arms to bits. No terror Efraím will divine I’ve begun to feel far more for Ari than an apprentice should feel for her mentor.
We are already Outsiders, he and I. Look at what we've done.
He brushes my cheek with his fingertip, sending that now-familiar electricity searing through my veins. “Be brave,” he whispers. “Not for the sake of what’s between us. Not for me. But for yourself.”
I draw a deep breath, taking in the scent of wine and metal, of the aged oak of the barrels and Ari. And then I straighten and meet his gaze with my own. “You’re my mentor. If you’re determined to do this, then I will stand by your side.”
“Drink to it, then. To seal our bargain.” He gestures to my glass and I tilt it back, closing my eyes. The wine slides down my throat, redolent of grapes and sunlight.
“What do you taste?” It’s a mentor’s question, innocent enough—but the tone of his voice is anything but. It’s as if he’s asking two questions at once, the second one hidden inside the first like one of those nesting dolls we used to play with in the Nursery.
Startled, I blink. He is standing inches from me, close enough to see the flecks of brown in his green eyes and smell the salt on his skin. Remembering how he shivered beneath me in the woods when I held my knife to his throat, how he gripped my hand under the cover of darkness at Black Falls, I have to fight to hold myself still.
“I taste violets,” I say softly. “Chocolate. Pepper. The earth itself. And light.”
“Ah.” His eyes on mine, he takes the glass, his lips sliding over the rim where mine have touched. And then he drains it, his throat moving as he swallows. He sets it down on the counter and licks his lips, his eyes never leaving my face.
A tingling feeling rushes through me, setting off every alarm bell I have. “We should go.” I take a hasty step backward. “I’ll think about everything you said—and I won’t tell anyone. We’ll talk about the details and come up with a strategy that will give us the greatest chance of success. But we shouldn’t be here alone any longer. It’s not safe.”
“I have to ask you a question,” Ari says, as if he hasn’t heard a word. “And to tell you something. Not necessarily in that order.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t—”
That sardonic smile is back, transforming his face to something distant, almost cruel. “Oh, I know I shouldn’t. But that’s beside the point. I’m going crazy, Eva.” His voice is inflectionless. “I can’t think about my training. I can barely think about what Kilían wants me to do—and the Virtues know I can’t afford to walk down that road without my wits intact. Every time I shut my eyes, there you are.” His eyes narrow, the way they do when he is about to call me out in training. “Am I alone with this? Tell me.”
His words could have just as easily come from my lips…if I’d had the foolishness to utter them. I do my best to save us both, offering a plausible excuse. “You’re my mentor,” I say, trying to keep my teeth from chattering. “Of course I have an—an attachment to you. But that’s only natural. We work together every day. It would be strange if I didn’t feel closer to you than the rest. What happened last night—it was a mistake.”
“Natural?” he echoes. “Is it natural for you to ask me about Donation Day, then? And for me to answer, in detail I’ve never shared with another human being?” His voice lowers, an intimate whisper that slides over my skin. “You know what it felt like to answer you, Eva? It felt like touching you again, with my words instead of my hands. Can you deny that?”
I don’t say a word. To speak would be to incriminate myself.
Ari clears his throat. “That was a question. Answer it, please.”
I think of the months of watching him train with his shirt off, wanting against all reason to trace his scars with my fingers. Of the nameless desire that wells up in me at the sight of one of his rare, true smiles, a brushfire that flared into a conflagration in the woods against that tree. “It doesn’t matter what it felt like,” I tell him, willing this to be true. “It’s wrong. You know that as well as I do.”
“So you do feel something.” There’s triumph in his voice, an unmistakable vindication. “Last night—when we were together—it changed something in me, Eva. I’ve never felt that way. Like I’d been asleep for years, and I finally woke up. Or—” He shakes his head in frustration. “I’m not saying it right. All I know is I’d do almost anything to feel that way again. I dream about kissing you, the way you feel, the way you taste. I have, ever since that morning at Black Falls. Since before that, even, if I’m being honest.” His voice breaks, but he doesn’t look away. “I don’t know what to do about it. At least tell me I’m not in it alone.”
He steps closer, and now I can feel the warmth emanating from his skin. I want to turn and run, but his gaze holds me and I cannot move. “When we were lying on the ground in the rain…” he says, eyes traveling over me the way they did last night, lazy and sure. “You had your hand pressed to my chest. And your blade to my throat. Remember?”
“Je me rends,” I say before I can help myself, and am rewarded with his slow smile.
“I may be your mentor,” he says, “but you’ve got my heart in your hand, Eva Marteinn. And I’m not inclined to let you close your fist, warrior that you are. So as far as I’m concerned—we have a problem.”
I want to deny what he’s saying, to pretend his words don’t ignite a slow-burning flame inside me. But that would be a coward’s choice, and though I may be a sinner and now a traitor, I’m not a coward. And so I lift my chin and speak my mind.
“If we go through with this, Ari, we may wind up as exiles or prisoners. Or dead.” I swallow hard, wishing for more wine. Drink enough of it, I have heard, and it will give you the nerve to do what you most fear. “The way you feel—you’re not alone. But if we risk this—escaping the Commonwealth to seek the counsel of a band of rebels—how you and I feel about each other will be the least of our problems. And if I’m worrying about what’s between us, I won’t be able to think clearly.”
The light has returned to Ari’s eyes, but his voice is cautious. “What are you saying?”
“One betrayal at a time is all I can handle. Let’s figure this part out first…how we’ll make it through the tunnels and back without being discovered or killed. Accomplish that, and I promise—we can talk about the rest.”
Ari looks me over, assessing my sincerity. Then he crosses to the barrels once more, wine glasses in hand. He presses the spigot, and the heady scents of chocolate and pepper fill the air.
Handing my glass to me, he regards me levelly over the rim of his own. “Swear it on your honor as a bellator. And drink.”
I draw the wine into my mouth, seeking courage in its depths. “On my honor as a bellator, I do so swear.”
Ari tosses half of his glass back in one gulp. He upends the rest, and it splashes to the floor, red as spilled blood. “All right, little warrior,” he says. “You have a deal.”
20
Ari
We choose Idle Day to venture into the unknown world beyond the fence. It’s the only occasion that—unless we’re assigned a specific duty—our time is more or less our own, our absence most likely to go unnoticed.
We don’t talk much on our way through the woods, to the hollow tree where we’ve stashed packs filled with enough food and water to last us a couple of days. After that, if we’re stuck Outside—or decide to stay—we’ll have to hunt.
I stand with my back to the tree, keeping watch, as Eva digs the packs out and slings hers over her shoulder. She shoves mine into my chest, hard enough to hurt. “It took us a week to gather all this stuff. Every single time, I thought we were going to get caught and interrogated. So I want to ask you again—are you sure this is worth the risk?”
I think of Kilían, his hand warm in mine, whispering Speak of the wolf, and he will come. “It better be,” I say, stepping out from between the trees. “Come on—this way.”
Neither of us speaks as we find our way down into the underground tunnels that run beneath the City. I concentrate on following the directions Kilían gave me: Enter the tunnels near Marketor Square, left at the first fork, walk for a quarter mile, bear right, then left, then right again. Then walk for another half-mile down the tunnel that appears to have been used the least. It will dead-end in a door. Knock. And then wait.
I’ve been in the tunnels before—have done my share of guard duty and interrogation down here—but I had no idea they stretched beyond the Commonwealth’s walls. How could I? I’ve had no occasion to visit the room at the end of the tunnel Kilían described. And even if I had, how would I have known what lay beyond?
Still, I feel foolish, gullible. My annoyance quickens my pace, and beside me, Eva gives a reluctant chuckle. “Eager to meet your fate, I see,” she says.
I shoot her a sideways glance, drawing in a lungful of the damp underground air. It’s dark, lit only by torches that burn along the walls, but I can see the wry expression on her face clearly enough. “No point in prolonging the agony, is there?” I say.
She shrugs, kicking up a spray of gravel. “I suppose that’s a matter of opinion.”
The tunnels have narrowed, the air colder now. Far away, I can hear water dripping steadily. I bear right as Kilían instructed, toward the two tunnels that branch before us. “We’re supposed to walk down the one that looks neglected,” I say. But it’s not like either one looks set to host an Idle Day picnic. They’re both nicely decorated with wall slime and moldering rock. “How are we supposed to know which one to choose?”