“A sacrifice.” Valior reaches inside the folds of his cloak for a dirty-looking handkerchief. “Someone to sate its appetite long enough to let the others escape.” He mops his eyes with the handkerchief.
“Your brother was a good man,” Aunt Jadem says to Valior, bowing her head. “My nephew and I owe him our lives.”
Valior grips his flask.
“Even if we had a willing sacrifice,” Dayne says, our survival wouldn’t be assured. “The wormkill is not easily sated. Jadem and I barely escaped last time.”
“Let me get this straight.” Tut holds up a hand, the gold bangles on his wrist clinking together with the motion. “You’re going to break into Malarusk, steal Crowe’s lover, and then throw some unsuspecting dolt to the wormkill to make your escape?”
“That’s about how it works,” Dayne says dryly.
“Well then,” Tut shrugs. “Seems like all we need to do is find someone willing to be wormkill grub, and all our problems will be solved.” He flashes a gold-toothed grin. “Not that I’m volunteering, of course.”
“I must go since I’m the only one who can recognize Hendrix,” Jadem says, “but I can’t go alone.”
No one speaks.
“I’ll do it.” My voice sounds too loud in the now-silent chamber.
“Absolutely not.”
I recoil at the fury purpling my brother’s face.
When Aunt Jadem turns to face me, there is something on her face I’ve never seen before. Fear, maybe? Uncertainty? The sight of it makes my blood run cold.
“If I can outrun Vlaz, I can outrun this wormkill creature,” I point out. “I’ll lure it away from you, and then I’ll get past it.”
“The tunnel was made by the wormkill.” Dayne pounds his fist on the table. “You can’t outrun it because there is no way to get past it.”
“Then I’ll fight it,” I argue.
“No one has ever fought the wormkill and lived,” Dayne says.
“I’ve seen Hemera fight,” Wade says. He stares at the table, like he’s wrestling with some decision. “If there’s anyone who can best the wormkill, it’s her.”
“She’s a Bisecter,” Dayne explodes. “The Duskers won’t put her in the dungeons. They’ll execute her on sight.”
“There may be a way around that.” Jadem rubs her scar again.
“I’ll do it,” Dayne says. “I won’t have my little sister sacrificing herself to a man-eating worm.”
“I wouldn’t be a sacrifice,” I argue. “And I’m not a man.” I cross my arms in a show of confidence I don’t feel.
“I don’t like it,” Aunt Jadem says. “But Wade’s right. If there’s anyone who can get past the wormkill, it is Hemera.” She says my name with a tenderness that pulls at my heart.
“Do you have no conscience?” Dayne explodes. “She’s your niece, for sun’s sake.”
“I understand that,” Aunt Jadem says, “but we must get into Malarusk. And Hemera is our best chance for getting back out again.”
I didn’t expect my aunt to give in so readily, but I’m grateful to her for not fighting me on this. If capturing the Dusker Supreme’s second will gain us the Banished people’s support, then the Solguards will have a fighting chance against the Duskers. I might be able to stop what happened at Tanguro from happening here.
“I’ll do it.” I look at my brother, silently pleading with him to stop arguing.
Dayne glares at me for a long moment. Ekil sits perfectly still. He understands some important decision hangs in the balance, even if he can’t decipher our words.
“Please let me do this,” I beg my brother. “I couldn’t save the army at Tanguro. I need to do this.”
When I look at Dayne again, his eyes are brimming with unshed tears. “No one escapes Malarusk without a sacrifice.”
His words hang in the air like some kind of premonition.
“You do understand,” Valior lifts his head to peer at me, “no one has ever met with the wormkill and lived?”
“I’m a Bisecter,” I reply. “If anyone can survive this thing, it’s me.”
“Very brave or very stupid,” Valior muses. “Reminds me of her mother.”
I want to ask Valior what he knows about my mother, but I know now isn’t the time.
Dayne’s shoulders slump in defeat. “What about Zeidan?”
“We don’t care a lick about your miscreant stepfather,” Tut tells him.
“What Tut means to say,” Liglette says, giving him a stern look, “is that the sun won’t stop rising and falling while you attend to other matters.”
Tut gives a grumble of assent.
Liglette continues, “I’m afraid the Banished can only give you a week’s time to get Hendrix.”
A week?
I think I must have heard her wrong, but then Tut says, “If you haven’t kidnapped Hendrix by then, we’re pledging our allegiance to the Duskers.” He crosses his arms, making it clear there will be no negotiations.
I want to go after my father, to make him answer for all the suffering he brought on others. But saving the lives of the Solguards and protecting this fortress, the one refuge we have left, is more important.
I look at my brother. “As soon as we have Hendrix, we’ll go after my father.”
Please say yes. Please. I stare at Dayne, willing him to understand how much I need to do this.
A muscle in my brother’s jaw works. “Fine. But you’re not going without me.”
“Or me,” Wade says.
“Not you,” Aunt Jadem shakes her head. “You’re the Solguard leader in my absence.”
Wade leaps to his feet with so much force his chair topples over backward. “Why don’t you stay and command you own damn army?” he explodes.
I’ve never seen Wade so angry. It makes tears prick at my eyes…for what he’s been forced to become…for the way I’m at least in some part the reason for his pain….
“You know why.” Jadem’s hand goes to touch the jagged scar across her face. “I’m the only one who can get us into Malarusk.”
“Then let Dayne stay behind.” Wade’s voice is desperate now.
“You have pledged yourself to the Solguards.” There is a note of finality in my aunt’s voice.
“Let me at least bring the Solguards to back you up. If anything goes wrong, we can storm the gate.”
“That’s impossible,” Tut scoffs. “The Dusker archers would pick you off one-by-one before you could even reach the gate.”
Aunt Jadem nods her agreement. “You’re needed here.”
Wade glares at her. When he kicks aside his fallen chair and storms out of the chamber, my aunt doesn’t try to stop him.
I translate our conversation for Ekil, partly to fill the heavy silence left in Wade’s absence.
“Brogut and I help,” Ekil nods his head.
“Thank you.” I put a hand over my heart the way Camike did when she was thanking me.
“Then it’s decided.” Valior points a gnarled finger at Aunt Jadem. “You capture Crowe’s lover, and the Banished will fight with you. But if you fail,” Valior looks straight at me, “then we belong to the Duskers.”
“Agreed.” Aunt Jadem rises from her seat. “I must find Ry and that new friend of hers,” she says, almost to herself. “We’ll be needing their skills.”
Jadem walks to the door, her footsteps heavier than usual. She ducks under the low archway, and then turns back. “I will have the cooks serve up something special for supper.” She doesn’t look at anyone in particular. “We should have a celebration of sorts before….” She looks up, like she just realized she’s in a room full of people rather than by herself.
My aunt scans the room, and then her gaze settles on me. For just a second, I see an apology in her eye. But then she shakes her head and lets out a small laugh. “Well, it’s good to cherish this time together, at any rate.”
CHAPTER 14
A clean blue cloak, not torn or bloodstained, is laid out on the mound
of pillows on my bed. A large copper tub filled with steaming water is set in the corner of the small chamber. I stand there, looking around the room. In Tanguro, we bathed quickly in the river while an archer kept watch for Burn vultures. Still, it makes me miss the familiarity of Tanguro. My fortress.
When the door to my chamber bangs open, I nearly fall out of the tub.
“Still bathing? You’ll miss the feast.” A woman barges in, oblivious to my attempts to maintain at least a shred of modesty.
“No time for that, love.” She holds up a long blue dress and matching slippers in one hand, offering me a towel with the other.
The woman motions for me to sit on the edge of the bed as she sets to work with a comb and perfumed oil.
“Our fortress might be on the edge of annihilation,” she says as she works, “but we won’t have our soldiers looking like savages.”
She helps me into the feather-light blue dress and then dusts my cheeks and bare shoulders with shimmery gold powder. I try to object when she sets about winding blue and white flowers in my hair, but she bats my hand away.
“You’ll be so pretty no one will even notice your eyes.” She says it so kindly I don’t take offense.
“Besides,” she gives me a wink. “It’s no secret the Captain fancies you. Think of what he’ll say when he sees you in this.”
It takes me a second to realize the Captain is Wade. I feel my cheeks heat.
“Ah,” the woman says, laughter in her voice. “I see the feeling’s mutual.”
By the time she’s finished making me look civilized, not like that poor half-starved Banished girl we brought with us, everyone else is already at the feast.
I hurry down the tunnel, trying my hardest not to trip over the delicate train of my dress, as I follow the merry sounds and smells of the feast.
Garlands of blue and white flowers wind around the tall marble columns and spill out of bowls on the edges of each long table, giving off a scent nearly as rich and sweet as the food. There isn’t as much food as there was the last time I was at the fortress; instead of platters laid out on every surface, there is a single sideboard with roasted meats, bread, and bowls of fat, round rupyberries. Still, no one seems to notice. Musicians are playing a lively tune on their windpipes. A few couples are even dancing. Nowhere is there any hint that this fortress, and all who defend it, could soon cease to exist.
Aunt Jadem is sitting at the small table elevated on a platform in the center of the great hall. The other Banished leaders fill the rest of her small table. To my annoyance, I see my aunt is wearing the same blue cloak she always wears. I look down at my dress and feel foolish.
“Mer, you look ravishing.” Aunt Jadem smiles at me, but it doesn’t mask the exhaustion that is plain on her face. “Go on,” she waves me toward the table where Dayne, Wokee, Ry, and the Halves are already tucking into the feast. “Have some fun.”
Ry, her arm draped over the back of Dellin’s chair, whistles at me in approval. Her frizzy curls have been wetted and tamed into tight ringlets. Her eyes, lined with kohl, seem to smolder. The slinky black dress she’s wearing dips low in both the front and the back, and is so sheer it’s almost see-through.
“Looking good, Bisecter!” she calls, raising a goblet in my direction.
Dellin sits beside her. She’s the only one at our table still wearing a cloak, albeit it a clean one. The hood is thrown back, revealing shining, golden locks that are almost white in the candlelight. But while her hair and the rest of her is clean, her face is still covered in grime. Ry was right—if she bothered to clean her face, she would probably be very pretty. Her gray eyes and light hair give the impression of elegance and toughness. The dirt she still hasn’t washed away just makes her look like every rumor of the Banished the Duskers have ever spread.
I turn away quickly when Dellin returns my regard with a sour expression.
“Look at you, little sis.” The corners of Dayne’s eyes crease as his face breaks into one of his rare smiles. “You look like her.”
I don’t have to ask to know he means our mother. His compliment warms me to my core.
Dayne takes out his lute and strums a light tune. I’m happy to see he looks almost relaxed.
“You look different.” Wokee, who has a meat pie in one hand and a berry tart in the other, looks me up and down. He sniffs the air and wrinkles his nose. “You smell different, too.”
“And you’re clean.” I raise an eyebrow at him. “How many people did it take to wrestle you into a bath?”
“Four.” Wokee crosses his arms, pouting.
Wokee’s curls, brushed to a sheen, are free from leaves and twigs for once. His perpetually dirt-encrusted fingernails have been scrubbed pink.
“I almost didn’t recognize you.”
He sticks his tongue out at me. “Aren’t baths the worst?” He makes a motion of washing himself and screwing up his face in distaste at Ekil. Ekil nods.
The Halves, taking up several long tables, have no plates or goblets. Instead, there’s a pile of bones in front of each of them. Brogut, who is sitting beside Ekil, has taken to carrying around a large pitcher meant for washing, which he fills up at every waterfall and takes periodic swigs from.
Earlier in the day, I saw him tip over the pitcher and splash the contents over his head. He drenched the Solguards in the vicinity and didn’t even notice their angry exclamations.
When Wokee’s goblet is filled with water rather than wine, he makes a pouting face. Dayne pours a few drops of his own wine into Wokee’s goblet, putting his finger to his lips as he gives Wokee a wink.
“Where’s Wade?” I ask, eyeing the empty spot on the bench beside Dayne, trying to sound casual.
Wokee pauses with the berry tart partway to his mouth and peers at me. “You like him, don’t you? Like like him, like him.”
My face flushes as I feel the heat of everyone’s gaze. Dellin gives me a curious look.
“Keep your voice down,” I hiss.
“I knew it!” Wokee does a little dance in his chair.
I shake my head before raising my goblet to hide the blush spreading across my face.
Dellin scooches closer to Ry and whispers something into her ear that makes Ry laugh. Ry raises her goblet to Dellin and then drains it in a single gulp. For no reason I can name, I scowl at Dellin.
A young girl, dressed in a pale pink dress, scampers past our table. “Hi Wokee,” she says, a grin lighting up her freckled face. “I made this for you.” She hands Wokee a blue ribbon with tassels hanging off either end.
Wokee, seeing everyone watching him, mutters something incoherent before turning away from the girl. She sighs in disappointment before running off again.
“What?” Wokee asks when he sees we’re all looking at him. “She’s a girl.”
When I see him carefully fold up the ribbon and put it in his pocket, I don’t say anything.
I feel Wade enter the dining cave before I see him. Off-duty scouts and guards call to him, raising their goblets in drunken salutes. They gesture for him to join them, but I see Wade shake his head. My heart lurches into my throat as he gestures at our table and makes his way over to us.
I take a sip of my wine, allowing the goblet and my long hair to shield my face. When I dare a glance up, I choke on my wine. Wade is standing behind Wokee and staring at me.
“Wow.” He breathes the word.
I look up at him, and the noise in the hall fades to a distant buzz.
“Hey.” Dayne pounds the table. “That’s my sister you’re drooling over.”
“I never drool,” Wade says, sparing Dayne an affronted look.
“Just remember I could crush you,” Dayne grumbles.
“Or tell Vlaz to eat you,” Wokee adds. “I could do that, you know,” he adds.
Wade grins. As he passes behind me on his way to the empty spot on the bench, I feel a gentle tug on my hair. As Wade sits down, he’s twirling one of the blue flowers from my hair between his fingers.<
br />
Ekil points to Wade. “Will you mate with that one?”
I choke, feeling the burn of wine come back through my nose. Wokee thumps me on the back.
“What did Ekil say?” Ry asks, her clever eyes resting on my burning cheeks.
When I finally stop choking, I say, “He thinks the berry tarts are delicious.”
✽✽✽
When the wine flagons are empty and all that’s left of the berry tarts are the crumbs, Aunt Jadem makes her way over to our table.
“You all better get to bed. We leave at low day, and I want you in top condition.”
“Yes, madam!” Ry shouts, a little too loudly, as she raises her cup to my aunt.
Aunt Jadem bends to say something in Ry’s ear. She gives something to Ry, which looks like a small key. Jadem also gives her a sealed roll of script tree bark. Ry slips both into her pocket before I can get a better look. Aunt Jadem whispers something else and then leaves.
I’m about to ask what that was all about when Ry gets up and excuses herself from the table.
Wokee, who has spent the last hour trying to teach the Halves how to hold a fork and knife, turns to me. “You’re going somewhere?”
I swallow.
“I want to come,” he says, panic lighting his eyes.
“Oh no you don’t,” Jadem cuts in, backtracking to Wokee’s side of the table. “With me gone, who will be here to tend the orchards?”
Wokee pauses.
“You know there’s no one else I can trust to care for my fruits.” She frowns. “And believe me when I tell you, you don’t want to see a hungry Solguard.”
Wokee looks from me to Aunt Jadem, a torn expression on his face. Finally, he says, “Okay, okay. If you can’t do without me, I’ll stay.”
I give my aunt a grateful look.
Wokee looks at me. “Will you be back soon?”
My heart gives a painful squeeze. “We’ll be back as soon as we can.”
When I stand up, Wade does too. Even though he doesn’t say anything, the look he gives me is obvious. He wants me to follow him.
CHAPTER 15
Halve Human Page 9
