"Swam?"
"I don't remember much before the crash, but I don't think there are any nearby land masses. Which means that anything that didn't fly or swim here was brought here."
"If someone else were here, they would've seen all the explosions," I reasoned.
"Unless they haven't been here for a long time. These islands have been disputed territory for decades. Maybe they just left livestock. Maybe that wasn't a wolf at all yesterday, but a feral dog."
"Looked awfully wolf-like to me," I grunted, remembering the sharp fangs. "What are we close to, Herin? Maybe they send ships up here every once in a while?"
"Probably too busy cowering to your father's demands," she muttered.
My head snapped around to her. "Comment?"
"Just saying that it's a bit shady that Herin promises neutrality, and yet continues to trade with Kylae as if they aren't bombing the hell out of Rave every day."
I paused. "Not every day."
Her eyes flashed. "Then why was I up in my plane every day prowling the skies for your father's planes? Why do you think we're even at war in the first place?"
"Oh, who the hell cares?" I said with a sigh. "I don't want to get into a political debate."
"Right, because tens of thousands of my countrymen dying every day is a political debate. Children dying is a political debate."
"Theo, I am not in the mood," I groaned.
"Because you're so lucky that you can be in the mood to talk about such theoretical topics," she hissed. "In case you missed it, my people are being annihilated!"
"Yeah, well..." I shrugged, my hunger speaking for me. I didn't want to talk politics; I just wanted a steak. "Maybe if Rave would stop being so stubborn and just come back to Kylae, they wouldn't get bombed."
Theo
My mouth fell open. In an instant, all of the goodwill I had built toward him evaporated.
"I... Are you serious? Come back? Come back? As if we would ever consider rejoining a country that's been systematically murdering us for half a century!"
He shrugged and sat back, looking nonchalantly towards the forest. "Is there any more food?"
My eyes narrowed. There was the selfish princeling I had been waiting for. Carelessly and casually dismissing the hundreds of thousands of Ravens who had died fighting for our freedom from tyranny. He was more interested in his own selfish needs than those of my people. He had been without food for a day, and my people sometimes went weeks on stale bread alone.
And I had fed the bastard. Comforted him in his moment of weakness. It was all I could do not to throw up in disgust at myself.
"If you want more food," I managed to spit out, "you'll have to get it yourself."
He turned to look at me and his eyebrows went up in confusion. "W-what was that for?"
"For killing my people," I spat. "And not caring."
"Now hold on a second," he said. "I haven't killed a single person—ever." He paused and gave me an appraising glance. "How many of my people have you shot down, Captain?"
"Hundreds," I snarled, pushing myself to stand. "Because you were invading my country."
"If Rave would just quit resisting..."
"You're unbelievable," I snapped. I had to leave this conversation before I lost my temper and beat the shit out of him. I could barely stand him as it was, but when he started spouting his Kylaen hubris...that was my limit.
"Oh, did I offend you with the truth?" he taunted.
"You offend me with your disgusting face and your stupid Kylaen arrogance."
"Arrogant, am I?" He laughed, and my blood boiled. "You're sitting here telling me I'm responsible for something I had no part in! Something that began before I was even born! In case you didn't notice, I have no power."
"You think that absolves you of blame? You are the king's son—"
"And in case it wasn't glaringly obvious, the king isn't coming for me!"
I ignored his attempt to garner sympathy. It wasn't news to me that King Grieg was ruthless, and in my eyes, the deaths of my people were more important than the idiot princeling in front of me.
"Look, trust me, I know my father isn't in the right here," he said, standing to face me. "But at the same time, Rave's no picnic either. Sending their children to war? How can you sit there and defend something so heinous? You were conscripted at twelve, Theo—"
"We wouldn't have to send our children to war if Kylae would let us go!" I growled, unable to comprehend how he could defend his country after all the atrocities they'd committed.
"But you know my father will never let that happen."
"Is that how it is in Norose?" I laughed derisively. "The king makes a command and everyone just bows and says 'Yes, sire?'" I clicked my tongue against my teeth.
"Yeah, because if you disagree with him, you usually end up..." He clammed up, and the faintest of a blush appeared on his cheeks.
"End up where, princeling?" I licked my lips in delicious anticipation. I knew what he was talking about, and he knew that I knew. It was my trump card, the lovely little knife I could dig into his back.
"Mael."
SEVEN
Galian
Mael, the prison to the north of Norose. The mountains around our capital city were the source of a workable ore, barethium, which was mined by prisoners and processed at the work camp and used to make our planes and buildings.
My father's scientists said the smelting process was safe, and provided charts and empirical data showing that there was no danger to the prisoners. But the sheer number of deaths that occurred there every year, mostly from lung cancer and tumors, told a different story. The scientists chalked it up to pre-existing conditions, but I knew of more than one prisoner who'd begged for the death penalty instead of a stint in Mael.
She watched my expression and I suddenly hated that I had nothing to say to defend myself. There was no way to make Mael less of an atrocity than it was, and no way to separate myself from the horrors there.
"M...my mother is trying to make it safer," I stammered.
Theo's haughty laughter filled the space between us. "I'm sure the daughter of your country's wealthiest families truly cares about the plight of the lowliest criminals."
That set me off. "Don't talk about my mother like you know her."
"I know her," Theo sneered. "She's just like the rest of you. Weak, morally vacant—"
"I mean it, stop." I approached Theo, balling my fists. I wasn't sure I could hit her, but I was getting really close. My mother was a saint and I wouldn't have Theo insulting her.
"What are you going to do, princeling? Sentence me to a six-month visit to your death camp?"
"You forget that I'm the one who can walk, Captain," I spat back at her, and she retracted a little. But it was enough. "You're pretty high and mighty for someone I've saved not once, but twice." Her eyes narrowed. "Now I'm wondering why I even bothered. You're nothing but a disgusting Raven idiot. You're like a feral cat, hissing and spitting at the hand that feeds you. You would rather starve in the cold than—"
She punched me, right in the jaw, and my head spun. I rubbed the area, knowing it would bruise, and wondered if I had it in me to punch her right back.
She was panting, seething, and her knuckles were red. And I knew I could hit her back, but something stopped me. It wasn't some kind of chivalrous macho thing; rather, it was pity. I could destroy this girl with a flick of my wrist, but that would be like drowning that feral cat. She was halfway to death as it was.
"Well?" she growled.
I rolled my eyes and walked over to our small supplies.
"Walking away?" she called after me. "Too afraid to hit a girl?"
I ignored her taunts and retrieved the flare gun, sticking it into the waistband of my pants. I didn't know where I was going or what I was doing, but I needed to get away from her before I did something I would regret.
"You're weak, princeling!" she cried after me as I left the safety of the camp and trudged through the e
mpty forest.
Theo
I wanted him to hit me, to get angry at me. To show me that he wasn't as uncaring as he seemed, that perhaps somewhere beneath his handsome smile and joking attitude, he was a decent person.
But sadly, everything I'd guessed about him was true. I hated how much that disappointed me. It seemed in the short amount of time we had spent together, he'd grown on me just a little. And for all his bluster, I wanted him to be better than he was. To give me some hope that Kylae and Rave could one day stop the bloody war that had raged on for two generations.
My stomach rumbled ominously. It might have been less difficult if I hadn't eaten at all. Having a small amount of food had been just enough to twist my stomach into a ravenous state. I moved to walk toward our trap, but the searing pain that shot up my leg was irrefutable. I wasn't going anywhere any time soon.
I slouched to the ground and became aware of the sounds of the forest, now so much more alive than when I'd had the princeling with his two healthy legs and ability to fight off that which would eat us. The wolf (or feral dog, didn't much matter to me what I called it) was still fresh in my mind. I'd never been that scared in my entire life, which was saying something considering the amount of danger I'd been in for most of it. But dying in a plane was quick, usually on impact. I shuddered to think about the slow, painful gory death of being eaten piece by piece.
I glanced up at the sky. It was getting dark. Soon, it would be as pitch black as the night before. The small fire in front of me was healthy, but not enough to last until morning. For a moment, my gaze darted the direction the princeling had gone. I seriously doubted he was coming back.
I scooted forward on my rear, testing out different ways to move while I attempted to gather kindling before giving up. My leg hurt too badly from the use that day. So, I tossed the small twigs into the fire and settled back into the spot I had claimed for myself.
Galian
I walked for a long time. I was angry that she was right about Mael and my father. Angry because there was nothing I could do about either of them. But most of all, angry that Theo blamed me for not doing anything about them.
Then, as darkness descended around me, I had other things to worry about. I was alone out there and still a little fuzzy on how to start a fire. But for the first time, I didn't want to turn around and crawl back to her. I wanted to prove to her—to myself, more—that I could survive without her.
Who's the princeling now, huh?
I gathered some sticks and brush and worked at them the way I'd seen Theo doing. After a few minutes, my hands got tired and there was no fire. I tossed the sticks down and grunted. It wasn't that cold; I could survive one night without heat.
I settled against a tree and wrapped my arms around myself. My thoughts drifted back to the argument, and my anger was warmth enough.
True, I was the king's son, but I didn't have any more power over him than Theo did. It was one thing to stand there and criticize, but another to actually do something about it. Was I supposed to simply waltz into that prison and announce that I wasn't leaving until they closed it down? And what of me? My father might just toss me in there with the rest of them. Or worse. We'd had a few assassinations over the past few years, and although my father had blamed them on Rave, the targets had all been his political opponents.
Considering he'd left me for dead on an island, I was smart to keep my mouth shut.
I let out a long breath, realizing how completely awful that sounded. I was afraid my own father was going to kill me for disagreeing with him. Grieg was a horrible man, cut from the same cloth as my grandfather and great-grandfather who'd started the war. Thormond had been king when Rave declared independence, and my mother told me that the castle shook with his fury when news reached him. That island was his and his alone, and those people, he'd bombed, belonged to him.
The truth of that account has long been in debate. Our public relations team had spun a good story about how the Ravens couldn't govern themselves, that they were sitting on an island full of barethium that they weren't doing anything with. They needed the guiding hand of Kylae to help them reach their full potential.
Even as a child, I'd known that was bullshit. This whole war was about resources.
Thormond's scientists were the first to discover how to make barethium usable. Up until that point, it had simply been a metal in the ground. Once they realized they could use it to make stronger buildings and stronger weapons, they'd mined it out of the Kylaen mountains until they realized the heavy human toll. The ore was deep in the rock, and required more than a bit of blasting to get to it.
When the same material was discovered in Rave, but much easier to extract, Thormond had moved processing operations to our colony. He built a few dozen giant processing plants, the pride and joy of the Kylaen empire on our colony's soil and recruited its citizens to work it. That was the final straw for the Ravens, who'd been living under our rule for some two hundred years.
They declared independence and destroyed my great-grandfather's plants. Raven statues were erected in the wreckage. Shortly thereafter, we began bombing them.
But that didn't mean I had anything to do with it. It was unfair of Theo to lump me in with the rest of them. I'd done what I could—gone to medical school and helped people. Her people, in fact, many of whom crowded into our cities to escape the war.
Or, I supposed, the conscription. My blood boiled harder.
Still, the refugees escaped Rave just to end up in our slums. While I was never allowed there, when you work at a hospital, eventually everyone comes to you. Many of the sick children who showed up in our emergency room had had very curable diseases at one point, but they had resisted coming to the hospital until the illness was severe. I'd always considered that simple ignorance of medical procedure, but now I wondered if there was another reason. Maybe they thought they'd be sent back to the war if they were found living there.
As I sat there, freezing my ass off on an island far away from the war, I wondered which fate was worse for them.
Theo
I found that if I rested for a while, I could walk around long enough to gather some firewood. After a few trips, the fire was now roaring and warm. However, my leg ached terribly and the gash in my other leg was starting to twinge as well. But I was still grateful the princeling was gone.
Between my trips to gather firewood, I mulled over our argument. I could not believe he'd suggested my country would be better off coming back to Kylae. Then again, the princeling seemed disconnected from it. Locked away in his mighty castle at Norose, he didn't have to wonder if he was going to die every single day. Rave couldn't go on the offensive while we had barely enough firepower to defend our shores. But if the war impacted Kylaen lives as much as it did mine, how differently would the people of Kylae feel? I wondered if they'd even been told the truth about their history, if told some watered-down version of it?
Did they know that King Thormond had broken a two-hundred-year treaty with the Rave government? Did they know that the Kylaens had barreled through our cities and forced every able-bodied man and woman to build the precursors to Mael on Raven soil? They had fed us lies about how the plants would bring prosperity to our country, but when workers started dropping like flies, we'd had enough. We'd declared our independence not because we wanted to, but because we had to in order to survive as a people.
Even after we'd driven the Kylaens out of the country, we were still under constant threat of destruction. Only now, my people were servants to a different master. Whether we had a king or not, we were still tethered to Kylae. Thormond wouldn't let us go, neither had his son, and neither would Grieg. There seemed no end in sight.
How could Galian come from that bloodline? As naive and misguided as he might be on political matters, he did have a good heart. He'd saved my life, twice, without a second thought. He'd chased after me, too, when I had said hurtful things to him. I had begun to believe that he genuinely cared whether I live
d or died as a person, and not just as a potential prisoner of war. Now, I wasn't so sure.
I wrapped my arms tighter around myself and noticed the Kylaen uniform I still wore. When he'd first put it on me, I had been disgusted. Now I was thankful for the extra warmth because the fire was dying. I moved my legs, but the pain was too much.
"Damn it!" I cried, pressing my head against the tree and glanced into the darkening forest. It had been several hours, and I'd been quite sure the princeling would've been back already if he was going to. I doubted he could really survive a night on his own, but I began to worry that he might. Then he'd never come back and I'd die of exposure or become wolf-food.
As much as it killed me to admit it, I no longer had the luxury of being patriotic if I wanted to live. I had to prioritize my own survival over defending every slight against my country. Stupid or not, I needed the princeling.
Galian
When dawn broke, I swallowed my pride and headed back to our camp. It was a sleepless, cold night, spent wishing I was better at making a fire. The colder I became, the less angry I was with Theo. It wasn't that I thought she was right and I was wrong; it wasn't that I forgave her. But my own survival depended on her, and as the night wore on, I realized that I needed her.
Although she'd have to knock her attitude down a few pegs before I'd take another look at that leg of hers.
I spent half the night practicing what I would say, and the various ways she would argue with me, until my head hurt. I finally agreed with myself that I'd just speak from the heart and hope she saw reason.
When I approached the camp, I saw her curled into a ball on the same side of the fire where I had left her. That fire, however, was nearly gone, and I knew that she couldn't fetch more kindling without two healthy legs.
The Complete Madion War Trilogy Page 7
