Dead and Buryd

Dead and Buryd Page 13

by Chele Cooke

  ***

 

  Keiran wiped the sweat from his brow and flicked it from his hand into the dry dirt. They’d been outside the house for over an hour, and hadn’t seen evidence of a single person inside. Knowing that there was an Agrah patrol out, they’d switched locations four times already, including once ducking into a bush to avoid an Adveni rounding the corner.

  “I’m just going to have to knock on the door,” Georgianna said, picking a twig from her hair.

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “We can’t stay here all day just waiting for someone to happen to come out. Plus, Maarqyn will be back soon.”

  Keiran reached out to grasp her wrist, but missed as Georgianna hurried across the road towards the house. He swore under his breath and ducked back.

  A panel was mounted on the wall next to the door with a dozen buttons, each marked with a different Adveni symbol. She stared at it for a few moments, finger hovering over the buttons. In the end, she banged three times on the door instead.

  “Get that!”

  Even though it was distant, Georgianna could hear that it was the same man who had called Nyah back from the window on their first visit. Her eyes widened in panic, and when she turned to look back at Keiran, he was shifting his weight from foot to foot, looking like he was ready to run.

  She took a step back, ready to run herself, when the door opened.

  Nyah’s expression mirrored Georgianna’s panic as she stepped forward, pulling the door behind her, leaving just a crack open.

  “Gianna, what are you doing?” she breathed.

  “We were told that your owner had a meeting.”

  Nyah shook her head.

  “Cancelled. He’s furious about it.”

  Georgianna grimaced, but shook it off. They had to be quick.

  “I had to see you. We’re doing it. Six days.”

  Nyah checked through the crack of the open door.

  “You can get us both out?”

  “Yes,” Georgianna whispered. “You have to be ready to run, Nyah. Both of you. Can you do that?”

  She nodded.

  “Is Taye…”

  Georgianna waved her hands, cutting Nyah off.

  “He’s fine, Nyah, look, I have to go. I can’t be caught here.”

  A voice echoed down the stairs, and Nyah pushed the door open again.

  “Who is it?”

  “Sales person, Volsonne,” she called sweetly.

  “Get rid of them. Unless it’s the Volsonnar himself, get them the fuck off my land, girl.”

  “Yes, Volsonne.”

  Nyah glanced to Georgianna with an apologetic frown. Reaching forward, Georgianna squeezed Nyah’s hand.

  “Six days, sun-high,” she reminded her in a whisper.

  “CARTWRIGHT!”

  Nyah almost had the door closed when Georgianna’s hand slammed into the wood, stopping her. They stared at each other as the call echoed around the house. Footsteps followed, and Georgianna stared through the gap, trying desperately to see up the stairs. Without stepping into the house, it was impossible.

  Finally gathering her senses, Georgianna mouthed an apology to Nyah before hurrying away from the house, back towards Keiran. He watched her approach, falling into step with her as Georgianna didn’t even pause. He grasped her hand, pulling her into an alcove.

  Georgianna’s breath was ragged. She should have known. She’d seen him in the compound, seen him standing in line to the podium in the drysta yard. That had only been a few days before Nyah had been sold.

  Keiran manoeuvred her against the wall, letting her splutter and gather her breath.

  “Did I hear right?” he asked finally. “Did he say…”

  “Cartwright,” Georgianna breathed.

  She looked up at Keiran, gulping.

  “The Belsa in that house is Landon Cartwright,” she confirmed. “Alec’s little brother.”

  28 Colourful Truths and Excuses

  The day after learning the identity of the second drysta in Maarqyn’s house, Georgianna was unable to stop thinking about him, or about the brother who had left him behind. A variety of scenarios had played through her mind, of Maarqyn keeping him locked up, or of Landon being subjected to the most despicable torture while Nyah was forced to listen.

  With Crisco closed until later that evening and Jaid watching over Medics’ Way, Georgianna slipped from the tunnels and her thoughts, walking the long path that led out to the camps. She was certain, yet again, that she would receive a strong word or ten from her father. Yet as she walked, she found she could not be concerned about it. It was better to meet his worries with silence than tell him into what she had got herself tangled. Georgianna could already imagine her father’s reaction. She could picture the way his eyes would bulge and the way he would keep an eerie calm as he ordered Halden and Braedon from the room. Once alone he would shout and get angry, only quietening when he had shouted himself out, a deadly calm resolution that was not to be argued with. It was smarter not to tell him.

  The heat did little to keep the Veniche from the path, unlike the Adveni who were taking every opportunity to shield themselves from it. Out on the building constructions, Adveni forced to oversee their creations stripped to as little as possible in the hopes of cooling their burning skin in the breeze while the skilled Veniche workers kept themselves covered to avoid the harmful rays.

  Out in the camps, trade and chores continued as usual and Georgianna was held up from her destination three times by those hoping that she would trade for medicines. By the time Georgianna reached the Lennox home, she had a supply of beans enough for three stews, and had picked up some hyliha leaves. Their seller had been most impressed with the price she offered for them.

  Away from the open door, the house was dark with creeping shadows. It wasn’t until she had called twice that her brother appeared from the kitchen, a hide bag swollen with liquid dangling from his fist.

  “Well, if it isn’t the girl I used to call sister,” he mocked, giving Georgianna a stern look that was more and more reminiscent of their father every day.

  “I don’t know, brother. I remember you would give me far more colourful names.”

  “Yes well, were Da’ here, I’m sure he would think of something colourful for you.”

  “He’s not here then?”

  “Luckily for you, no.”

  Georgianna smiled and slipped past Halden into the kitchen. Dropping her bag into the corner and the beans into the trunk, she turned to her brother, glancing down at the hide in his hand.

  “You have a foal?”

  Halden didn’t use the hide for anything but foals, though he had not had one to tend for a long time, even considering that it was the wrong time of year for it.

  “Yeah, got him a few days ago. Ikal was in no place to take a foal, promised him to me soon as he knew the mare was carrying.”

  Georgianna’s eyes widened. Foals fetched a hefty price, and Halden reared the best. It would easily keep them fed down the trail. That was, if they were planning on making it. She had shared her wish with Keiran to go, but it only occurred to her now that she had not asked her family. While the south would be much more manageable than Adlai once the freeze set in, they may already have chosen to stay where work was more readily available.

  “Come out,” Halden said, moving to the back door. “He still needs the rest of this.”

  She followed him to the back door, taking a seat on the step as she watched Halden urge the bandy-legged foal back to the hide. The gentle sound of the foal suckling lulled them into silence, Halden carefully brushing the foal’s neck while Georgianna picked absently at the grass between her feet.

  “What’s the excuse this time?” Halden asked, with the same smirk as Georgianna offered when she chose to mock someone.

  “What excuse?”

  “The one you’re going to tell Da’ to cover why you’ve not been home.”

  Georgianna rolled her eyes, taking a
blade of grass between her fingers and carefully pulling it into two.

  “No excuse. Work.”

  “It is a classic,” he answered. “But you’ve used it far too often to be considered truthful.”

  It wouldn’t matter whether she really was in Medics’ Way every day and the Rion every night, she knew her father would assume something different. She had been absent too many times before with too many different excuses. Plus, she figured she could probably have been a little more secretive about her off-work hours. It was just that she had always been close to her father, especially after her mother’s death. She didn’t want to lie to him.

  “How about you tell me what you’ve really been up to and I’ll help you find a suitable cover?”

  Georgianna glanced up at Halden, her dismissive smile faltering. As much as she hated lying to her father, she hated keeping things from Halden even more. Halden had always been there and had always told her the truth, even when he had told her before their parents that he was in love with Nequiel. She didn’t want to lie to him, but she couldn’t bring herself to tell him that she was risking her neck after what had happened to his partner. Maybe Keiran had been right after all: she should have thought of her family before this all became so messy.

  “I wasn’t lying, Hal,” Georgianna insisted slowly. “I’ve had work in the Rion, and Keinah is too big to cover the Way much anymore, so I’m covering her shifts.”

  Halden looked suspicious and she knew he was trying to sniff the lies out. However, having not been underground except in the main lines, there was no way for him to know. He frowned, weighing the hide in his hand, giving the foal another distracted pat on the neck.

  “Jaid also had a thing,” Georgianna added quickly. “Si got caught out in the heat. Three days. He was pretty bad, so she’s been looking after him.”

  Halden’s suspicion faltered as he let the hide hang by his side. He frowned, keeping his gaze on his feet.

  “That’s bad. Is he doing okay?”

  Georgianna shrugged. Si had improved since his return, but Jaid had been right, he wasn’t the same man who came to check if she wanted dinner. The glimmer in his eyes had faded and the transformation was taking its toll on Jaid too. She was more serious, less likely to share a joke. Her husband had gone, and in some ways, had taken a part of her with it.

  “It’ll get better,” Halden said. “Everything else is good though?”

  She probably shouldn’t, not before the escape when so much could still go wrong, but Halden had been friends with Alec, the two had grown up together. Landon was a younger brother to Halden almost as much as Alec. She felt it was wrong to keep that news from him.

  “Halden… I found out that, uh…”

  “Out with it Gianna,” he chastised. “I promise it won’t be nearly as awkward as telling me you’d had sex.”

  Georgianna grimaced, but was grateful for the intervention. He was right, there was no reason this should be awkward. She had told Halden far worse things. As he’d rightly pointed out, telling him that she had lost her virginity had been far more daunting a conversation.

  “You know how I told you… I said about Nyah?”

  Nodding, he gazed at her suspiciously. She looked down at her feet, scuffing her toe into the dry grass.

  “I took the note into the compound.”

  Halden looked back at her, silent. Georgianna wondered, if like Keiran, he had expected it of her all along.

  “She had been sold, so I… I went to the house of the Adveni…”

  “Oh, Gianna, what were you…”

  “Landon was there.”

  He frowned, but didn’t reply, his accusation dead in the air. Well, it was pretty much as she had expected. She had not exactly been a gaggle of words at the news either.

  “He’s a drysta.”

  “You’re sure it was him? You saw him?”

  She shook her head.

  “Then Gianna, you can’t be…”

  “I heard his name. There is no one else, Halden.”

  He didn’t answer her. He rubbed his hand over the foal’s head and down its neck. Georgianna leaned forward, resting her chin on her knees.

  “What were you even doing there?”

  She watched the foal instead of her brother. She couldn’t bring herself to look him in the eye as she lied.

  “I was checking on Nyah, nothing more.”

  “Taye made you?”

  Halden’s voice was restrained, but she could hear the anger in his tone, the accusation. She shook her head.

  “He wasn’t there.”

  “Then who, Gianna? Who are you doing this for?”

  “For myself, Halden. I want to make sure that she is safe.”

  “She’s a drysta! She isn’t safe and you know it, so why go?” he demanded. “If you were caught…”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “That isn’t the point.”

  Halden sighed. With his free hand, he reached up, scratching behind his ear, his gaze settled on something far more distant than his sister or the open doorway. Picking at a blade of grass from between her feet, Georgianna began pulling it into ever thinner strips.

  “I don’t want to make you worry,” she said.

  “You make me worry every time you step into those tunnels.”

  She watched him as he pulled the hide from the foal. He tipped the hide, feeling the weight.

  “You know why I do that.”

  “Sometimes I wonder.”

  “About?”

  “Whether if it is more about that man you’re seeing than it is about the work. Wanting to be close to him.”

  “What? No, I was there long before I met him.”

  “I never said you didn’t begin it with the best intentions,” Halden assured her. “But you could do the same work out here.”

  “I know, but…”

  “You don’t need to associate with the Belsa, Gianna, you choose to,” he argued. “This new man, Keiran? He is more than a friend, isn’t he?”

  Georgianna sat up straight again, stretching her legs out in front of her.

  “No,” she answered, regretting it immediately. “I’m not sure.”

  She didn’t know where the regret came from. It had lodged itself in her chest and refused to budge. Knowing that Landon was suffering had thrown her emotions into the air. She felt a responsibility to help the boy after she’d been so entangled with his brother. However, with it came guilt telling her that she shouldn’t feel so strongly about helping Landon while she was with Keiran. Had Alec been nothing more than a friend like she had always said he was, like she had always told herself he was, she wouldn’t have felt this way. She’d still not dared tell Keiran about her connection to the other Belsa, which only fuelled the guilt more.

  The foal whinnied and skittered slightly on its bandy legs. Halden brought the hide back down, offering it to the young animal. It took it cautiously, gaining in confidence when it once again discovered the sustenance inside.

  “You say you’re not sure if he’s a friend, but what if he ended it? Right now, said he couldn’t see you anymore because he’d found someone else.”

  A spasm clenched in her stomach, and staring at the grass, Georgianna couldn’t answer him.

  “Would you just move on to a new guy, or would you maybe be upset about it because you, oh, I don’t know… like him?”

  Georgianna frowned and kept her gaze fixed as far from Halden as she could manage without turning away like a stubborn child. She wasn’t ready to make commitments, but Halden was right in some respects. She would be upset if Keiran suddenly cut all ties. What was worse, as she sat there, trying to think of something to say, she realised that it wasn’t the physical stuff that she would miss the most, it was everything else.

  Alec had never been like that. While Liliah had once accused Keiran of using her for his own benefit, Georgianna knew that Alec had been far the worse offender. He had cared about her, she knew that, but her uses to him had o
utweighed the things he had given her. As she thought about it, even their arguments seemed more about his own loss than her safety. He had lost his wife to the Adveni, and no matter what Georgianna had done, he would never have let go of that.

  “I should go,” Georgianna mumbled, getting to her feet.

  Halden reached out and took her hand.

  “Gianna,” he murmured. “Come on, don’t…”

  “No, it’s… I need to look for a herber for Jake. He’s good and he can learn.”

  Raising an eyebrow, Halden gazed at her. He shook his head. Georgianna wrapped her arms around him in a brief, tight hug.

  “Honestly, we’re fine. I’m fine. I’ll… I’ll think about what you said.”

  Think about it, she wouldn’t stop thinking about it.

  “Well, come back after you’re done. I’ll keep my mouth shut,” he said, brushing her hair back behind her ear.

  She nodded, giving him a small smile before she turned and went back into the house to collect her bag and set out to find someone who would willingly go down into the tunnels to train Jacob.

  29 Keep Him Dead

  “I should go, yep, definitely should go.”

  Georgianna leapt up off the bed, the Way notes slipping from her knees and littering the floor. Jumping over them and colliding with one of the metal drawers she’d not completely closed, she yelped, pain shooting through her hip. Pushing the heel of her hand against her throbbing flesh, she reached for Si’s elbow, gently urging him to stay put.

  “We talked about this, Si,” she breathed, another gasp as she eased her hand over the curve of her hip. “Jaid wants you to stay with me for a while.”

  A damp lock of hair slapped across Si’s nose as he shook his head. Pulling his arm out of her grasp, he took a step away from her towards the open door of the tunnel car. He wrinkled his nose and snorted, dislodging the hair.

  “No, no, need to get going,” he insisted. “Counting on me, expecting me.”

  He took another step and picked up one of the cantinas from the shelves along the wall, wrapping both hands around it and clutching it to his chest.

  “Need to take water… long walk. Jaid… Jaid says long walks need water.”

  Georgianna watched him cautiously, sidestepping until she could stand in front of the open door, a barrier to dissuade Si. He’d been much better once the pain of his wounds had subsided, but they’d been right about the damage the prolonged heat had done to his mind. Of the few times she had seen him, Jaid bringing him to the Way when she was on shift, he seemed agitated and confused, but thankfully, not often violent.

  “Where do you need to go, Si?” she asked. “Wouldn’t you rather stay with me?”

  “Can’t.” He clutched the cantina tighter to his chest. “Need to check on him, need to make sure. My job.”

  Shifting her weight from one foot to the other, Georgianna pursed her lips, her eyes narrowing.

  “Your job? Is this the job Beck gave you?”

  His gaze finally settled, staring at the door as he nodded. His finger drew around the mouth of the cantina, feeling the screw threads on the cap.

  “What was the job? Maybe I can help?” she asked hopefully.

  He shook his head violently, locks of hair slapping across his face. She stepped back, balancing on the lip of the doorway.

  “No help. No one to know,” Si muttered. “My job. Casey trusting me to keep him dead.”

  Georgianna lifted her foot to step back, her boot finding nothing but air beneath it as she teetered back in the open doorway. She squealed, catching Si’s attention, and grabbed the edge of the doorway, clinging on as she righted herself back inside the car. Si watched her. His finger paused in its progression around the rim, his brow raised.

  “Keep him dead?” She was confused. “Beck is alive, Si.”

  “I know that!” he snapped before turning away, trampling the notes on the floor with his dusty boots. He lifted the cantina on his chest, resting his chin against the rim of the mouth. “Marshalls remain marshalls, dreta remain dead.”

  “Dreta?”

  The breath of a word slipped through her lips. She stared at Si. Her mind raced around Si’s words. Memories fell into place. She blinked, wondering how she had missed something so obvious.

  “It was Cartwright,” she whispered. “Your job, it was Cartwright!”

  Si spun on his heel. The cantina slipped from his fingers. In an instant he was before her, fingers grasping her wrists.

  “You…” he sneered.

  Georgianna wrenched her hands back. Yet he tightened his grip, tugging her towards him.

  “Si, you’re hurting me!”

  “You sold me out!” he snarled, ignoring her pleas.

  Georgianna trembled in his grasp. She tugged away from him fruitlessly, shaking her head.

  “No. No, Si, I didn’t,” she pleaded. “I heard about Landon the other day. Please, Si, let go.”

  His grip on her wrists faltered, a spasm of uncertainty, or confusion, that gave her the chance she needed. Tugging herself free, she overbalanced, landing with a thump on the floor. Her breathing was ragged. Tearing her gaze from Si’s, she glanced around the car, making sure that there was nothing within reach he could use as a weapon. As she looked back at him, she cradled her hand in her lap, rubbing her fingers against the sore skin where she knew bruises would appear.

  “Saw Alec?” he asked.

  Georgianna shook her head.

  “No, not Alec,” she corrected. “Landon, Si. Alec’s little brother. You remember, right?”

  Si glared at her, but remained silent.

  “There’s another drysta in the house with him. Her name is Nyah.”

  “No, no others,” Si rattled. “Only Alec dead.”

  Georgianna shifted her legs out from underneath her, moving herself into a more comfortable position. Between them, the papers lay scattered and crumpled on the floor.

  “Nyah was bought after you were found,” she said, her panic subsiding as Si slipped back to sit opposite her.

  He buried his head into his hands, hunching over his legs, and whined into his skin, rocking his body in a rhythmic bobbing. Tentatively, she reached out and laid her hand on his knee. Si froze, still as stone, but did not push her away.

  “You’re confused, Si. It wasn’t Alec you saw, it was Landon.”

  Si didn’t move, didn’t even breathe as Georgianna shifted a little closer.

  “He was your job? Watching out for him?”

  Finally, in a motion so small that she would have missed it had she not been staring at him so intently, Si nodded.

  “Be… Beck told you where he was, that he’d been captured, didn’t he?”

  “Safer,” Si breathed. “Stay dead, no one looks.”

  He lifted his head, peering at her through his splayed fingers.

  “No one helps.”

  Georgianna let out a timid breath, staring at her fingers against Si’s knee. She had taken a guess, but never actually thought she might be right, that Beck would have known about Landon.

  “Do you know his owner?”

  “Maarqyn,” Si breathed. “Maarqyn Guinnyr. Mean. Cruel. Vtensu.”

  She pulled her hand back from Si’s knee, her thumb coming to her lips where she chewed on the nail. Something wasn’t adding up. Si had been found the day after she’d seen Landon in the compound. Si had been missing for days; there was no way that he would know where Landon Cartwright had gone. Not unless someone knew before the sale that Maarqyn would buy the young drysta.

  Were there more? Belsa they believed dead who had been sold in secret? Had Si been checking on all of them, and the damage of the heat had merged them into one singular assignment? Georgianna just knew one thing for certain: Beck had lied to her about more than Landon Cartwright.

  30 Avoiding the Arrangement

  Since her conversation with Si, Georgianna hadn’t been able to get his revelations out of her head. She avoided the Belsa encampment as
much as she could. The moment Jaid had returned to take over her shift on the Way, Georgianna had excused herself, heading out into the camps. While her pride still smarted from Halden’s accusations, she figured that facing those feelings had to be better than confronting the Belsa marshall.

  She couldn’t understand why Beck would be so keen on keeping these people hidden. She’d been suspicious since he told her that he wouldn’t help in Landon’s escape from Maarqyn. Now she could only wonder how many other Belsa out there had been captured instead of killed, and how many of them Beck had kept secret.

  She hadn’t been able to get any more information out of Si, he was too confused and agitated by the time she tried to press him for more information. Georgianna knew that she needed more evidence before she approached one of the other Belsa about her suspicions, she couldn’t accuse Beck without proof. She realised that the only way she could do it was to wait until Landon was free. With Landon free, he would be able to tell the other Belsa what Beck had done: how Beck had left him with an Adveni to be tortured. Just a few more days, then all the lies would be out in the open.

  While Halden was home—those few moments between him returning from work and Georgianna disappearing to return to it—questions bubbled silently between them. Halden didn’t dare mention Keiran or Alec, not in front of their father, and Georgianna didn’t want to share her confusion. Instead, they avoided it, and avoided each other.

  Unfortunately, avoiding Halden didn’t do anything to wash his words from her head. She didn’t want her brother to see her as a child, only doing things that made her happy. However, the more she thought about it, the more difficult it became to dismiss his opinion as big-brother ramblings. Even Liliah had claimed that she only did things until they stopped feeling good, and while Georgianna wanted to argue, she wasn’t sure that her friend was wrong. She’d tried using the fact that she went into the compound, that she was helping Nyah and Landon, but in the end, those things made her feel good about herself. She was even letting others take the risk by not being the one to actually get Nyah and Landon from the house and remove their collars. She would be in the compound, safe and sound, feeling good about it all.

  What was worse though, as helping Nyah and Landon had good repercussions for other people as well, was that she’d not been able to stop thinking about what they had both said about Keiran. She didn’t want to admit it, but she did really like the man, more than she’d originally intended. She’d thought she could handle the no-strings, casual thing that they had going. However, more and more, she realised that she didn’t like knowing that Keiran was seeing other women when she wasn’t around, or wondering if he liked them more than her.

  She wasn’t ready for a joining ceremony, that was ridiculous, but maybe someday she would be. Hard as it was to imagine, she was suddenly very scared that when that day came, Keiran would be gone.

  As such, Georgianna had done the only thing she could think of that left her some semblance of control. She avoided him. She blamed it on avoiding Beck, she told herself that it was safer this way, but the hope constantly nagged at her that surely, if she didn’t see him, if she didn’t remember how well things worked between them, then it wouldn’t be as difficult to move on.

  So far, the plan had fallen flat on its face. Every time she let her mind wander, it went straight back to Keiran. Georgianna knew that she’d have to see him eventually, especially since their plan was set for the next day, but she didn’t want to have to have that conversation with him that ended in “I think it’s best that we don’t see each other anymore”. Before they had that conversation, she could at least pretend that everything was fine.

  Medics’ Way had been quiet, too quiet for Georgianna’s liking. She didn’t want to see people injured, but the lack of patients to check on or tend to was giving her far too much time to think, not only about Keiran, but of everything that could go wrong the following day. With each new scenario that came to mind, she came one step closer to backing out completely.

  “Hey, George!”

  Georgianna turned, her arms filled with bandages she’d been reorganising. Wrench was climbing into the car, a tyllenich rifle hung over his shoulder.

  “Hi Wrench, how’s things?”

  Wrench dropped himself heavily onto one of the makeshift beds, adjusting the tyllenich by his side.

  “Good. Nervous about tomorrow.”

  She wasn’t sure whether it was a statement of his nerves or a question about hers so she simply nodded.

  “Anyway, I just came to get some more of that paste.”

  “The hyliha.” She nodded.

  Moving to one of the lined crates, she dumped the bandages into it without bothering to organise them. She picked up the box with the hyliha powder in it, and taking one of the small cloth bags, poured in a generous amount.

  “You just need to add a little cold water,” she explained, tying the strings from the bag around it and grabbing the first dressing her hand found.

  Wrench nodded, placing the bag and dressing in a jacket pocket. Giving her a grateful wink, he got to his feet.

  “We’re all ready for tomorrow.”

  “You found another absorber?” Georgianna’s voice filled with excitement and relief. Of the things Beck had refused to help them with, the second absorber had proved the most difficult to find.

  Grimacing, Wrench shook his head.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “The charge might last enough for two collars,” Wrench explained. “They’re designed for copaqs, which give off a stronger charge.”

  “It might last?”

  Wrench shrugged.

  “Can’t promise. Only thing we can do, I guess, is hope for luck.”

  Georgianna nodded, but it didn’t ease her fears in the slightest. Wrench moved towards the door, stopping just as he was about to jump out, and glanced back.

  “See you when it’s done, George,” he said with a cheerful smile.

  Once Wrench had disappeared down the tunnel, Georgianna went back to her counting. However, the task was pointless, as she never got all the way through the box before she became distracted by her thoughts, and lost count. In the end, she gave up and simply organised them by size, which she could do without distraction.

  The afternoon was slow going. Jaid was meant to take over at sundown, but Georgianna was considering telling her not to bother. After all, Georgianna would need to be here in the morning because it was easier to get to the compound from the tunnels than the camps. She didn’t have a shift in the Rion district, and didn’t exactly want to go crawling into Keiran’s shack. However, knowing that she needed sleep if she was going to be alert the next morning, Georgianna decided that she would simply sleep at the back of the train car with Jacob.

  The young man was practically healed. While he still had his scars and anxiety levels to rival a rabbit being chased by coyotes, he was physically fit enough to leave Medics’ Way. The problem was that he didn’t have anywhere else to go. So, instead of kicking him out, Jaid had agreed to let him stay as long as he needed, on the condition he pulled his weight.

  She wasn’t sure what kind of weight that might be: he was still rather skinny and didn’t like touching other people. But as it turned out, he was good at inventory and slowly coming out with more and more information from his training as a herber. Georgianna had yet to find anyone who would take him on. Funnily enough, it wasn’t that she couldn’t match the price they were asking, or that they didn’t want an escaped drysta (she had left that part out for now), but just that they didn’t have the necessary supplies to do a good job. Despite her disappointment, she was impressed with their honesty. Some people would just have made the deal anyway, but the ones she’d asked seemed like nice people.

  She hadn’t yet asked Liliah. Georgianna trusted her friend to see that Jacob would be expertly trained, but she hadn’t wanted to put that sort of pressure on her. Liliah would immediately know how Georgianna knew the young man,
and once that knowledge was there between them, Liliah would have no say in whether she even wanted a secret like that.

  “You avoiding me, George?”

  Georgianna jumped. She glanced over and gave Keiran an anxious smile.

  “No, just busy, you know.”

  He pulled himself up into the train car, an amused smile on his lips. She was sure that he didn’t believe her. Even as busy as Georgianna usually was, she found time to see him. In fact, it was usually when she was busiest that she saw Keiran the most, because his shack was rather conveniently located.

  “Yeah, those stocks look riveting.”

  Keiran’s tongue darted out to wet his lips. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other and reached up to scratch her ear. She’d never thought it would be so difficult to have a conversation with Keiran, and yet here she was, with no idea what to say.

  “Just nervous, I guess,” she finally mumbled. “About tomorrow.”

  He smiled, shifting the strap of his weapon from his shoulder and placing the device down on the bed. Moving over to her, he took hold of her arms.

  “We’ve got everything covered,” he bent a little to look at her properly. “You just need to do your thing at the compound then meet us when it’s all done.”

  She nodded, avoiding his gaze. Yet with him this close, she could see his face in her peripheral vision everywhere she looked, which only made trying to evade the awkward conversation worse. At the end of it all, she did want to keep seeing him.

  Leaning forward, Keiran placed a gentle kiss against her cheek, squeezing her arms as he stepped back again. Unlike usually, when Georgianna would have leaned into him, this time, she found herself moving away. She couldn’t do this; she couldn’t keep pretending that she was fine with casual when she wasn’t. It was only making things more confusing.

  “Are you coming to mine tonight?”

  She frowned and chewed on the inside of her cheek.

  “I don’t know.” She tried to think of a reasonable way out of it and couldn’t. “It’s not a good idea.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know, I just…”

  Georgianna looked away. She went and sat on the bed, tracing her fingers carefully along the barrel of the gun he’d put down.

  “What’s going on with you? I’ve not seen you for days and now you’re being all weird.”

  Weird was hardly the word she’d give to it. She’d maybe been a little more emotional, but seeing as Keiran had his wonderful reputation with women, surely this wasn’t the first time a girl had realised she wasn’t happy keeping their relationship at just sex.

  “I dunno, I’ve just been thinking and… and my brother said some things…”

  “Your brother, huh?” He nodded in understanding as he took a seat next to her. “So, am I about to get my face beaten in or do I need to provide a grass symbol before the week is out?”

  Georgianna glanced at him. So, this definitely wasn’t the first time someone had had an issue with the just-sex arrangement. Only maybe it hadn’t been the girl he’d been sleeping with, but her family that had the problem.

  “I think he’s more likely to beat me up than you.”

  Keiran whistled.

  “Well, that’s a relief!” He mockingly brushed the back of his hand against his forehead. “Dunno what I’d do if I had to go up against a horse rearer.”

  Georgianna smacked his arm.

  “This isn’t funny!”

  Keiran sighed. Moving a little closer to her, he slung his arm carelessly around her shoulder. Georgianna wanted to be angry at him for mocking her brother. Halden was only trying to look out for her. However, she was almost impressed that Keiran remembered what he did.

  “Okay, so what did your brother say?”

  She scraped her front teeth over her bottom lip as she glanced at him and away. If she was going to tell him and sound like an idiot, she might as well get it over with.

  “He accused me of liking you,” she mumbled.

  Keiran gave her a look of mortified shock.

  “How dare he?” he mocked. Georgianna rolled her eyes. He could at least try to be serious.

  “He doesn’t think you and I just having fun is…” she paused, trying to think of the right words. “He thinks I’m kidding myself. He said I was being childish because I thought you and I just having fun would work… that I should stop being with guys for fun, and instead think about the future.”

  Keiran looked at her, eyes narrowed, and hummed out his thoughts for a moment.

  “So he wants the grass symbol,” he answered.

  “No,” Georgianna defended quickly. “He just thinks that I should… I don’t know, it’s ridiculous. But he’s wormed in and… and I don’t know.”

  Keiran reached out and hooked his finger underneath Georgianna’s chin, turning her to look at him.

  “You’re not happy with things the way they are now?”

  When he put it like that, she didn’t know what to say. She loved how things were now between them. Not right this second, because it was awkward and embarrassing, but in the more general sense, yes, she did like what they had. She just wasn’t sure she liked that he also had the same thing with other women.

  “No,” she mumbled before her eyes widened in panic. “I mean, yes, I do. I like how things are between you and me, but…”

  “But…”

  She looked down at her knees.

  “I think I want it to be just you and me,” she murmured. “I want to…”

  “You want to be together, properly,” he finished.

  Finally looking up at him, she shrugged a little. Clasping her hands tightly in her lap, trying to stop herself from fidgeting, she found herself drumming her fingers nervously against the backs of her hands.

  “I… maybe.”

  Keiran nodded slowly. He stared past her, his tongue darting across his lips again. She held her breath, wondering whether he was about to tell her that this wasn’t what he wanted, that he couldn’t be just with her. Only, when he looked back at her, he smiled and leaned forward, pressing a kiss against her lips.

  “Look, we’ve got a whole lot of shit to deal with tomorrow,” he said as he brushed a lock of wavy blonde hair back from her face. “How about, you stay at my place tonight, we free some dreta tomorrow, and then we’ll discuss what this relationship stuff entails?”

  Georgianna’s mouth dropped open. Had he just agreed to it? He hadn’t walked out. He hadn’t told her that he wasn’t interested. He wanted to talk about it. Staring at him blankly, she blinked and shook her head.

  “Yeah, yeah that sounds good.” She smiled.

  “Good,” he answered. “And tell your brother that who you have sex with is not a conversation to have with siblings!”

  He leaned forward, planting another soft kiss on her. This time, instead of being worried, instead of leaning away, Georgianna felt her lips smiling against his. She leaned into him until he pulled back.

  “I’ll see you in a bit, alright?”

  She nodded, not moving from her place on the bed for a few minutes, even after Keiran had left, the sound of his boots against the stones fading through the echoing tunnels. That hadn’t gone nearly as badly as she’d thought it would. Oddly enough, it made her feel a little better about the next day too. She knew where she stood, and by the end of the next day, she would have two of her friends standing there with her, almost free.

  31 Back Before Sunset

  When Georgianna awoke that morning, it was with a knot in the pit of her stomach. She didn’t think she should really be worried, they had everything planned, but knowing that just one thing going wrong could mean the whole plan falling apart, she had tossed and turned through nightmares until Keiran woke her. Each time she apologised and slowly fell back to sleep, only to be revisited by the same horror of seeing Keiran and Wrench up on the execution block in Javeknell Square, of Landon and Nyah being killed as Wrench tried to remove the collars from around
their necks, of Taye being dragged off to Lyndbury by Maarqyn and other faceless Adveni.

  It was still early when Georgianna gave up trying to sleep, far too early to actually get out of bed, but the knot in her stomach would not let her drift off again. Instead, she lay motionless against Keiran’s body, listening to his breathing and watching the rise and fall of his chest beneath her hand through the shadows.

  By the time Keiran finally woke, she had not only suffered her nightmares, but each scenario had played itself through her conscious mind a dozen times. So Keiran’s first act of the day was not to get dressed, but to talk Georgianna through the plan again so that she could see how they would get out of it if something were to go wrong.

  Georgianna was set to visit the compound late in the morning, before sun-high. At sun-high, Nyah and Landon would be ready to run. Taye and Keiran had put aside their sniping at each other long enough to figure out the quietest route through the dwelling quarter, which would also lead them closest to Oppression City where Wrench would be waiting.

  Once in Oppression City with Wrench, Keiran and Taye would keep a look out while Wrench removed the collars. Only when that was done would they move onto the new location at the southern edge of the district, where they would wait for Georgianna.

  Georgianna didn’t particularly like the fact that Nyah and Landon would have to travel so far with the collars still attached, nor did she like that they would be waiting for her in the same district the collars would give off as their last location. However, it was too late to change the plan now.

  Taye banged on the wall of the shack not ten minutes before they had to leave. When he entered, it looked like he’d not slept a minute in days, yet he seemed alert and ready to go. Georgianna could only imagine he’d been pacing down in the Carae for hours, waiting until a decent time when he’d be able to come up to meet them.

  “You ready?” he asked, looking at Keiran as he began wringing his hands, his heel bouncing against the ground.

  Keiran nodded, tugging on his second boot and reaching out, grasped the strap of Georgianna’s bag to hand to her. Keiran had already tucked two small guns into his belt, where they were covered by his dark shirt. Georgianna wished that he was taking the tyllenich with him, but it would be almost impossible to hide and a coat in the mid-heat weather would only raise suspicion.

  Georgianna slung her bag over her shoulder, giving Taye a quick, tight hug before turning to Keiran.

  “You…”

  “No,” he interrupted. “None of that ‘be careful’ crap.”

  She gazed at him in surprise. He took her face in his hands, thumbs brushing gentle, rhythmic strokes across her skin.

  “I’ll see you later.” he told her, with a self-assured nod.

  He tipped her head up, a soft kiss that felt almost innocent as he looked down at her, his forehead against hers.

  “Go save some buryd guy’s life.”

  Georgianna nodded against him, squeezing his waist in her fingers for a moment. Then she left, not daring to look back.

  Every step of the walk sounded like the beating of hooves in the migration, pounding and echoing through the tunnels. She kept her gaze on her feet, trying to clear her mind from what was going to be happening in the city. She needed to appear normal, couldn’t give anything away to the guards. If she showed up acting suspiciously, they’d know for certain that something was going on. The problem was, the harder she tried to think about other things, the more the plan filtered into her mind. As she walked, her only salvation became that the Adveni had no mind-reading technology, at least, not that she knew of.

  When the sun finally blinded her as she stepped out of the tunnels, she shielded her face and took a deep breath. This was it. Keiran and Taye would be setting off. Wrench would be in the Oprust district making sure the coast was clear, and that he had everything set up for the cinystalq removal. Nyah and Landon were probably trying to act normally, just as she was, so nobody would suspect what was about to happen.

  The compound looked more ominous than ever, a mass of dark stone against the bright backdrop of mid-heat. With every step Georgianna took towards it, her trepidation grew until she had to curl her hands into tight fists just to stop them shaking. She had to stop; she had to think about other things.

  Pausing just before the gates, she closed her eyes, focusing on the first thing that came to mind. Oddly, though she’d figured her thoughts would jump to Keiran and their conversations in the thick of the night-time, the only face that came to her was that of her father. She took a deep breath. She had to calm down because her father needed her. Her brother and Braedon needed her to be flawless.

  She stepped through the gates, but before she’d gone five steps, Edtroka appeared out of the guard station.

  “Med,” he greeted with a formal nod.

  “Morning,” Georgianna smiled forcefully. “How’s it going?”

  His jaw tightened a little and he shrugged.

  “There was a fight last night,” he explained emotionlessly. “We have three injured.”

  She nodded, gazing up at Edtroka with narrowed eyes. Maybe he was just in a bad mood because of the fight, not that he’d have to do anything about it. Guards didn’t intervene in fights within the block. They simply let it play out until the Veniche inside either broke it up themselves or one of them ended up dead. It wasn’t like there weren’t a hundred more Veniche to take their place. She grimaced, unable to believe she’d even had the thought.

  “Well, I should get in there then,” she agreed.

  Following him down the path and through the heavy doors into the compound, she placed her bag on the table and let Edtroka search through it. She submitted to the usual hand check to see if she was carrying anything on her and even gave Edtroka a smile as if hoping to cheer him up. Throughout the whole ritual, Edtroka did not say a word.

  “Call when you want letting out,” he finally told her as he pushed the block door open.

  Georgianna nodded, she knew the routine, yet he insisted on telling her every time she visited. Stepping into the block, she looked around curiously for the men who had been injured. People were milling about in the free space within the block. Others, as she walked past, remained seated in their cells. All the cell doors were open, as they usually were, but she supposed some people just felt more comfortable in their own small space.

  “Hey,” she said to a passing man. “You know where the injured guys are from the fight?”

  The man glanced over his shoulder and pointed down the row of cells. Thanking him, she patted his shoulder before moving on. Walking down the length of the block, she found one of the men in a cell, looking like he was in quite a bit of pain.

  “Hey, you okay?” Georgianna asked. “It’s uh, it’s Geiy, right?”

  Geiy nodded, not opening his eyes until she was stood in front of him. Groaning in relief, he moved a bloody hand from his leg where a shard of metal was sticking out of the flesh.

  She tried to keep her face impassive at the sight of the metal protruding from Geiy’s leg. She knew from experience that if she let on how bad the injury was, the patient would only become more scared than they undoubtedly were already.

  “Geiy, I’m going to be right back, but I need to check on the others, okay?”

  He grimaced and nodded, returning his hand to the wound, holding the skin as close together as he could.

  As it turned out, Geiy’s injury was the most urgent so she returned to him quickly. One of the other men had little more than bruises, and the other was going to lose his thumb no matter what she did.

  Geiy’s injury was mostly superficial. The metal hadn’t gone nearly as deep as she’d thought and hadn’t hit any important arteries. She cleaned out the wound, stitched it up, and gave him two pills, one to stave off infection and one for the pain. It would be difficult for Geiy to keep the wound as clean as Georgianna would have liked, but the Adveni medication would hopefully hold off infection long enough for it to
heal a little.

  She went to the unlucky man who would lose his thumb next. It was hanging on by so little skin that Georgianna had no choice but to cut it all the way and sew the wound closed over the stump. He was passed out by the time she’d finished, even though she’d given him a pill for the pain at the beginning. Luckily, he had a friend in the cell with him, who promised to look after him and give him the antibiotic when he awoke.

  It was as Georgianna was smearing salve onto the third man’s face, the dark bruises forming under his eye and along his jaw, that she heard the conversation going on in the next cell. For a few minutes, she paid it little heed, but with nothing but the sound of her patient’s breathing to listen to, the words drifted innocently through the cell and into her consciousness.

  “That’s what I heard,” a man was saying. “The guards are all riled up about it.”

  “Yeah, you heard. From who?” a woman asked. “Who tells you anything, Owain?”

  “Jurou. He was by the door while they were talking about it,” Owain replied.

  Georgianna gave her patient a smile and a roll of her eyes as she gathered up another two fingers of salve, reaching towards his face.

  “What do the Vtensu care about a drysta escape? Just more fuel for the fire,” the woman replied cynically. “Anyone who thinks they can get out is deluded.”

  “You don’t get it, Nori,” Owain insisted. “It’s that girl, the blonde they sold not long ago and some other guy. Apparently the owner is some big shot.”

  Georgianna’s fingers froze, not two millimetres from the man’s face, her heart giving one resounding thump before it stopped dead. She could hear the huff as all her breath left her body, her legs trembling against the flimsy matt on the bed.

  Nyah.

  “Well, if it’s true, she’ll be back here by sunset,” Nori answered.

  Not two moments later, the woman called Nori passed in front of the cell, not even glancing in to see Georgianna frozen in shock. The Adveni knew. They knew that there was to be an attempt to get Nyah and Landon out. Georgianna swallowed the lump in her throat. She’d forgotten where she was, forgotten what she was doing until the bruised man clicked his fingers in front of her face.

  She shook her head quickly, taking a deep breath as she smoothed the salve haphazardly onto the bruises and rubbed the residue off onto the side of her leg.

  “You alright there, Med?” he asked.

  How could they have known? There had probably been more than one blonde sold from the drysta yard, but it was too much of a coincidence that they would be escaping today. It had to be Nyah. Georgianna nodded, glancing at her patient and attempting a smile. It came out more like a grimace and she quickly grabbed up her bag.

  “You’re all done. I’ve got to go!”

  She was already half-running through the cell block as she dug the tsentyl from her bag and pressed her finger and thumb to opposite sides of the cube, sending the signal so that a guard would let her out of the block.

  It took Edtroka a few minutes to reach the door and unlock it, something that Georgianna didn’t usually notice. Tapping her foot impatiently as she wrung her hands together in front of her body, she was barely able to force the reassuring smile onto her face as the thick metal door opened with a resounding scrape. Perhaps if she hurried, she would be able to get to Keiran and Taye in time. If she ran north from the compound towards the Adveni quarters, not returning to the tunnels, she might be able to catch them before Nyah and Landon left the house. If they couldn’t see their back-up, surely they wouldn’t run.

  Submitting to the search was torture, trying to stand still and not look like she was screaming obscenities in her head. She had to get back, she had to warn them. She didn’t know how an Adveni had found out about the escape and she didn’t care: she just needed to make sure that they weren’t caught.

  By the time she stepped out of the compound and into the bright sunshine, it was already past sun-high. Not by a lot, but it was definitely too late to call off the escape. They would already be on the move, Nyah and Landon would have already made a run for it. That was, if they hadn’t been caught already, the moment they stepped out of the house.

  With the fear that her friends were already on their way to the compound burning through her body, she couldn’t wait until she reached the tunnels before breaking into a run.

  32 Running into Oppression

  Her sides were in a stitch, the muscles in her legs beginning to burn as Georgianna sprinted through the tunnel back towards the main line. The rumour she’d heard in the compound had set her mind racing. Not that what she had heard between the two prisoners could really be considered a rumour. There was far too much truth to it, too much information already known. It was no hunch the Adveni guards had—they knew about the escape. They knew who was escaping, which could mean they also knew who was involved.

  The tunnel travelled underneath the expanse of open ground between the city limits and the compound, and then the eastern side of the city. It ran directly beneath one of the broader streets, where a number of large Adveni buildings had been erected, holding everything from shops to military training facilities. Javeknell Square, where it ended, formed the buffer between the Adveni districts and the Veniche, a place where rebels and criminals were executed for their crimes. The Adveni made a spectacle of it, important men giving speeches about the importance of their laws. Georgianna avoided it as often as possible, as did many other Veniche, but she had seen enough to know that Javeknell Square was not where you ever wanted to end up.

  With her thoughts passing to and fro within her head, Georgianna considered checking the square for any news, but she quickly dismissed the idea. Prisoners were always taken to the compound before being executed, the Adveni taking their time in asking questions and getting all the information they could before they killed someone. Belsa, especially, were kept for days or weeks at a time before being taken to the square. If they were lucky, or if they cooperated, they were given the rope, a quick death. If they held out, however, or if they were especially important, like Beck would be, they were collared.

  Georgianna knew that it involved a cinystalq collar, but she’d been told that it was stronger, worse, specifically designed to make a death as long and as painful as possible. Georgianna had never seen anyone collared, but she had heard enough to know that its barbaric brutality was something she did not want to witness.

  Once she hit the main tunnel and was heading north, she had to stop running. The number of people walking along the line made it impossible to run unhindered. Georgianna walked as briskly as she could, weaving in and out amongst the people, dodging into any small gap she could find to overtake those who were happy to meander at a leisurely pace.

  She glanced over her shoulder continuously, chewing on her lip and the inside of her cheek as she scanned for Adveni around her. Agrah soldiers walked the lines regularly looking for those who would try to pick pockets or ambush people using the tunnels, or simply to get from one place to another, and Georgianna couldn’t risk running into one of them now, not when she could barely keep her breath on an even keel.

  The first tunnel heading west was quieter than the main line, and Georgianna broke into a run. She dodged around people as she ran, occasionally bumping shoulders and tripping over her own feet. Furious calls pursued her.

  The sun was blinding after the tunnels’ darkness, despite the tall, oppressive buildings. Once she stood outside one of the western tunnel entrances, sometimes known as the Camps Line, it took Georgianna a moment to gather her bearings before she set off down the street, still having to avoid the crush of bodies as she went.

  What if they were already caught? What if she was running into a trap? She knew that she shouldn’t be thinking the worst, but she couldn’t stop herself asking the questions over and over, not when people she cared about were involved. Nyah and Taye would be hauled to the compound. Keiran and Wrench strung up next to Landon as a warning to those who would
attempt the same.

  The building Keiran and Wrench had decided on for removing the collars was further north in the district, closer to the Adveni dwelling quarters so that they could reach it quickly and get the Adveni off their tail. However, Georgianna took a sharp turn east, running along the street that ran parallel to one of the tracks leading out towards the camps. It was still early, but maybe they’d made faster work of the tracking cinystalq collars. Perhaps she was overreacting, everything had gone according to the plan and though the Adveni knew of the escape attempt, they had acted too late to catch anybody.

  All along the street, Veniche were returning to work after being given a short time to get something for their lunch. Georgianna darted between them, slipping through large crowds in the hopes that the sheer number of people going about their daily business would stop anybody giving her a second look.

  The building she wanted was old and rundown, the Adveni not paying enough attention to the disused buildings in the Oprust district to attempt fixing them up. Georgianna slipped down the gap between the building and its neighbour. She brought her hand down to her hip, moving her bag further behind her.

  Coming to the thick wooden door in the middle of the side wall, Georgianna finally paused. With her hand on the handle, she took a few deep breaths, steadying her nerves. If Adveni were inside, if they knew enough of their plan to know whoever turned up here could be involved, she had to look like this were simply a mistake.

  Georgianna took another breath, holding it behind pursed lips as she turned the handle, pushing the door carefully open. Dust from the uneven wooden floors billowed and swirled at the burst of new air, catching in her nose and making her sneeze. Then she stepped into the shadows.

  33 Lies in the Dust

  Georgianna stepped into the bare room, pushing the door closed behind her and locking out the shards of light that had thrown themselves across the floor. The glass pane in the door was so thick with dust and grime that only sparse drops of reflected sunshine sprinkled across the wooden slats.

  Her heart was racing, thumping so fiercely in her chest that she could feel the pain of it below her breast, her breath coming in quick, shallow pants that she couldn’t control. The building stood far enough away from the main street so that the bustle of activity in the district was dulled to a deafening silence. Only the sound of her breath and her heart hammered through the void.

  She glanced behind her towards the door before she looked around the room again. From the looks of it, nobody had been here in months. She knew Keiran had been here before, he had to have been to have told her where to go, but the layer of dust on the floor looked as undisturbed as fresh freeze snow.

  She called in the quietest whisper:

  “Hello?”

  Slow, nervous steps led her across the bare room, further into the small, dark building. Everything was silent, nothing disturbed, and she could only hope that it meant the Adveni had at least not known about this meeting place. She was just about to turn around and head back towards the door when next to the wall, in the shadows, a movement caught her eye. It shifted, bright eyes gleaming at her through the dark, and after a moment of staring at her with a suspicious gaze, a body materialised as if out of the brickwork.

  She jumped almost a foot into the air, covering her mouth with both hands as a scream threatened to spill from her lips.

  “George?”

  Georgianna took a step backward, then another as the man remained in shadows, a dark silhouette framed by brick. The voice was so familiar, yet impossible. She’d not spoken to Landon in a long time, but he was almost a decade younger than the man she had heard. There was no way they could sound exactly the same.

  Another step and she would be at the door. She reached out, grasping through the gloom for the handle. They could see her, but they remained hidden in shadows. It was a trick, it had to be. Her fingertips hit the handle and she grabbed it, wrenching the door open. She turned away, foot already outside before he stepped towards her.

  “Georgie, wait!”

  “Don’t call me Georgie.”

  The words came before she had to think about them, ingrained into her through years of mockery. He refused to stop using the name, even though he knew how much she hated it. Sometimes she’d wondered if he only did it to annoy her. Other times, she didn’t even have to wonder.

  She didn’t dare move. She couldn’t even look at him. The lump in her throat exploded in a desperate breath of air. She wanted to scream, to run away or crumple into a ball, because there was no way in this world or the next that the man stepping towards her, staring right at her, could be Alec Cartwright.

  “Lec?”

  “Hi George.”

  His hand settled on her, his thumb making a small, gentle circle against her shoulder blade. Her entire body trembled as a sob fought to break free, and she finally turned her head.

  He was older. Seams of worry and work that had never been there before lined his face. His hair was longer, dishevelled and uneven. Either his clothes were too big, or he’d lost weight. Both his sleeves were rolled up past the elbows and across his tanned skin she could see the numerous marks of abuse in different stages of healing, many more than she had ever seen on one person, including Jacob Stone.

  Still, his eyes were the same beautiful, bright, heat-sky blue they always had been. His lips curved in the same lopsided smile.

  Georgianna took a hurried step backward, breaking the contact between them. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. They had never found his body, but after months of looking for him, months of asking questions of the right people, the Belsa had pronounced him dead. There was no way someone could vanish so completely.

  “Alec,” Georgianna breathed, her hand still pressed to her lips, fingers trembling against her skin. “You’re… You were…”

  “George…” he urged.

  Georgianna took another hurried step back away from the ghost of the man before her.

  “You were dead!”

  It came out in a hailstorm of confusion and emotion. Alec frowned, and Georgianna wanted to hit him for not being surprised by the news that everyone believed him dead, or at least not showing it if he was. How could he not have found anyone to tell them? How could he not have let them know? In two years, nobody had known he was alive. Georgianna wanted to scream at him that the Belsa had held a fucking funeral.

  “I’m not.”

  Georgianna wanted to punch him even more.

  “I… I thought it was Landon. I heard Cartwright, I assumed…”

  Alec stared down at her, a tightening in his lip, but he didn’t say anything.

  “Ho… How did you even get there?”

  “It was fast, George,” he explained, stopping a few feet from her. “One minute, I’m on a scout, the next…”

  “Ashoke?”

  “Dead,” Alec answered immediately. “And yes, he is, I saw it.”

  “You were never in the compound! I know. I looked for you! So how?”

  “I was sold privately. I was in the compound for all of an hour before I was marched out again, this collar already around my neck. Ash’ killed our owner’s brother. This was… payback.”

  He stepped forward again, but this time, she did not back away. He reached out, his fingers drifting down her arm in a cautious comfort. Georgianna let out a sob, and stepping forward, in a way she had not done in almost two and a half years, flung herself at him. She dropped her bag and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, every breath leaving her chest with a moaning sob of relief.

  “Suns, Lec,” she gasped into his shoulder. “I… I…”

  Alec’s arm wrapped tightly around her waist, holding her body up against his. Her toes only just reached the floor as she buried her face into the crook of his shoulder. His other hand came up, fingers lost in her hair as he held the back of her neck protectively.

  “It’s okay. George, it’s alright,” he murmured.

  Georgianna pulled back and
looked up at him, her eyes wet with tears. He was worried, that much was obvious, but he was smiling. Shaking her head, Georgianna let out a low laugh. She brushed the heel of her hand across her eyes, forcing herself to calm down. As the tears were brushed away from her lashes, she caught sight of his neck. There were scars that wove like spiderwebs across his skin, but no cinystalq collar.

  “I thought… I was…”

  Her gaze swept across his exposed skin, looking for fresh marks. There was a tan line where the collar had blocked the sun from reaching his skin, there were older scars, but nothing that could have been less than a few days old. However Wrench did it, he was good at removing a cinystalq collar without any damage to the wearer.

  “You panicked!” he answered knowingly.

  Georgianna nodded.

  “You knew I was involved?”

  “Nyah,” he nodded. “By the time she told me, it was too late to stop you.”

  Finally glancing away from him, Georgianna’s smile fell, her eyes narrowing in suspicion. Why had nobody else come out? Alec had confirmed that it was her, so why were they all still hiding? She turned herself full circle, peering at every corner in the hopes of seeing another of her friends hiding in the shadows. All too quickly, her gaze landed back on Alec, the only one with her in the small, dark building.

  “Where are the others?” she asked, looking at Alec curiously.

  Alec narrowed his eyes a little, his nostrils flaring as he looked down at her. It was almost as if he was surprised that she’d asked where the others were, like he hadn’t known that they were supposed to be here.

  “Keiran and I left to check that the path was clear while Wrench moved on to Nyah’s collar,” he answered slowly. “He told me to come here and check that there were no Adveni about.”

  All the relief Georgianna had felt at the sight of Alec was slowly slipping away. The warmth of excitement dripping from her body through her fingers and toes, leaving her body cold. While Alec was safe, the others weren’t. While they stood here hugging, the others could be in the middle of being dragged off to the compound.

  Georgianna pulled away, wrapping her arms around her stomach as she rushed forward through the small building to look out of the grimy window. Not even bothering to cover her hand with her sleeve, Georgianna smeared her hand through the dirt, clearing off a small space to peer through into the alley. Apart from the distant activity on the main street, it was deserted.

  “George, what’s going on?” he asked. “I thought this was the plan?”

  “No,” Georgianna muttered, not turning back from the window. “No, I was meant to meet all of you here.”

  Sighing, Georgianna closed her eyes, taking a breath before she turned back to Alec. He stared back at her, his eyes narrowed and his lips pressed into a thin line. Creases lined themselves between his brow as he stood resolutely still. Georgianna stepped away from the window, leaving a small beam of light shining through the patch she had cleaned away.

  “The Adveni know about the escape,” she brushed the dirt from her hands. “I heard people talking at the compound. They knew too much to be guesses.”

  Even through the darkness, Georgianna could see Alec’s eyes widen. Before Georgianna could even move, Alec had turned and was heading for the door. Georgianna leapt across the space towards him, reaching the door as his hand settled on the handle.

  “Alec…”

  “No, George, we have to go back!” he said sternly. “We…”

  “And get yourself thrown back into Lyndbury?” she demanded, a vicious force to her voice that she hadn’t meant to be there. “If I’m right, every Adveni in Adlai could know who you are, ‘Lec!”

  He glared down at her, and for a moment she could only think of the last time they’d spoken before his capture. They’d been angry at each other back then too, saying things they didn’t mean, or maybe did mean, but hadn’t intended to sound as bad as they had in the heat of the moment.

  She watched as he took a slow breath.

  “We have to go back for them,” he repeated. “Nyah has information.”

  “We’ll get them, but we have to…”

  He released the handle, grabbing Georgianna’s shoulders and turning her to face him. This was the part where he’d order her down, just like he’d done before, where he’d called her stupid and immature. She knew that face, she’d seen it too many times. Not just on Alec, but on her brother too.

  “You don’t get it!” he said slowly. “Nyah has information I need. Maarqyn helped build the pillars, George. I’ve spent two years getting that information and Nyah has some of it!”

  Georgianna’s mouth fell open, her eyes widening in surprise. With those words, she knew why Alec had never fought to be freed, why Beck had kept the secret that he was alive. Alec was gathering information for them, he had chosen this.

  “George, we can destroy them!”

  “You can’t!” Georgianna cried quickly. “They stop it… Without them…”

  “Without them, the Adveni wouldn’t dare set off the Mykahnol. It’s their last defence! Even they can’t stop it if the pillars aren’t there.”

  Georgianna didn’t know what to say. If Alec was right then destroying the pillars could make the Adveni too scared to even consider going through with their threat. They could build more, she assumed, but it would take time, time the Veniche could use to fight back.

  “Information or not, Alec, you have that information too, you can’t be…”

  Georgianna stopped, her jaw falling as she looked away from Alec, a thought that wouldn’t go away finally slotting into place.

  “Si knew,” she said.

  Alec looked quickly away from her, his mouth opening and closing but no words coming forth as he took a slow step back. Georgianna remembered that look, the way he would avoid eye contact when there was something he couldn’t say. Before his capture it had been things about his wife, details that he didn’t feel right sharing with someone he was sleeping with, like he was betraying her. Now, however, Georgianna glared back at him, knowing that he couldn’t tell her because someone had told him not to.

  “Si knew about the pillars, didn’t he?” Georgianna demanded. “He was meeting with you, he kept talking about ‘taking them down’.”

  Alec frowned, shaking his head quickly as if it didn’t matter. Right now, she supposed, it didn’t, but Georgianna still glared back at him, waiting for an answer. It all fit inside her head, it all made sense. Si hadn’t been able to tell Jaid where he was going because nobody knew that Alec was alive. Beck had wanted to know what Si had found out because it was information about the pillars and their destruction. Everything was fitting into place.

  “I was meeting with Si,” Alec murmured finally. “Passing him the information I gathered from Maarqyn. The last time we met, Maarqyn had others in the house, they heard us. They chased him and I… I have no idea what happened.”

  “Si was left out in the sun for three days,” Georgianna answered. “Jaid got him back to the tunnels, but he’s not the same.”

  Alec groaned under his breath and reached up, rubbing his hand across the back of his neck. Georgianna gritted her teeth.

  “So all this for some information?” she asked. “People knew you weren’t dead and they… your brother?”

  “He doesn’t know.”

  “He was captured!”

  Alec had been a master at hiding his emotions, even when they were children, but nothing could hide the pain in his face now. His lips parted, as if he was about to speak, but there was nothing.

  Stepping back, Georgianna looked down at her boots and the imprints they had made in the dust. Shaking her head, she wrapped her arms protectively around her stomach. Alec stared past her.

  “And Beck said he wouldn’t help.”

  “George, he has been helping!” he argued. “He sent Si to meet with me.”

  “No,” she corrected. “He wouldn’t help us get you out. I asked him. It was before I knew a
bout you, but I said Maarqyn’s name. So he knew there was a Belsa in that house. He said no.”

  “He couldn’t, not if we wanted this information.”

  Glancing up, Georgianna shook her head. This was ridiculous. They needed to make sure that the others were safe, not stand around discussing the lies of the Belsa commander.

  “I’ll go!” she finally nodded.

  Alec placed his hands on her shoulders.

  “No! We both…”

  “I’m less suspicious, Alec!” she argued sharply. “You’re an escaped drysta, not to mention a Belsa. I can go to see if they’re still there.”

  Alec didn’t like it, she could see it in his face. Even after all this time, she could see that he was trying to think of a way to argue, to tell her something that she would have to accept. Though Alec should have known already that Georgianna was stubborn enough not to listen to him.

  Finally, he released her shoulders and nodded.

  “If you’re not back within the hour, I’m coming after you.”

  Georgianna gave him a small smile as she returned his nod. She knew Alec would not stay put for long. He was too loyal, too caring. He wouldn’t be able to sit back and do nothing while other people got hurt. They were too similar to each other in the end.

  Pressing her hand to Alec’s jaw, Georgianna pushed herself up onto her toes and planted a gentle kiss against his cheek. She would be back soon, she was sure she would. Alec had calmed her nerves, if only a little. The others would be fine. She stepped back, giving him a final smile before pulling open the door and stepping out into the sunshine.

  34 The Preceding Void

  Stepping out of the alleyway and onto the street, she didn’t even notice it at first, the way her steps quickened the further she went. Through the Oprust markets, her gait lengthened, her stride more purposeful as she weaved through the crowds and made her way between the rows of stalls. Her gaze darted around constantly, cautious and suspicious. Any of the people in the street might be an Adveni. They could look so similar that if they tried, they would fit in perfectly. Dressed in the right clothes, any person in the market could have been posing as Veniche.

  There was one thing Georgianna still couldn’t work out, and that was how they had been discovered. She couldn’t think of anyone who had known the details that would betray them. Maybe Taye had told someone, one of his friends down in the Carae who would do anything for a price. Georgianna couldn’t imagine anyone in the Belsa would have sold them out, even if they’d overheard something, but maybe it was possible.

  Frowning as she turned the corner onto the correct street, Georgianna’s gaze swept through the crowd, looking for anyone who was watching the surroundings. All down the street the market was at its peak, lines of stalls covered in different wares, their vendors yelling the wares they were offering over the general craze of people wandering from one stall to the next. In amongst them, people with the odd item or two to sell set up in any space they could find, their calls to buy unable to match those of the experienced vendors. Through the crush of the market, it was impossible to spot anything out of the ordinary. Even if there were Adveni lying in wait, Georgianna wasn’t sure that she could have spotted them.

  She assumed Keiran had figured she wouldn’t have been listening when he, Taye, and Wrench were making their plans. Georgianna wasn’t involved, so she hadn’t needed to pay attention. She had anyway. So, continuing down the street, she was able to recognise the two-storey building that they’d talked about.

  Even as Georgianna approached, she could see the moss green sign with bronzed letters hanging in the window, but nobody ever slowed to take a look inside. The Adveni owner wanted too high a price for its use, and so the building had remained empty since it had been built. It was a perfect choice for what they’d needed. Once inside, nobody would bother them and it stood halfway down the busy market road, making it difficult to approach with a large force.

  Now, standing in front of the gilded wooden door, she was glad she had paid attention as she took one last glance around what she could see of the street. Pushing the door open, she slipped inside, closing the door softly behind her and stepping further in.

  One of the windows was broken, glass scattered over the floor. It was an inconspicuous place to meet, not to mention that it had a second floor, meaning that they could keep an eye out over the crowd on the street.

  She couldn’t hear anything but the bustle on the street outside. Through the broken window, voices and footsteps filtered in like they were right next to her. Georgianna moved through the building towards the back, taking hold of the rail nailed into the wall beside the stairs, and took the first step upward.

  The wood creaked beneath her foot, causing Georgianna to pause. What if they thought she were an Adveni and moved out? No, Taye wasn’t stupid. If Keiran and Alec had been sent out to look for Adveni, Taye would have been the one watching from the window. He would have seen her coming. He would know she wasn’t Adveni.

  Each step creaked loudly, the dust muffling her footsteps doing nothing to stop the groan of the disused wood under her weight. With every step, Georgianna paused, listening for sounds from upstairs. If there were anyone here, surely she would have heard it by now? Still, she heard nothing. There was nothing for it. She jogged up the rest of the steps, coming around the banister and onto the open second floor.

  Nobody.

  Taye, Nyah, Keiran and Wrench were all gone, already moved on to their meeting place, she could only hope. If not, they were on their way back to the compound. She couldn’t believe that. If they’d been taken, she could only imagine that the Adveni would have left people to see if anyone else showed up.

  Despite finding no one inside, Georgianna could already see that someone had been there. Smears and patches of wooden flooring gleamed in the sunlight through the dust, round marks where knees had rested, imprints of asses where they had sat perfectly still while Wrench had done his work. In a corner of one of the large glass windows, a gap had been rubbed clean to look down on the street below.

  As she moved further across the floor, her steps slow and cautious, Georgianna paused as a glint shone out from one of the corners. It was only for a moment, a reflection of something, but with the rest of the room so utterly bare, she crept forward to investigate.

  It wasn’t a weapon, she knew that much already. Not only would she have seen the bearer, it was too close to the ground. Stepping closer, Georgianna let out a relieved sigh as she realised what she was looking at.

  She crouched, slipping her fingers around the polished, dark metal, and lifted it from the floor. The cinystalq collar was lighter than she’d have thought. They always looked so heavy, so solid, but now, with wires hanging from the broken end, it was almost delicate.

  A second collar lay in the corner, its broken and mangled innards hanging out just like the first. They had to have escaped. The Adveni would have taken the two collars if they’d been caught. Nyah was free, just like Alec. She would be joined with Taye, and even if she had to live the rest of her life in hiding, she would be happy.

  Georgianna couldn’t quell the smile that had slowly spread across her lips. She would return to Alec, telling him that everything was okay, if the others hadn’t reached him already. They could take the information about the pillars to the Belsa and this would all be over.

  She wasn’t sure what it was that had her moving over towards the window, perhaps the chance of seeing one of them moving down the street, having only left moments before. Georgianna stepped closer to the glass, looking through the small patch that had been rubbed clean, probably by Taye or Keiran as they watched the proceedings, or Wrench while he’d been waiting for the others to arrive.

  Standing up on her toes to look down at the street, Georgianna swept her gaze over the crowd in the hopes of seeing one of them, but she couldn’t see anyone she recognised, not even the familiar colour of their hair or the shape of their stance.

  She was about to t
urn back. She would drop the collar back into the corner and return downstairs, slipping out onto the street where nobody would pay any attention to her. She would make her way through the people, back to the building where Alec was waiting. She could already picture it. Keiran would have arrived by that point, angry and worried that Georgianna hadn’t been where she was meant to be. Taye and Nyah wouldn’t be able to keep their hands from each other, the promised joining ring already on Nyah’s finger. Wrench would be badgering Alec for more information on the pillars, but Alec wouldn’t be listening, his face glowing in relief that she’d not done something stupid. She could already see it. It was so vivid, so real, that she was already leaving when she heard a cry of pain coming from the street below.

  Georgianna spun back to the window. She pressed her hand against the glass as she leaned closer to look. A woman was on the ground up the street. A space grew around her as she huddled over, clutching her neck.

  The space, empty of people, continued to spread. People ducked out of the way and pressed themselves against walls. Five bodies dressed in black armour tramped down the street. Georgianna turned to look the other way. Five more armoured men were moving in from the other end of the road. Their weapons were raised. They pushed people out of their way, never breaking their stride. The elite soldiers of the Tsevstakre were unmistakable and people knew to get out of their way. Whoever didn’t move was forced to. The soldiers’ unparalleled efficiency often ended in brutal results.

  Georgianna didn’t even think about the fact she still held one of the collars in her hand. She turned and sprinted across the second floor. She was halfway downstairs when she knew she would never be out of the building before they spotted her. The Tsevstakre were the best, hunters of the Adveni. There was no chance of getting past them.

  She turned and leaped back up the steps. Flinging herself across the room, she opened the door in the corner leading to the roof. All Adveni buildings had them. Georgianna had never really understood their use, but as she wrenched the door open, her foot on the bottom step, she heard it. Footsteps above her were coming across the roof. Edtroka had been right: Maarqyn was an important man, high enough in the Adveni ranks to order a full assault for the recapture of his escaped dreta. Two or three of the Tsevstakre would probably have done the job. They were trained well enough to make up for two or three Agrah soldiers. From what Georgianna had seen through the window, he had at least ten on the ground with more above her. It was a full scale attack under his orders.

  Her breath wouldn’t come. Her throat felt tight, a large lump slowly wedging itself into place as she retreated back into the centre of the room. There was nowhere to go. She was standing in a building with the broken cinystalq collars of two escaped dreta.

  She was trapped.

  35 The Lightning Commander

  Flinging the cinystalq collar across the room, Georgianna flung herself around the corner of the banister, jumping down the stairs two at a time. Already, through the window, she could see the path clearing towards the door, the Tsevstakre sweeping people away like columns of dust. She grasped the handle with both hands, wrenching it towards her. It was a risky move, but if there was the smallest chance she could duck into the crowd, she had to take it.

  Sunlight hit her, a smack in the face as she stepped out into the street. She took one step, then another. But the moment her hope tricked her into thinking that she’d made it away safely, a large hand clamped down on the back of her neck.

  Georgianna squealed, floundering to get a grip on the hand that held her as she was pulled out of the crowd. Before her, people were drawing back with horrified expressions on their faces. They quickly turned their backs, running like rabbits in search of their warrens when the hunters came through the brush. Only when they were far enough away did they turn to take another look, staring open-mouthed.

  Shaking her head, trying to wrench herself however she could from the grasp of the man who held her, Georgianna was suddenly set upon by two more Tsevstakre. Grabbing her arms, they held her splayed for the whole market to see.

  “Get inside!” a man ordered as he stepped forward. Waving his arm to the Tsevstakre on either side of the building, six men in black moved forward, filing through the door, weapons raised.

  The man giving the orders stepped towards them, coming to a stop in front of Georgianna and the men holding her. Georgianna gave another squeal as her head was pulled sharply back to look up at him. He was a giant of a man, the black armour only adding more girth to his already generous bulk. She wished that all that was hidden under the armour was fat and disused muscles, but she knew better. This man was nothing if not deadly: able to kill with a snap of his wrist.

  “I know you.” A slick grin slipped over his lips. “You were in the compound. A medic, if I am not mistaken.”

  She gritted her teeth. The man on her right gave her arm a painful twist, forcing her to cry out. Unable to turn her head from the grasp on her neck, Georgianna could only glare at the man before her.

  “You’re not,” she answered.

  “And what would a medic be doing here?”

  “I didn’t know the Adveni had claimed the Oprust as their territory,” Georgianna snapped back and was rewarded by another twist of her arm. “I was called.” Grimacing, she pushed her arm the other way, trying to relieve the tension. “I was told there were injured here.”

  The man looked at her for a moment, lips curved into an uneven smile. His gaze drifted quite deliberately from her head to her toes before he settled on her face again.

  “And you came without any supplies?” he asked in amusement. “You must be incredibly talented, Medic.”

  She gritted her teeth, even as the man on her left also decided to try convincing her to answer. She squeezed her eyes tightly closed as she tried not to make a noise that would give away her pain. She hadn’t even thought about the fact she’d left her bag with Alec back at the other building.

  “No one,” a voice said from behind her.

  The man’s attention turned to the Tsevstakre that had just come down the stairs. Reaching past Georgianna and the others, the Tsevstakre held out two cinystalq collars for the commander to take. He reached out and grasped them with agile fingers, turning each one over in his hands. His smirk faded, his eyes narrowing and his jaw tightening.

  “Take her inside,” he ordered darkly.

  Tugged backward by the neck, she struggled and tried to hit out, but was held fast by the three men. The effort was fruitless. She was pulled inside, the soldiers working together to move her back until the man holding her neck could step aside and she was pressed to the wall, pinning her in place against the warm brick.

  “Where did you find them?” the commander asked.

  “Upstairs, Volsonne,” one of the men answered. “There is nothing else.”

  The commander frowned and indicated the door. Georgianna glanced to the side and saw four more Tsevstakre coming down the stairs.

  “Check every street, every building in this district. I want them found,” he barked. “If you kill them, I’ll shoot you between the eyes.”

  Georgianna fixed her gaze on the floor, trying not to let them see the fear that passed through her expression. What if Taye and the others hadn’t reached Alec? What if he was still in that building, just waiting to be found? What if they came back here looking for her? She’d been so sure moments before, but now all her certainty was dripping away.

  Approaching footsteps brought her gaze up onto the commander’s black armour. He brushed the two Tsevstakre aside, forcing them to step back yet keeping a grasp on Georgianna’s wrists.

  “Tell me, Medic, do you know who I am?” he asked.

  Georgianna paused for a moment. There was no point in lying to him, was there? Not about this.

  “No,” she answered.

  “My name is Maarqyn,” he explained.

  Georgianna couldn’t stop it before it was too late, the flicker of recognition that widened her eye
s. She quickly gritted her teeth, taking a sharp breath in. She’d never seen him. Perhaps she’d been expecting some middle-aged man, knowing his importance. He looked like a fighter, just like the others.

  “Ah, so, you do know who I am,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “Well, let me ask you this then, do you know my two dreta?”

  Georgianna narrowed her eyes for a moment and shook her head.

  “Oh, now, I don’t think that’s true,” he suggested, stepping forward. “How about I ask that one again? Do you know Nyah? Or perhaps Alec?”

  “No,” Georgianna breathed.

  “Really?”

  “I said no,” she answered.

  Maarqyn let out a short laugh and glanced at the man on Georgianna’s left. Taking the cue, he began twisting Georgianna’s arm until she had to lean forward to relieve the pressure, her knee buckling beneath her. For a moment, Maarqyn left her there, one knee bent towards the floor, before she was tugged back up, her shoulders slammed back into the brick.

  Georgianna glared at him as he held up the collars towards her. Rays of light and shadows bounced from the smooth, curved surfaces, and as Maarqyn turned them, Georgianna noticed a symbol she’d not seen when looking at them before. Three green lines intersecting near the base curved outward from each other, like the trident her father had used to fish when she was a child.

  “These collars belong to my dreta,” Maarqyn hissed. “I want them back, and you will tell me what I want to know.”

  “I don’t know where they are!” Georgianna cried back, pushing herself furiously away from the wall only to be whipped back into the brick again.

  “We’ll see about that,” Maarqyn answered.

  Glancing over his shoulder, Maarqyn frowned, then turned to the two men. He watched them almost absently for a moment before, having finally made some kind of decision, nodded.

  “Take her upstairs, we’ll see what she knows!”

  Georgianna squeaked in fear, but Maarqyn ignored her as he turned and walked back towards the open doorway. He stopped just inside the door to converse with one of the Tsevstakre on the street. Georgianna was sure that she saw him reach out to take something from the other soldier, but she was tugged roughly towards the stairs, and as she was turned away from them, couldn’t see what it was that Maarqyn had been handed.

 

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