by Nora Roberts
“Oh.” Fallon shifted to look for him. “I wasn’t expecting . . .” She looked back, saw the hurt in Mick’s eyes, felt it. Before she could speak, he stepped back, stiffly.
“I’ve got stuff.”
“Hard for him,” Duncan commented, and had Fallon turning.
“What do you know about it?”
“Jesus, Fallon, I’ve got eyes. I see the way he looks at you, probably because I look at you the same way.”
“Did you come over here to tell me about Mallick, or what, stake your claim?”
“Both.”
“Ass.”
Unoffended, Duncan shrugged as she cut through the room to Mallick.
“You left your bees.”
“They’ll be there when I get back. I thought you might need me here today.”
“I do. I’m glad you came. I expect some strong objections to what I’m going to propose today.”
“Is it a proposal?”
“What I saw in D.C., beyond the battle. In the chambers of power, such as they were? We won’t go back to that.”
She thought of Mick’s blue braid, of tattoos of spirit animals. “Tribes are forming, Mallick, and pride in them. They need their voices heard. And still . . .”
“They must be led, and united in purpose. There must be laws established for peace to hold when peace is won. That is for you.”
“Then I’d better get started. Will you sit by my side?”
“Always.”
She caught her father’s eye as she walked to the big table, nodded. He gestured to Colin, brushed Lana’s arm.
As they took their seats, others followed.
“I know you all have stories of the battle of D.C.,” Fallon began. “We’ve buried our dead, treated our wounded. I’m grateful to all of you for your leadership. It’s that leadership that will take us from this victory to New York.”
She listened to the cheers and battle cries, the thumping of fists on the table. Tribes forming, she thought again, and war drums still beating.
“We led ten thousand into D.C.” She lifted her voice over the din. “We’ll lead ten thousand and more into New York. The Dark Uncanny rule there, and Raiders burn and pillage its boundaries. While Hargrove’s rule is over, there are still military that hunt us as mercilessly as they do the DUs, who forcibly conscript non-magickals to increase their numbers, and PW enclaves that hold slaves and executions.”
“There won’t be so many of them when we take New York.” John Little gave the table another fist pound. “We’ll cut them down. We’ll lock them up. My troops are ready.”
Fallon nodded, and took the opening. “We’ll all be ready. But we need the ten thousand and more. And more,” she repeated. “Some we’ve locked up were conscripted. Forced to fight. They would fight with us, or serve as support.”
“How many of us did they kill?” Little demanded.
“How many of them did we?”
Duncan took his cue. “Jamie Patterson,” he began, “seventeen, NM. Taken from his family in a military sweep, conscripted. They took his family, too. His sister, an elf, age fourteen. And his parents. They told him his sister would be held in a containment camp. His father would go to another training center, his mother to another. After five years, they’d be released from service. If he attempted to desert, refused to fight, he and the rest of his family would be tried as traitors and executed.”
“Maybe that’s his story,” Little began, “but—”
“His truth,” Duncan corrected. “His sister, Sarah Patterson, was in the D.C. prison. Do we keep him locked up? Do we tell her he fought against us—sure, he was forced to, but that’s the breaks?”
“There are dozens more with similar stories.” Simon spoke up now. “Isn’t that what we’re fighting against?”
“Look, man, I’ve got a heart.” Little rubbed one of his big hands over his face. “But how do we trust them?”
“How do we trust any who come to us?” Lana asked. “Not everyone who weaves into our communities has good intentions.”
“Kurt fucking Rove,” Eddie muttered. “You’re going to have the shitbirds, but you can’t toss them all in the same bucket, dude.”
“They can and should be given a choice.” Fallon waited a beat. “Those able and willing to fight should fight. Train under trusted commanders. Those unable or unwilling would serve in other ways. If they have a skill, they offer the skill. And those who have families will know, will have our word, that we’ll do whatever can be done to find those families and reunite them.”
“We have a couple of shifters, twins.” Mick drummed his fingers on the table, didn’t meet Fallon’s eyes. “They came in a few days after we took The Beach. They’d been in containment about six or seven years—lost track. They got out in the confusion when a bunch of whacked-out Raiders hit the containment center. They were about eight when the military grabbed them up. The parents tried to stop them, fought back. Soldiers killed their mom right in front of them, burned the house, dragged their dad off. They’d shot him, so they don’t know if he’s alive.”
He looked at Little, around the table. “We’ve all heard stories like it. I don’t see how we can make prisoners out of prisoners, because that’s what they were.”
Little huffed out a breath. “Some of them are going to be assholes.”
And Mick grinned. “If we lock up the assholes, where does that leave you and me?”
Little laughed, waved a hand. “Okay, okay.”
Thomas leaned toward the table. “How do we verify they were conscripted, or have families they claim?”
“We’ve got records.” Chuck spoke up. “We’re still going through them. We got a shit pile of docs from D.C., so it’s going to take some time.”
“We’re making progress.” Arlys, as always, took notes. “Most are conscripted between the ages of fifteen and thirty-five. It’s a practice that’s gone on for nearly twenty years. Some who were taken were also indoctrinated. They acclimated whether by nature or time, who knows. But we found no one who was released. Once they pulled somebody in, they didn’t let them go.”
She put down her notes. “There are also numerous records of trials and executions. Some who tried to escape, some who just didn’t satisfy the command. They used them as examples to ‘motivate’ the troops.”
“Fuckers.” Little sat back. “You got ones that acclimated or whatever the hell you call it, we can’t cut them loose and hand them a weapon.”
“I agree,” Thomas said, and the murmurs started around the table.
“How long do we keep them locked up?” Eddie demanded. “How many troops do we cut out of the fighting force to secure them? Then you gotta feed their asses, give them medical, clothes?”
“And after we win this thing?” Will put in. “What then?”
“There are so many already.” Troy looked around the table in turn as people spoke over each other. “Where will we put more?”
“We can’t cut them loose and we sure as hell aren’t going to start executions. It’s a lock and a cage,” Little insisted. “That’s it.”
“It doesn’t have to be. There’s another way.” Fallon turned to Mallick. “Would you show them?”
He lifted his eyebrows, clearly surprised she deferred to him. “Very well.”
He rose, and after a moment’s consideration, spread his hands, lifted them, and conjured a two-sided map. “This is the world. A large place, land masses, great oceans and seas. Much of this world is now empty of people.”
“How many, Kim?” Fallon asked.
“Huh.” Kim pursed her lips. “Most reports calculated an eighty percent wipeout from the Doom. Even in the years since, given births, deaths, war, you wouldn’t have much population growth. A couple billion. Sounds like a lot. It’s not when you consider the Earth’s about two hundred million square miles.”
“Once a nerd,” Poe grumbled, and got an elbow jab.
“How much of that’s water?”
�
��About seventy percent.”
“Vast.” Fallon looked back at Mallick. “And our ability to travel over the vast seas isn’t what it once was. Lack of fuel, skill, equipment.”
“In the vast are islands,” Mallick continued. “Some are, and were, inhabited. Many are not, or no longer. And here, and here, are two.” With a gesture, he had two small islands glowing on the map. “They are habitable. There is game, fresh water, natural resources, land that can be planted.”
Interested, Thomas studied the islands, the positions. “Transportation?”
“Wait, wait, wait!” Little waved his hands. “You want to give POWs a vacation on a tropical island? Shit, sign me up.”
“Hardly a vacation,” Fallon corrected.
“Palm trees, beaches?”
The argument rolled around the table, hot words, cold ones, temper.
“Enough,” Mallick snapped when Fallon remained silent. “I’ve lived a very long time. I’ve seen the rise and fall of powers, wars upon wars. Even in my sleep, I witnessed. The light must always seek the light. In that light are shadows that must be carefully chosen. What does it matter to you if those we defeated feel warm breezes or can pick fruit from a tree? The shadow we choose is isolation. Some will never see the home they knew again. And if some build a life, even find contentment, does it harm you or yours? It softens the shadows we chose.”
“Hargrove—”
“Will live out his life with that lock and cage,” Fallon said to Little. “As will those like him. But some are soldiers, John, just like all of us. Some have families, some may make families, and with the making come to see what wrong they did.”
“Can I say something that’s just the straight practical end of it?” Duncan shifted. “Supplies, security. This way, we give them enough to get them started instead of cutting into our own resources for the duration to keep them held humanely. Do the math,” Duncan suggested. “How many pounds of meat, grain, gallons of fresh water, medical supplies, and staff? I’ve been to those islands. Yeah, they’re pretty. You’ve also got sand fleas, snakes, a rainy season, and hurricanes. You’re going to have to plant your own crops, build your own shelters, hunt your own meat, fish, figure out how to live surrounded by miles of ocean.”
“How about security?” Mick asked.
“Merpeople, primarily,” Duncan told him, and Mick nodded.
“I can live with that. We’ve got to be better than they are. If they get one of us, they’ll kill us, or toss us in a hole until that killed us. We have to be better than that.”
“I might like it better if we talked islands in the North Sea.” Colin shrugged. “But Mallick’s right. Warm or cold, it’s no skin off ours.”
“Are we agreed?” Fallon looked around the table.
“What do we supply them with?” Troy asked. “How much, for how long? What if there are children?”
“We have most of that worked out. But we need to agree on the concept before we move to that.”
“You’re The One,” Troy pointed out.
“But I’m not alone in this fight. Everyone here has a voice.”
“Then mine’s in agreement.”
Agreement rounded the table until John puffed out his cheeks. “Maybe we can toss that North Sea idea in there.”
Fallon smiled. “Let’s see how this works first.”
They worked on logistics, with Kim and Chuck—the nerd and the geek—assigned to calculate how much in supplies would be needed per man. Her father, Travis, and other empaths would work together to determine which prisoners were most suited to the choice—with Arlys helping confirm through the records, and Rachel clearing candidates medically.
With an optimistic goal of moving the first five hundred within ten days, Fallon shifted to New York and battle plans.
With her new maps over the table, Fallon looked over in annoyance at the interruption when Ethan and Max burst in.
“Sorry,” Ethan said quickly, “but you need to come outside. There’s somebody here and . . . you need to see.”
With a hand on the hilt of her sword, Fallon reached the door with Duncan, and with Mick.
A woman stood in the snow-covered garden. Flaming red hair curled and spilled nearly to her waist. She wore a long white coat edged with fur at the collar and the cuffs, and looked like something out of a fairy tale with the icy sparkle of diamonds on her fingers, her ears.
She carried no visible weapon, but the two men flanking her—both in unrelieved black—had swords in sheaths crusted in jewels.
Fallon felt the pump of power that matched the confidence in the bold red lips, the emerald eyes.
She spoke with a charming lilt of France. “I bring you no harm, Fallon Swift. I am Vivienne of Quebec. I have come to offer you an alliance.”
Fallon watched her gaze shift to Duncan, to Mick, saw those jewel-toned eyes sparkle with flirtatious approval.
“May we speak? Perhaps we will leave our very handsome men, and have, you and I, a little tête-à-tête?”
“All right.”
“Fallon, hold on.”
Fallon patted Mick’s hand away from her arm. “It’s fine. Would you tell my mother I have a guest and ask if she wouldn’t mind bringing coffee to the living room?”
“How kind.” Vivienne walked—all but glided—over the snow. Fallon caught her scent—rich—assessed her beauty. Flawless.
Fascinated, Fallon led her around to the front of the house. “You’ve come a long way.”
“Yes. My escort Regis is a witch, so we do the snap.”
Flashed, Fallon thought. “You’re not a witch. A shifter.”
“You see quickly. I see also that you have two very handsome men in love with you. I have men in love with me. It’s pleasant, yes? I thought The One would be hard and—what is it—battle-worn? But you are very lovely.”
Fallon opened the door. “Please come in.”
“Ah.” As she walked inside, Vivienne looked around the entrance-way, toward the living room and the crackling fire. “How . . . cozy.”
“Should I take your coat?”
“Please, yes.” She wandered as she unfastened it. “I thought you would have more—fancy is the word? Yes, The One would live more grandly.”
“There are people still living in caves or whatever shelter they can manage. This is grand.”
“Bien sûr.” Beneath the coat she handed to Fallon she wore more white, a dress that skimmed down a curvy body to the ankles of white boots. “But The One is not people, no?”
“You’re wrong about that. Please, sit. Préférez-vous que je parle français?”
Vivienne’s eyebrows lifted as she let out a light, musical laugh. “Vous parlez très bien français.”
“Merci.”
“But I would like to speak in English. I wish to become more, ah, proficient.”
“All right.” Fallon turned, took the tray from Lana as she came in. “Mom, this is Vivienne of Quebec. My mother, Lana.”
“I am so pleased to meet with you, the mother of The One. I’ve heard many stories of you.”
“I’ve heard a few of you,” Lana returned.
“I am flattered. And you’ve troubled for me. Merci.”
She sat as Fallon set down the coffee tray.
“I’ll leave you two alone to talk.”
“No, stay.” Fallon took Lana’s hand. “Just us girls, right, Vivienne?”
“Delightful.”
“Milk, sugar?”
“Both, and the little cakes! I have no willpower against the sweet. I like the sweets and the pretty and the handsome men. Do you take both your handsome men for lovers?”
Fallon poured out the coffee. Sat. “No. Just one’s enough.”
“Me, I’m very greedy.” Vivienne took two of the frosted cakes as if to prove it. “I was a child when the Doom came, and there was hunger for some time after. My papa died in it, and Maman and I had to hide as I became. She feared for me, you see. And feared of me as well. I was only ten.
She was killed before my thirteenth birthday.”
“I’m very sorry.”
Vivienne acknowledged Fallon’s sympathy with a nod. “The ones you call Raiders. I was not quick enough to save her, but I killed them all. And it was then I vowed, an oath on my mother’s blood, I would no longer hide, no longer live hungry or cold or afraid.”
She sampled a cake. “I would make a place, I took this vow, where no one killed a girl’s mother. I used what I have to make what I needed. Now I have Quebec. Or enough of it for now. A fine house and soldiers. Lovers.”
She bit into a cake with a smile.
“Slaves?”
“No. One has no right to own another. Servants, yes, I have servants. But they are free, they are not forced to give service. They have food, shelter, clothing. I give them work if they want it, and they are free to stay or to go. We offer protection from the Dark Uncanny, the Raiders, and the rest. These are my people, understand me. I do not go hungry, nor do they.
“This is very good coffee, thank you. We don’t have so good the coffee. We have traded for some, but not so good as this.”
“We’ll give you some beans to take back with you,” Lana said.
“That is very kind and generous.” Delicately, she bit into a second cake, licked a bit of icing from her finger. “Maintenant, my rule may not be as yours, but still we fight the same enemies. You have won a great victory. I would offer you an alliance. I have two thousand soldiers. Almost,” she added with another smile.
“You offer an alliance after a great victory.”
“But yes. If you had been defeated, my soldiers, my people would have suffered with yours. My council and my generals advise that you are most likely to advance on New York within the year. Perhaps within six months. I would be your ally. I would give my allegiance to you. I do not give it lightly. And I’ve chosen the light,” she added. “Not so bright, it may be, as you, but the light.”
“And for your allegiance, your two thousand, what do you want in return?”
“Quebec.” Vivienne folded her pretty hands with their sparkling rings in her lap. “Safety for my people, my realm. The promise you and your soldiers will not invade or take from me what I’ve made. What I may make still. You go north, those who fight there may go more north. May covet what I have. So, an alliance. Promises. Terms. My people will fight with yours, and you will respect and help protect what is my country.”
