Flavia shot him a poisonous look. “We came here to look for the life Kronos couldn’t give us,” she said. “We knew his preaching would only get us killed if we came with him.”
“And did you find what you were looking for?”
The Freebloods exchanged glances. “When we came here,” Mikohn said, “we were told that we would become part of a new kind of life that the Master was making for all the Freebloods who agreed to follow him. We would share all the humans in common, no Opir getting more than another, and make raids on human colonies when we were strong enough. We would all be equals.”
“As Kronos promised,” Artemis said.
“You know what he made us give up,” Flavia said. “He wouldn’t have allowed any raids. We would have starved.”
“And you were too afraid to leave Kronos without trying to kill him?”
Flavia opened her mouth but quickly closed it again. The rest were silent.
“How did you get into camp?” Garret asked.
“With your VS,” Flavia said. “It seems that they can use weapons as well as half-bloods and humans.”
“But we were wrong about this place,” Mikohn said at last. “There aren’t enough humans here to feed everyone. No one has seen the Master in many weeks, and some think he has abandoned the camp and his followers. A few Freebloods are trying to take over the camp as if they are Bloodlords.” He glanced toward the tent flap. “There’s talk of a war. We don’t want any part of that.”
Rebels, Artemis thought. Only she hadn’t expected to find them so quickly, let alone run across Opiri she knew.
But if Kronos’s former disciples were discontented after only a day or two of being in the camp, there were undoubtedly others. Freebloods still remembered how they had been used as cannon fodder in the War.
Artemis leaned against Garret, grateful for his solid presence at her back. “Where are they keeping the children?” she asked.
“If we tell you what we know,” Flavia said, “what will you do for us in return?”
Artemis laughed. “What can I give you?”
“You can help us get out.” Flavia shifted from one foot to the other and looked away. “I know how you fooled us into thinking you didn’t take blood from the human.”
Garret started. Artemis gripped his arm. “I do not know what you’re talking about,” she said.
“When we got here, I remembered what really happened, what you did to me,” Flavia said hotly. “You made me believe something that wasn’t true.”
“You’re mad,” Artemis said, striving to breathe normally.
Flavia bared her teeth. “Kronos made us all mad to follow him. Is he like you?”
“What?”
“Can he make people do what he wants and believe what he wants them to believe?”
Startled, Artemis remembered how oddly Pericles had behaved when Kronos was injured. She had thought it strange at the time, but to suggest that his behavior had anything to do with an ability like hers...
“I have known him most of my life,” Artemis said. “He has no such skill.”
“But you do,” Flavia said. “And now you will use it to make the guards let us out.”
“You can’t leave?” Garret asked.
“Once you come in, you are not permitted to go out again without a pass. Some of the guards at the front gate probably work for the rebels, and they want to keep us in as much as the Master’s soldiers do. If the Master is truly gone, they need Opiri to rule over.”
“Why don’t the rebel Freebloods overpower the Master’s guards?” Artemis asked.
“The guards have human VS weapons,” Mikohn said.
“Do as we ask,” Flavia told Artemis, “or we’ll throw this human out into the camp.”
“And I’ll tell them that you plan to sneak out,” Garret said.
“They won’t listen to a human.”
“They’ll listen to another Freeblood,” Artemis said.
“Do you want to know where the children are or not?”
The war within Artemis’s mind echoed in Garret’s, and she knew he understood. She despised and feared her power to control and deceive others. She would do nearly anything to avoid using it—anything but abandon Garret. Or the hope of rescuing Timon.
“Tell us where they are,” she said, “and I give my word that I’ll help you, as long as it does not involve harming others.”
Mikohn and Flavia looked at each other. “Agreed,” Flavia said. “The Master has been keeping the children in the castle. The rumors say that he is treating them well, but no one knows what he wants with them.”
“The castle,” Garret said, exhaling slowly. “From the look of it, it’s virtually impossible to approach from any direction. How can we get inside?”
“That is not our concern,” Flavia said. “We have told you what we know.”
“There may be a way,” Mikohn said. “The Freebloods who are trying to gain power while the Master is gone...it is rumored that they intend to go up to the castle in force and demand to know where he is. If they can show the camp that he has disappeared, and that only his personal guards remain to defend his position, then—”
“Where are these rebels?” Garret asked.
“They have established themselves in the rear of the camp,” Mikohn said. “They have the largest tents. You’ll find them easily.”
“We have to join these rebels,” Artemis said to Garret. “We have a better chance of getting into the castle as part of a group.”
“You’ll have to prove that you’re strong enough to be an asset to them, but also that you’re not a threat to their new power,” Flavia said. “But again, that is not our concern. It is time for you to get us out.”
Garret laid his hand on Artemis’s shoulder. “Can you do this?” he asked in a low voice.
She covered his hand with hers. “I will,” she said. She addressed the other Freebloods. “We’ll all go outside together.”
After a brief hesitation, the Freebloods gathered behind her, Garret sandwiched between them to obscure his scent. The sun was rising, so Garret, Artemis and the Freebloods put up their hoods and made for the wall.
No one noticed them; there was some commotion at the gate that seemed to be occupying everyone’s attention. As they drew nearer, Artemis heard Garret curse under his breath.
A dozen humans had apparently been captured, men and women in camouflage fatigues who stood with heads lifted and defiance in their eyes. They waited just inside the gate, surrounded by avaricious Freebloods who were obviously on the verge of grabbing any human within reach.
“These look like Enclave troops,” Garret said.
“We cannot help them now,” Artemis said. “We must—”
“Did you hear?” a young female Freeblood said, clutching at Artemis’s arm. “A human army is coming, and the Master has deserted us!”
“Calm yourself,” Artemis said, engulfed by the woman’s very real terror.
“But now we will have to fight, and the Master is not here to lead us!”
“You should have considered that before you came here,” Artemis said, fighting to separate the woman’s feelings from her own.
The young female ducked her head and skittered away, hunched low and avoiding eye contact with any of the other Freebloods she passed.
“Stay close to me,” Artemis murmured to Garret.
Garret did stay close, so close that he was nearly on top of her, ready to defend her from the slightest hostile gesture. His presence was a shield against the wildly fluctuating emotions of the Opiri around her, and she imagined herself in a position of authority, confident in her purpose. All she had to do was convince the distracted guards at the gate that she and those with her had to leave the camp on urgent business.
Before she could answer, he released her and stepped away from the group. “Human soldiers!” he shouted. “How many are coming? Hundreds? Thousands?”
As the human captives stared at Garret, other Freebloods turned toward him, their emotions swarming over Artemis—hunger, fear and alarm—as Garret’s words penetrated the growing chaos. Flavia’s group pressed in around her, on the verge of panic themselves.
Garret continued to mock the Freebloods at the gate, asking them how ready they were to stand against a human army carrying Opir-killing rifles like theirs. Artemis couldn’t seem to move. In a moment, she thought, the guards would overpower and silence Garret, possibly kill him.
Closing her eyes, she focused her thoughts and projected the terror of death, of becoming trapped, of being pawns in a game the Freebloods didn’t understand. There was no safety here.
The number of Freebloods moving in the direction of the gate began to increase, while the gatekeepers made a futile effort to stem the tide.
“Go!” Artemis said, shoving Flavia forward. “Run. Now!”
Kronos’s former disciples broke away and sprinted for the gate. They lost themselves in the crowd. Voices rose in warning, and there were gunshots, followed by fighting that rapidly overwhelmed the guards.
Artemis grabbed a handful of Garret’s daycoat and hung on. “We must go back into the camp,” she said hoarsely.
“You’re sick,” he said. “You aren’t ready to deal with the rebels when they storm the castle. I’ll find somewhere for you to rest.”
“No.” She grabbed his hand and tried to draw him toward the rear wall. Her fingers trembled, and racking pain hammered inside her temples. “Someone will surely come after us if we do not move while the fighting distracts the guards.”
With a terse nod, Garret half carried her back the way they had come. She couldn’t feel his emotions through the clamor inside her skull, but his warmth and strength wrapped her in a cocoon that no outside force could penetrate.
As they ran deeper into the camp, dodging between tents to evade any pursuit, the noise of the battle at the gates began to fade. Artemis peered through the glare of daylight, looking for the large tents Flavia had mentioned.
They had nearly reached the rear of the camp when Garret came to a sudden stop. Clustered against the wall stood several tents that had been decorated to suggest that their owners were Opiri of rank and power. They were painted with symbols of dominance and arrayed with crudely carved standards atop staffs reminiscent of those carried by Bloodmasters in the Citadels.
As Artemis and Garret watched, two Freebloods in thickly embroidered daycoats approached the tents, arguing in low voices. Their emotions were hostile and angry, like those of Opiri on the verge of challenge.
The rebels, Artemis thought.
“Find the nearest empty tent,” she whispered. “Hurry.”
Garret went straight to the row of tents perpendicular to the rebels’, paused outside of one, moved on to the next and gestured to Artemis. Keeping an eye on the arguing Freebloods, she followed him inside.
The interior was very similar to the one Flavia’s group had occupied: a few pieces of camp furniture, a folding table and little else. Artemis crouched by the tent flap and listened intently.
“What are they saying?” Garret asked, crouching beside her.
“They are speaking of the challenge to the castle and how many Freebloods they have recruited to follow them.”
“We’ll have to quickly prove ourselves of use to them if we’re going to join their group,” Garret said.
“You know you cannot come with me,” she said. “You will have to remain hidden while I am gone. I’ll try to get you outside the camp, and—”
He met her gaze. “Did you think I came with you this far just to be left behind now?”
“Do you think they will allow a human to accompany them? They will simply seize you and keep you for themselves.”
“They won’t be able to,” Garret said. “Because I won’t be human.”
Chapter 21
Artemis couldn’t mistake his meaning. Her chest constricted, and she felt that, had she been human, she would have wept.
“It was inevitable,” Garret said, holding her gaze. “We never discussed it, but you must have known all along. I can’t go any farther as a human in this place. You have to convert me.”
Struggling to quiet her own emotions, Artemis replayed that moment on the hill when she had considered and rejected this very option. “Do you know what you are saying?” she asked, spinning on her heel to stalk across the tent. “Do you understand that once this is done, it cannot be undone?”
“I understand,” he said. “I’ve known it since long before I was sent to Erebus as a serf.” He held out his hand to her. “I accepted all the ramifications long ago, when Roxana and I joined the colony and Timon was born.”
She returned to him and knelt beside him. He stroked her knuckles with his thumb, as if she were the one about to sacrifice everything she knew.
“I chose to remain human because I believed it was important to set an example for others, to show that we could live on equal terms with Opiri without giving up our humanity,” he said.
“But now you wish to surrender that humanity? You can accept the complete transformation of your very nature, becoming dependent upon blood for the rest of your long life, never able to feel the sunlight on your skin?”
He brought her hand to his lips. “I endangered both of us, and Timon, by refusing to recognize the necessity of change.” His fingers laced though hers, firm and unyielding. “I said we’d have to prove ourselves to these rebels. If it goes as far as a fight, the change will give me greater power and far better odds against any Opir.”
“But do you know what else comes with the conversion?” she asked. “You will be my vassal, tied to me by a force even more powerful than the blood-bond.”
“And once we find a way to join the rebels going up to the castle, you can claim the right to take your vassal with you.”
“If these rebels had created vassals of their own, Flavia and Mikohn would have told us.”
“They wouldn’t have felt obliged to tell us everything. But once you’ve done it, Artemis, the rebels will have to accept it.”
“If I can make them accept it.”
“We will, and to hell with the rules of combat that forbid anyone from interfering in a challenge between Opiri. Getting into that castle is all that matters now.”
So he thinks, Artemis thought. But would he feel the same when Timon was safe and he was faced with a world in which everything had changed? Would he come to resent her for holding power over him, even if she were to set him free the moment they had achieved their goal?
She saw that she had no choice but to play her final card. “I honor your courage,” she said. “But courage will not save you if the conversion fails.”
“I understand the risk.”
“Do you? Are you aware that conversion by a Freeblood carries greater danger for the human than one carried out by an Opir of higher rank?”
“I know that some humans react adversely to conversion when it’s done by a Freeblood,” he said. “But it’s not common for Freebloods to attempt it in the first place. I still believe it’s a chance worth taking.”
“You could die within minutes of my bite,” she said, panic strangling her words. “You could become incapacitated, helpless.”
“Nothing you’ve said changes my
mind, Artemis.” He cupped his hand around her chin. “Trust me.”
She wanted to wail in protest. It shouldn’t have been this way, done in haste and secrecy under conditions that would put him in far greater danger than almost anywhere else.
But he was strong. Strong and healthy and tenacious. His aura shimmered around him, red as flame, his determination feeding on his conviction and her faith in him.
“I will do it,” she whispered.
“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for Timon’s sake.”
Surrendering to the inevitable seemed to take a weight off Artemis’s shoulders. “The change is not immediate,” she said briskly. “Your strength and speed will increase over time. You may even be able to tolerate sunlight for a few days, as your body adjusts. You should not require blood for at least twenty-four hours. But you must be very careful not to overtax yourself in the beginning, no matter how much you want to fight.”
He nodded. “Do you need more blood before we begin?” he asked. “I know mine won’t be as nourishing for you after I’m changed.”
“I will receive some blood during the process,” she said.
“Enough to get you through the next few hours?”
“We’ll worry about that later. For now...”
She met his gaze. “Prepare yourself as best you can, and I will do the same.” She took several long, deep breaths and began to focus her thoughts on what she must do. Garret let his body relax.
They sat facing each other, looking into each other’s eyes in a last, wordless communication. Artemis’s heart was so full that she was afraid she would broadcast her emotions all over the camp, so she locked her feelings away completely.
“Are you ready?” she asked.
In answer, he bent his head back. Opiri had no real religion, but Artemis sent a plea to the universe and gently pressed her lips to his skin.
“Do it,” he said hoarsely.
She bit down. His blood rolled over her tongue, and she completed the adjustments to the chemicals in her body that would provoke the conversion. Her vision hazed. Adrenaline raced through her veins, activating her instinct to create a new Opir, a vassal bound to her until she chose to set him free.
Night Quest Page 22
