Liv should’ve been married tomorrow, or she should have run away with Roar. She should have seen Perry as a Blood Lord, and she should’ve been Aria’s friend. So much had vanished in a second.
Aria remembered being in the dining room with Sable. She’d had a knife in her hand, and a clear shot at his neck. She hated herself for not having done it. She should have killed him then.
Eyes swollen, her head pounding, she limped back to Roar. He was asleep, his head resting on his satchel.
She found her Smarteye and fought back a wave of fresh tears. If Liv hadn’t stolen it, would she still be alive? Would she be alive if Aria had given the Eye back to Sable on the balcony?
It nauseated her to think of Hess and Sable’s meeting. Their deal to go to the Still Blue together meant turning their backs on countless innocent people. She thought about Talon and Caleb and the rest of her friends in Reverie. Would they be chosen to go? And what about Perry, and Cinder, and the rest of the Tides? What about everyone else? The Unity was happening again, and it was more horrific than anything she’d imagined.
The thought of seeing Hess made her stomach turn, but she needed to. She’d connected him with Sable. She had done her part in helping him find the Still Blue. Now he needed to follow through on his part of the deal—and if he failed her, she’d contact Soren. She didn’t care how it happened. She needed Talon back.
Pulse racing, she applied the Smarteye. The biotech worked, attaching to her eye socket. She saw that the recordings were gone. Only the icons for Hess and Soren remained on her screen. She tried Hess and waited. He didn’t come.
She tried Soren next. He never showed either.
35
PEREGRINE
Later, Perry climbed up to the roof of his house and watched the Aether coiling in the sky. He’d plunged into the ocean after Kirra left, needing to wash her scent from him. He’d cut through the waves until his shoulders burned, then returned to the compound, his body tired and numb, his mind clear.
As he rested his head against the roof tiles, he could still feel the movement of the ocean. Closing his eyes, he drifted on the blurry edge of a memory.
He remembered the time his father took him hunting, just the two of them, on the afternoon Talon was born. Perry had been eleven years old. A warm day, the breeze as soft as a breath. He remembered the sound of his father’s stride, heavy and sure, as they’d walked through the woods.
Hours passed before Perry realized his father wasn’t tracking, wasn’t paying attention to scents. He stopped abruptly and knelt, looking Perry in the eyes in a way he seldom did, spots of sunlight dancing on his forehead. Then he told Perry that love was like the waves in the sea, gentle and good sometimes, rough and terrible at others, but that it was endless and stronger than the sky and the earth and everything in between.
“One day,” his father had said, “I hope you understand. And I hope you’ll forgive me.”
Perry knew how it felt to be haunted by a mistake whenever he lay down to sleep. There was nothing more painful than hurting someone you loved. Because of Vale, Perry realized he understood. No matter how hard he tried, there would be times when he couldn’t stop the rough and terrible from happening. To his tribe. To Aria. To his brother.
Shifting his back on the roof tiles, he decided that the one day his father had spoken of was today. Tonight. Right now. And he forgave.
The storm struck before dawn, wrenching him from a deep, restful sleep. The Aether turned in spirals, brighter than he’d ever seen. Perry climbed to his feet, his skin prickling, the acrid smell sharp and suffocating. To the west, a funnel wove down from the sky, turning toward the earth. The shrieking sound roared in his ears as it struck and spooled back up. He saw another funnel to the south, and then another. Suddenly the night was alive, pulsing with light.
“Perry, get off there!” Gren yelled from the clearing below. People rushed out of their homes, terrified, running for the cookhouse.
Perry sprinted for the ladder. Halfway down, everything turned shocking white, and the air shuddered. His legs tensed. He missed a rung and fell, tumbling to the dirt.
Across the clearing, an Aether funnel whirled down, striking Bear’s house. Shaking the earth beneath his feet. Perry watched, unable to move, as roof tiles exploded and popped. The funnel spooled back up, and the roof rumbled and toppled to one side. He shot to his feet and sprinted, knocking people over.
“Bear!” he yelled. “Molly!” He saw only a tumble of rock where the front door and window had been. Smoke seeped from the rubble. Fire burned somewhere inside.
Twig appeared beside him. “They’re in there! I hear Bear!”
People gathered around, watching in shock as flames licked up from the cracks in the sloping roof. Perry caught Reef’s eyes. “Get everyone in the cookhouse!”
Hayden pumped water from the well. Kirra’s people stood behind her, clothes whipping in the hot, swirling wind.
“What do you want us to do?” she asked, their time on the beach forgotten.
“We need more water,” he told her. “And help move rubble!”
“If we move any of this, the rest of the roof could fall,” Gren said.
“We don’t have a choice!” Perry yelled. Every second they lost, the fire spread. He grasped the stones of the collapsed wall, heaving them away one at a time, panic setting in as the heat of the fire seeped through the rubble into his hands. He sensed his own men beside him and Kirra’s.
Seconds felt like hours. He looked up and saw an Aether funnel slash down to the cookhouse. The impact threw him sideways, down to his knees. When the funnel wove back to the sky, he stayed for silent, dizzying seconds, regaining his bearings. Twig stared at him vacantly, a trail of blood running down his ear.
“Perry! Over here!” Straggler called from a dozen paces away. Hyde and Hayden pulled Molly through a gap in the rubble.
Perry ran to her. Blood seeped from a gash on her forehead, but she was alive. “He’s still in there,” she said.
“I’ll get him, Molly,” he promised. He wouldn’t let Bear die.
The brothers carried her to the cookhouse, where she could get treated. Everywhere Perry looked, funnels lashed the ground.
Nearby, Kirra called her people into the cookhouse. “We tried,” she told him. She shrugged and walked away. That was how easily she gave up on someone who needed help. Whose life was on the line.
Perry turned back to the house just as the rest of the roof folded inward. The air rushed from his lungs, and screams of terror erupted around him.
“It’s over, Perry.” Twig grasped him by the arm, tugging him toward the cookhouse. “We have to get inside.”
Perry shook him off. “I’m not leaving him!” He spotted Reef across the clearing, running with Hyde. He knew they’d haul him away.
Then Cinder ran up with Willow, Flea barking at their feet. He looked at Perry, a fierce intensity in his eyes. “Let me help!”
“No!” Perry wouldn’t risk Cinder’s life too. “Get in the cookhouse!”
Cinder shook his head. “I could do something!”
“Cinder, no! Willow, get him out of here!”
It was too late. Cinder was somewhere else. His stare was empty, oblivious to the chaos around him. As he backed away, moving to the middle of the clearing, his eyes began to glow, and veins of Aether spread over his face and hands. Shocked curses and shouts broke around Perry as others took notice of Cinder—and of the sky.
Above, the Aether melded into a single, massive whirlpool. A funnel twisted down, forming a solid brilliant wall that circled Cinder, engulfing him. Perry couldn’t find his voice. He couldn’t move. Didn’t know how to stop Cinder.
A blast of light sent piercing pain into his eyes, blinding him. He flew back on the earth, landing on his side, and shielded his head. Waited for his skin to burn. A hot gust whipped past him, pushing him back for long seconds; then a sudden silence fell over the compound. He peered up and saw no Aether. The sky was b
lue and calm as far as he could see.
He looked to the center of the clearing. A small figure was curled in a circle of glittering embers. Stumbling to his feet, Perry ran to him. Cinder lay deathly still and bare, his hat gone, his hair gone, his chest unmoving.
36
ARIA
I have to find us another way to the Tides,” Aria said the next morning, hugging her growling stomach. The snare trap she’d set the previous night had been empty. “I hurt my knee when we fell.”
Roar looked up from the flames with lifeless eyes. He hadn’t spoken yet. She tried to remember: had he said her name when they were in the Snake River? She’d been so out of her mind with cold that now she wondered if she’d imagined it.
“We could go part of the way by boat on the Snake,” she continued. “It’ll be a risk, but so is being out here. And at least it’ll get us there faster.”
She spoke quietly, but her own voice seemed loud. “Roar … please say something.” She moved beside him and took his hand. I’m here. I’m right here. I’m so sorry about Liv. Please tell me you can hear me.
He looked at her, his eyes warming for a moment before he drew away.
They returned to the Snake while heading west, away from Rim. That afternoon, they reached a fishing town, where she found them passage on a wide barge heading downriver. The hold was cluttered with crates and burlap sacks filled with goods. She’d been ready to fight, ready for anything in case Sable had people looking for them, but the captain, a leather-faced man named Maverick, didn’t ask any questions. She paid their way with one of her knives.
“Nice blade, ladybug,” said Maverick. His eyes flicked to Roar. “You give me the other one and I’ll give you the cabin.”
She was anxious and hurting and had no patience. “Call me ladybug again and I will give you the other one.”
Maverick smiled, showing a mouth full of silver teeth. “Welcome aboard.”
Before they cast off, Aria listened closely to the gossip at the busy wharf. Sable had amassed a legion of men and was preparing to take them south. She heard different reasons for it. He wanted to conquer a new territory; he was on a quest for the Still Blue; he sought revenge against an Aud who had slain his bride only days before their wedding.
Aria imagined Sable spreading this last rumor himself. She hadn’t thought it possible to hate him any more, but after hearing that, she did.
Once aboard, she and Roar settled themselves between sacks filled with wool, rolls of leather, and salvaged goods like tires and plastic pipes from before the Unity. It amazed her that trade carried on as usual. It seemed futile.
She felt like she possessed a terrible secret. The world was coming to an end, and if Hess and Sable got their way, only eight hundred people would live on. Part of her wanted to scream a warning from the top of her lungs. But how would that help? What could anyone do without the location of the Still Blue? The other part of her still couldn’t accept that what she’d seen—what she’d heard planned by Sable and Hess—could possibly be true.
She closed her eyes when they moved onto open water, listening to the crew’s voices and the creak of the wooden ship. Every sound made her feel worse for Roar.
When it was quiet, Aria pulled her coat over her head and tried the Smarteye again. She hadn’t given up hope of reaching either Hess or Soren. She couldn’t give up on bringing Talon back to Perry.
Neither Hess nor Soren responded. She stuffed the Eye back into the satchel. Had they turned their backs on her, or had something happened to Reverie? She couldn’t stop thinking of the glitches in the Realms. What if she’d lost contact because the damage in Reverie had gotten worse? What if it was crumbling? She couldn’t deny the possibility. She’d seen what happened to Bliss in the fall, when she’d found her mother.
Unsettled, Aria rested her head against Roar’s shoulder and watched the Aether turn above. A cold wind blew along the Snake, numbing her ears and her nose. Roar put his arm around her. She gathered close, reassured by this small sign that he was still there, somewhere beneath the shell of silence and grief. She found his hand, speaking to him without speaking, hoping at least this way he could hear her.
She told him she’d do anything to make him hurt less, and then waited for him to take his hand away. He didn’t. His fingers threaded through hers, his grip familiar, comfortable, so she spoke to him some more.
As they floated down the Snake River, she told him about Hess and Sable’s arrangement, and about her fears of Reverie’s condition. She talked about the Realms—her favorites and least favorites—and all the ones she thought he’d like. She told him about her most frightening experience: a tie between when she thought Perry had been captured by the Croven in the fall, and when she couldn’t find Roar in the Snake River. And her saddest: when she found her mother in Reverie. She told him about Perry. Deeper things than she’d ever shared before. Don’t ever spare me, Roar had said once. Now she didn’t. She couldn’t, even if she’d wanted to. Perry was on her mind always.
She thought to Roar so much that it became natural and she stopped thinking about thinking and just thought. Roar heard everything. He knew her mind fully, openly, the same way Perry knew her tempers. Between the two of them, she thought, she was known completely.
She’d been seeking the comfort of a place. Of walls. A roof. A pillow to rest her head on. Now she realized that the people she loved were what gave her life shape, and comfort, and meaning. Perry and Roar were home.
Two days later, they reached the end of their river journey. The Snake had brought them far and given her knee a chance to heal, but now it forked west and they’d need to walk the last stretch to the Tides.
“A day and a half south,” Maverick told her. “Maybe more if that slows you up.” He tipped his head to a massive Aether storm brewing in the distance. Then he glanced at Roar, who waited on the dock. Maverick had never heard him speak a word. He’d only seen Roar stare vacantly at the water, or at the sky. “You know, you could do a lot better than him, ladybug.”
Aria shook her head. “No. I couldn’t.”
They traveled well that day, stopping at night to rest. The following morning, Aria couldn’t believe that after nearly a month away, she’d be back at the Tides that afternoon.
She felt like a failure. She hadn’t discovered the location of the Still Blue, and they didn’t have Liv. Her heart tore in half, the ache to see Perry colliding with the dread of what she’d have to tell him.
Aria rummaged in her satchel for the Smarteye and applied it. The Eye had barely gripped her skin when she fractioned to the opera house. Right away, she knew something was wrong. The rows of seats and balconies wavered, like she was seeing them through a sheet of water. Soren stood a few feet away, red-faced and panicked.
“I only have a few seconds before my father traces me. It’s ending, Aria. It’s shutting down. We got slammed by a storm and lost another generator. All the Pod’s systems are failing. They’re just containing the damage now.”
Aria sucked in a breath. She felt like she’d been punched in the stomach. “Where’s Talon?” she asked. In the real, Roar tensed at her side.
“He’s with me. My father’s been in contact with Sable.”
“How did he—”
“He could tell by tracking your Smarteye that you’d taken it, so he sent men to Rim with another one after you left,” Soren said, interrupting her. “Hess and Sable are both getting ready to leave for the Still Blue. My father’s chosen who he’s taking, and separated them into one of the service domes. No one with DLS is allowed to go. He’s locked the rest of us in the Panop.”
Aria tried to process his words. “He locked you in there. Your father left you?”
Soren shook his head. “No. He wanted me to go, but I couldn’t leave. I can’t let all these people just stay here and die. I thought I could unlock the Panop doors from inside, but I can’t. Talon’s in here. Caleb and Rune—everyone. You need to get us out of here. We’re on auxili
ary power. It won’t last more than days. That’s it. Then we run out of air.”
“I’m coming,” she said. “I’ll be there. Keep Talon safe.”
“I will, but hurry. Oh—and I know where they’re going. I’ve been watching my father’s comms with Sable—”
A surge of light blinded her, and pain exploded deep behind her eye, shooting down her spine. She screamed, pulling at the Smarteye, wrenching desperately until it came off in her hand.
Roar knelt in front of her, gripping her arms. His eyes held more depth than she’d seen in days. Aria’s head pounded, and tears streamed from her eyes, but she staggered to her feet.
“We have to go, Roar!” she said. “Talon’s in danger. We need to get to Perry now!”
37
PEREGRINE
Perry swept the falcon carvings off the windowsill and put them into a linen bag. His things had already been moved to the cave, but now he packed Talon’s clothes, toys, and books. Maybe it was foolish to move his nephew’s belongings, but he couldn’t leave them behind.
He picked up the small bow from the table and smiled. He and Talon used to spend hours shooting socks at each other from across the room. He drew the string, testing it. Would the bow still suit Talon—or had he had a growth spurt? He’d been gone half a year. Perry didn’t miss him any less.
Twig came through the front door. “Storm’s moving in,” he said, taking the stuffed bag. “Is this ready?”
Perry nodded. “I’ll be right out.”
Only a few days had passed since the last storm, but another one was already building from the south, a massive, churning front that promised to be even worse. It had taken almost losing Bear and Molly to convince the Tides to leave the compound. It had almost cost Cinder’s life, but they were going.
Perry went to Vale’s room and crossed his arms, leaning against the door frame. Molly sat in a chair by the bed, watching over Cinder. His sacrifice had bought the Tides time to reach the cave in safety. Because of him, they’d been able to dig Bear out of the rubble alive. Cinder was as much Molly’s now as he was Perry’s.
Under the Never Sky: The Complete Series Collection Page 54
