No. No. No.
Not now. She pushed him out of her mind. Concentrating on her hearing, she took her time as she wove through the lush woods, creeping back to Sable’s camp. The sound of voices drifted to her ears. She followed them, growing steadier and more focused with each step. She had to find Roar and Soren.
The voices led her to a wide clearing. Aria crouched, her heart pounding.
Dozens of people slept in blankets under the open sky.
The men she’d heard were guards, two of them, who spoke softly to each other. They had positioned themselves on a large overturned tree on the opposite side of the clearing, which gave them an elevated lookout over the camp.
She scanned the people nearby, unsure what to do next. There had to be nearly a hundred people in this group alone. Since they were under guard, she knew they had to be Dwellers or her friends from the Tides, but in the darkness, wrapped in blankets, every one of them looked the same.
How was she going to find Roar and Soren?
She pulled herself up and utilized all the power of her Sense to move with absolute silence as she rounded the clearing. Twenty yards of open land stretched between the sleeping people and the tree line where she hid, but near the guards that distance was much smaller. If she drew closer to them, she’d have a better chance of spotting the people she hoped to find.
As she crept toward the guards, her eyes went to one of the larger sleeping figures, drawn by the shine of blond hair. Hyde. But she didn’t see Hayden or Straggler. It was the first time she’d seen Hyde without one his brothers. Not far off, she also spotted Molly with Talon curled between her and Bear.
Should she try to free them all? Where would they go? Roar and Soren had a chance of disappearing. They could run into the woods and hide, but could Molly, whose joints bothered her doing the simplest things? And what about Talon? Sable had all the soldiers and weapons. He’d hunt them down and punish them for escaping.
She couldn’t help everyone, but only Roar and Soren were in imminent danger. Quietly, Aria stole closer to the guards. Soren and Roar had caused problems for the Horns already. Most likely they’d be directly under watch.
She drew nearer—as close as she could without risking exposure—but she still couldn’t distinguish between the sleeping lumps. Too many of the huddled forms were turned away, or had blankets pulled over their faces, or it was just too dark to make them out.
The guards’ conversation drew her attention.
“How much longer, do you think?” said one.
“Of this? Who knows. I don’t see how the Tides will ever come around.”
“He’ll sway them. Sable always finds a way.”
“Yeah . . . he does.”
There it was again. The fear the Horns had of Sable, their own leader. Aria heard it in their voices.
Panic clawed at her stomach as she stared at the final stretch between her and the men. Half an hour had passed since she’d escaped from the Hover, she guessed. How much longer until Sable’s people started searching for her? Were they already?
An image of Liv lying on the balcony in Rim flashed before her eyes, pushing her into action. She hurried, almost to the guards when she stepped on a twig and heard it snap. The sole of her boot muffled the sound, but she froze, silently cursing herself. Haste had made her careless. There was little cover where she stood, and any Aud within fifty feet would’ve heard her—the guards were less than half that. She waited, adrenaline coursing through her, making her feel weightless.
The two men didn’t look her way. They didn’t even pause in their conversation. But amid the sleeping people in front of them, a dark head lifted, turning slowly toward her before lying back down.
She couldn’t see Roar’s features in the darkness, but she knew it was him. She knew his shape and the way he moved.
Aria sank to the ground, setting the heavy piece of driftwood down. She picked up the twig under her foot. Her right hand was weak, but she could still do this.
Please work, she prayed. This was either a perfect test, or suicide.
She snapped the branch again.
Neither of the guards turned. Not Auds, then. Unlike Roar, who responded to the sound by raising both arms up high, his fingers interlaced like he was stretching.
She shook her head. A little obvious, but Roar did everything with a bit of flash.
Time to move. She was as sure as she could be. The guards weren’t Auds. Roar knew she was there. She picked up the driftwood and moved again, drawing as close as she dared. Then she stopped and firmed her grip, licking her lips.
“In five seconds, cough loudly,” she whispered, knowing Roar would hear her.
She counted off the seconds. When Roar coughed, she sprinted the last steps to the Horns.
The men looked at Roar, oblivious to her as she charged them from behind.
She swung the driftwood at the closest man’s head, putting all her weight behind the strike. She did it with so much force that she felt the muscles in her back pull. The sound of the impact was horrid and made her gasp despite herself.
He toppled over the log, falling limply behind it.
She turned, searching for the second man. Roar had him on the ground already, trapped in a headlock. She heard the guard’s feet buck and scrape on the dirt. A soft gurgle, and then nothing.
Roar sprang up. He held his hands in front of him oddly. Then she saw why.
“Your hands are tied?” she whispered.
“Yes. I showed you.”
“Just get Soren.”
Roar bent by one the sleeping figures. A second later, Soren popped up.
Their noise had woken Twig—another Aud. Aria saw him assess the situation and come to the same conclusion she had. If they all tried to leave, they’d wake Sable’s guards elsewhere—who would be armed and likely wouldn’t hesitate to shoot.
“Later,” she said to him. Later, she’d figure out how to help the rest of them.
Twig nodded. “Get them out of here.”
Aria melted back into the woods. She caught up with Roar and Soren—who sounded like a rhinoceros crashing through the undergrowth, but she could do nothing to help that.
They ran for half an hour until Roar stopped them.
“We’re good,” he said. “There’s no one behind us.”
Sweat ran down Aria’s back, and her legs trembled. Waves broke gently in the distance, and the trees rustled with a breeze.
She looked at Roar, noticing the dark shadow pooled under his left eye. A black eye. From fighting Sable’s men, she realized.
“What’s wrong with you, Roar?” she yelled, unleashing the fury and fear she’d been holding back. “You attacked Sable’s guards?”
He jerked back in surprise. “Yes! You were alone in that Hover and I thought . . . I was worried, all right?” Roar looked at Soren, who put his hands up.
“I wasn’t worried,” Soren said. “I just felt like hitting somebody when he did.”
Aria shook her head, still furious, but she couldn’t waste any more time. “You have to go. Both of you. Go somewhere. I need to get back.”
Roar scowled. “What? Aria, you’re coming with us.”
“I can’t, Roar! I promised Perry I’d watch Talon. I have to go back.”
“I made him the same promise.”
“But you can’t keep it anymore, can you? You should have thought before you made yourself a target.”
“I was already a target!”
“Well, you made it worse!” she yelled, her eyes filling.
“He killed Liv and beat Perry. I had to try to get you!” Roar tugged at his hair in anger, then dropped his hands. “How is what I did different from this—from what you just did?”
“It’s different because my plan worked.”
He pointed. “You going back there—to Sable—is a plan that worked?”
“I just saved your life, Roar!”
He let out a vicious curse and stalked away. She wanted to scream
at him for walking away from her, which made no sense. Wasn’t she trying to walk away from him?
Soren was leaning against a tree, pretending not to pay attention. It occurred to her how strange this was. Her and Roar fighting while Soren stood by, calm and quiet.
Roar returned. He appeared in front of her, his eyes gentle and pleading. She looked into them and couldn’t bear it.
“Aria, if I lose you too—”
“Don’t say another word, Roar. Don’t make me doubt. Don’t make me want to leave with you.”
He stepped closer, his voice dropping to a desperate whisper. “Then just say yes. Come with me. Don’t go back there.”
She pushed her sleeves at her blurry eyes, hating how easily she felt like crying now. It was a reflex. Any small thing that reminded her of Perry brought the urge. She couldn’t let the tears go, but she felt them. She carried them with her everywhere she went. She imagined holding them there for the rest of her life. An ocean of tears, existing inside her.
“Aria . . . ,” Roar said.
She shook her head and backed away. “I can’t.” She had promised Perry. She had to look after Talon. No matter the cost. “I have to go,” she said.
Then she raced back to Sable’s camp.
48
PEREGRINE
Is he breathing, Roar? Is he alive?”
“Shut up. I’m trying to listen to his heart.”
Perry forced his eyes open. Through a bleary film, he saw Roar leaning over his chest. “Off. Get off me, Roar.”
Perry’s throat was so dry that the words were no more than rasps. All he could think about was water. He ached for it. Every fiber of his body demanded it. His head pounded. It hurt so badly he was afraid to move.
Roar’s head popped up and his eyes flew wide. “Ha!” he yelled. “Ha!” He shook Perry by the shoulders. “I knew it!” He leaped to his feet and shouted that he knew it, over and over, until he finally sprawled on the sand. “That was horrible. That was so horrible,” he said between pants.
Soren, who’d been watching Roar in silence, appeared over Perry. “Want some water?”
They gathered by a fire as the sun set, surrounded by foreign scents and sounds. Every breath was like hearing a new language—a process of recognizing soil and plant and animal scents, but also learning them as new. This land was green and young, and even as spent as he felt, his heart thudded with the desire to explore it.
After drinking enough water to make his stomach cramp, Perry learned that Roar and Soren had escaped from Sable’s camp two days ago. They’d been familiarizing themselves with the terrain, finding freshwater and food, while trying to devise a plan for taking Sable out. Then it was Perry’s turn to talk. He told them what had happened with Cinder on the Hover.
“That was the last time you saw him?” Roar said. “Before you blacked out?”
Perry considered that, remembering those final moments. Saying he blacked out didn’t feel right. He’d seen only white. But he nodded and said, “That was it. I didn’t see him after that.”
Roar rubbed his jaw, giving a small shrug. “Maybe that’s how it should have been. I doubt you could have helped him.”
“But I would have tried,” Perry said. “I’d have done all I could.”
Soren poked at the fire with a stick. “From where I’m sitting, you did.”
It was a decent thing to say. Perry nodded in thanks.
He leaned his back on the raft—the raft that had saved his life—and wove his fingers together on his stomach. He wanted to rush to Aria but he was too weak. He had to replenish the water his body desperately needed. Hour by hour, his muscle cramps and his headache faded and he felt more like himself.
He saw the scars on his hand, scars Cinder had given him, and his throat tightened. The feeling he had of incompletion—of wishing he could have done more, or differently, or better—wasn’t new. But he was tired of bashing his head against the past. He tried to do right—in every situation. Sometimes that wasn’t enough, but it was all he could do. The only thing he truly had power over. He was learning to accept that.
He watched the ashes from the fire flicker upward into the darkness. To the stars. The lid had come off the sky, and now they were connected, earth with everything. Him to Cinder. To Liv and his brother and his father.
He was so close to feeling peace. Only one thing stood in his way now.
“Per, how did you know that thing was on the Hover?” Roar asked, tipping his chin to the raft.
Perry’s eyes moved to Soren, remembering the Dweller’s comment when they’d been preparing to go after Cinder in the Komodo.
That’s an inflatable boat, Outsider. And if that’s what you’re wearing, I’m out of this operation.
Soren grinned. “Go on, admit it. I saved your life.”
His tone was friendly. He had changed in the past week, Perry thought. The way he looked and the way he spoke.
“You helped,” Perry said. When Sable had left him for dead, Perry had shot right to the storage lockers, Soren’s wisecrack loud in his mind. He had hoped the Dragonwing, a smaller craft than the Belswan, also carried the raft. Luck had been on his side. He’d immediately located the inflatable boat, which had assembled with just the press of a button. He could say one thing about the Dwellers: they built good ships.
Perry had escaped the Dragonwing with only seconds to spare. He’d watched the Hover sink behind him and then he’d come through the barrier of Aether, the last of the Hovers in the fleet soaring above him.
They’d pulled ahead quickly then. The fleet had probably made the journey there in hours, where he had spent a day battling rough seas, and then two more in calmer water.
Three days alone, but they hadn’t been difficult. He preferred hunting, but he was a fisherman by birth. He’d been fine with the ocean ahead of him, a new sky above. His only real problem had been the lack of water.
Dehydration, he’d realized quickly, was worse than burns or the pound of a mallet. By the time he’d dragged himself and the raft up the beach, into the cover of the trees where Roar and Soren found him, reality had lost its sharpness. He’d thought that maybe he was only imagining that he’d reached land when Roar and Soren showed up.
“It would have been easier on me if you’d taught me how to fly the Hover,” Perry said to Soren now. “Could have saved me a few days.”
Soren grinned. “You keep saying you want to learn, Outsider. I’m ready. I’ll teach you anytime.”
“I’m proud of both of you,” Roar said. “I just have to say that.”
He was joking, but there was a seed of honesty there. Perry was sharing a jug of water with Soren. They were talking easily. Perry had never thought it possible.
He sat up and asked the question that had been on his mind all day. “How is she, Roar?”
Roar met his eyes directly. “How would you be if you thought she was dead?”
Perry couldn’t even stand to imagine it. He found himself biting down into his teeth. “What has Sable done?” he said instead.
Silence.
“Tell him, Roar,” Soren said.
Perry leaned back and shut his eyes. He already knew.
“Reef.”
“Yes,” Roar said. “Gren, too. The moment we got here. Twig was shot, but he was holding on when we left.”
Reef. Perry sucked in a breath and held it there, pushing back on the pressure. In half a year, he’d become so much to Perry. Brother. Father. Friend. Adviser. Perry’s eyes blurred, another gap opening inside him.
“I’m sorry, Per,” Roar said.
Perry nodded, bracing himself. “Marron?”
“He’s fine. At least he was when we left.”
It made sense. Marron was brilliant and respected, but he wasn’t ambitious or aggressive. He’d never challenge Sable for power—he’d reason for it. Reef had represented the only real threat to Sable. He would have picked up the Tides as his own. He’d have done it for Perry.
�
�Sable has control of everything,” Soren said. “You could feel it even before he set down on the beach. As soon as you left with Cinder, he took control. He’s a madman. Completely psychotic.”
“He’ll be completely dead soon,” Perry said.
For the next hours, he talked with Roar and Soren about the camp Sable had set up. They discussed the basic layout of the settlement, the surrounding geography, and the advantages Sable had—which were many.
When it was late, Roar said, “What are you thinking, Per?”
Perry rolled his shoulders back, his muscles finally loosening and feeling stronger. “We go after him. But we have to do it the right way. If I show up and the Tides see me, it could turn into an uprising. It could escalate and become us against the Horns. That can’t happen. They have all the weapons. . . . It’d be a bloodbath. Worse than the Komodo.”
Roar crossed his arms. “Then we hit him fast.”
“Right. And while he’s not expecting it. We’ll come up on him tomorrow night in the darkness. We get close, and we take him down when he’s not looking.” He looked at Roar and Soren. “It means you have to trust me, and do exactly what I say this time. No mistakes.”
49
ARIA
Sable was planning a party.
“What we need is a celebration of our triumph. An event to celebrate a new beginning,” he said, his bold voice filling the quiet afternoon, though he spoke only to her. He turned in profile, waving out beyond the Hover door to the sandy beach outside. “Darkness and ruin are behind us. We left that poisoned land and we made it here. Most of us. The good lot of us. And this land shows every sign of being more hospitable. More robust. We’ll flourish here. Our lives will be so much better, and that deserves a feast.”
They were in the Belswan’s cargo hold. Aria hadn’t stepped outside since she’d freed Roar and Soren two days ago. She had come back to the camp just before dawn, and found her father pacing by the Hover. “It took you long enough,” Loran had said as she slipped inside. Right back to here, her prison cell.
She’d had no company other than the two mute guards who kept watch over her, and Sable, who visited her in the mornings and afternoons. Each time, he’d talked at length about his search for the best location to establish a city, carrying on a one-sided conversation about progress and the future, his words airy, floating right past her.
Under the Never Sky: The Complete Series Collection Page 87
