by Kate L. Mary
“We are free now,” Roan said.
A cry rose up in the square. It bounced off the buildings and walls, rang louder and louder until I thought it would never end. All the while, I stood in silence, leaning against my husband and savoring the feeling of being free.
Free to love whoever I wanted.
Free to live as I pleased.
Free to be the person I was without fear of punishment.
I was an Outlier, but I was no longer nothing. No longer worthless. Not anymore.
35
Indra
It was not the first time I had made the long journey to Sovereign City, but it was the first time I did it on a horse. Above me, the sun burned down on my head, but like everything in this new world where the Sovereign did not rule and the Fortis were no more, it felt different. Not like it was trying to turn me to dust, but like it was lighting my way.
“It’ll be strange,” Asa said, tightening his hold on me as the horse moved at a steady pace, “Going into a house not to serve, but to eat.”
“It will,” I said in agreement, squinting in the hopes of spotting the wall. “But good, too.”
“Better than good,” Asa replied, planting a light kiss on my neck, right over the scar left behind by Emori.
Asa was right. Good was not the right word to describe the way things were now. It was too simple. Not descriptive enough. Whereas once we had all been born into a role with no chance of escape, we were now free to find our own way. To marry whom we pleased, to stand up for ourselves if we were wronged. It was whole new world, and we were determined to make it a good one.
When the wall finally came into view, the sight of the wide-open gate made my heart swell with a happiness that not even the ruins of the Fortis village could wash away.
The bodies were long gone, those that had not been carried away by grizzards or other creatures living in the wastelands had been burned after the city fell, and the rubble that remained was now coated in layers of sand, thanks to the winds that whipped across the desert. One day even the few charred remains still visible would be gone, swallowed up by time, but I hoped the legend of what had happened here would not be forgotten. Hopefully, the people that followed in our footsteps would work to ensure that life continued as it was now, and all people remained free.
As the horse passed through what remained of the Fortis village, I ventured a look toward Sovereign Lake. Beyond it, the beginnings of the valley were visible, but I knew that like the bodies here, all our people had long ago been put to rest. Like those who had died during the siege on the city, we had burned them, sending them into the afterlife where God could judge them for the part they had played in all this.
Staring at the valley, my mind wandered to another event that had taken place there, and I reached up to run my fingers over the scar on my neck. That was where Emori had tried to kill me. She was gone now, not dead, but living a life of self-imposed exile.
After Lysander’s death, Emori had spent time in the city, resting and allowing her battered body to heal. I had prayed she would find peace, that she would be able to return to the wilds and find a life in this new world, but she could not. Instead, she had fled to the wastelands, to the ruined city Bodhi had showed me all those years ago, where she planned to live a life of solitude. I had heard whispers of her returning to the wilds from time to time, to hunt or trade, but I had not seen her, and she never stayed.
When we finally reached the wide-open gate, Asa urged the horse to stop and slid off, holding his hand out to help me once he was on the ground. I took it, my heart pounding not from fear at the prospect of once again walking these streets, but from excitement.
The walls surrounding the city still stood except the one, and stepping through the gate meant I was once again surrounded by stone. But as Asa and I walked, the horse trailing after us, I realized the tall buildings no longer felt as oppressive. The houses had not changed, nor had the streets, but the city felt like a completely different place than it had before. The people who milled about were not covered in red robes and did not carry electroprods, but instead smiled and waved as we passed. Many of them bore the signs of why they had once been sentenced to a lifetime of cowering in the tower, but most of the people we passed showed no obvious signs of defect. Like Elora, the deformities that had marked them as outcasts were minor.
After Lysander’s death, the Outliers had returned to the wilds. None of us had wanted to live inside these walls, hidden away from the wilderness that had kept us going for so long. We were still on good terms, the Windhi, Mountari, and Huni, but we had our own customs and our own ways of life to return to, and so we had.
The people who had lived in the tower had nowhere to go, however, and with the houses now empty, they had restored the power and crowded into the city, joining the handful of sympathizers who had been spared during the siege.
The former untouchables—I refused to call them that now, although I had not yet come up with another name for them—had no experience with nature, having always lived in the tower, so it had made sense for them to come here. Still, a few had chosen to go into the wilds and join the various tribes. A handful to the Huni, who had others like them and were welcoming in a way I had not expected, and others to us, where they had joined the family members who had refused to cast them aside.
Like Elora.
She had moved to the caves, claiming an alcove, and then a hut of her own after we began to rebuild. Now, months after the city fell, the Windhi had a small village situated just outside the caves, with dozens of huts and more in the works. We were rebuilding, starting fresh with the knowledge that we no longer had to worry about our people being wiped out, and the future was bright.
Side by side, Asa and I moved through the city. There had been a time not too long ago when even talking to him within these walls was impossible, but not anymore. Now, my hand was clasped in his, and I did not avert my eyes when he looked my way, but smiled openly, and when he reached out to run his hand over my swollen stomach, I did not have to move away.
“I never would have imagined we’d find ourselves in this position,” he said, his brown eyes focused on my belly where our child grew.
“It did not seem possible,” I agreed.
“It’s all because of you,” my husband said. “You did this.”
“No,” I replied. “We all did this. We worked together. It was the only way.”
Asa nodded, but I knew he did not agree. He, like many others, believed I had saved them. I had not, though. We saved each other by working together, by realizing how minor our differences really were, and by acknowledging that all people deserved respect. And freedom.
Asa and I moved deeper into the city in silence, both of us lost in thoughts that were probably very similar in nature. I was thinking of the last time I was here, after the city fell and Lysander had finally been sent to the underworld.
I had stayed in the city for days. Not because I did not want to return to the wilds, but because there had been so much to do. We gathered the bodies, tended to the injured—my new family included—restored the power, and helped the untouchables get settled. Many of the people living in the tower had needed assistance just to get down the stairs, and we did everything we could to make sure they were comfortable. To make sure the new life we had worked so hard to create was harmonious and sweet instead of bitter and violent.
Asa stayed at my side the entire time, sleeping next to me in a canopy bed inside Edwina’s house at night, helping during the day. My sister, Anja, had come, and for the first time learned the truth about my birth. She and Asa had finally been able to get to know one another, something they had never had a real chance to do before.
Once all the work was done, though, I returned to the wilds and my people. Mira and my other advisors had looked after things in my absence, but with my return, we were finally able to move forward. To build and grow, to embrace this new life.
Months went by, and I did not retur
n to the city even though I desperately wanted to. There was just too much to do. When I found out Asa’s child was growing inside me, the desperation to get settled before our baby was born took over, pushing my visit back even further.
Then, only two days ago, Elora returned from a visit to the city with a message from Edwina. My mother wanted to see me.
It was strange, thinking of a woman inside this city as my mother, especially a woman I knew very little about, but the desire to get to know my family better made it impossible to refuse, and so Asa and I came.
“Are you thinking about Zuri?” Asa asked.
The clomp of the horse’s hooves at our backs echoed through the streets, while above me a streetlight flickered on. The sun was still up, although getting low, but the wall had blocked out most of its rays.
“I am,” I replied.
Zuri’s first husband was my father. Although the revelation had been welcome, and I had wanted to both stake claim to him and get to know my half-siblings, I had found myself holding back at first. It had felt wrong, sullying the memory of the man Zuri had lived with for so many years. A man she had spoken about with great affection.
After the city fell, Zuri helped me get Edwina and my siblings back to their house, but still I told them nothing. They had loved the same man, and it was very possible he had loved them both as well, and it did not feel right to destroy their good opinion of him, especially when he had not had a say in how things turned out. Like the rest of us, Barrick had been born into a role and had no way out. He had been an Outlier, making his relationship with Edwina impossible, and the Mountari men had no say in who they married. So, he had done what he was supposed to. He married Zuri and had children. He provided for them and fulfilled his role as a Mountari man, all the while loving another woman and living another life at the same time.
Was he wrong to do those things? Perhaps. But if Barrick had decided not to step outside his role as an Outlier servant, I would never have been born, the Outliers would have never united, and we would most likely all still be prisoners. Everything happened for a reason. It was something I had come to accept, which was why I had ultimately decided to tell Zuri everything. So, after returning to the wilds, I had made a trip to the Mountari village.
Proving once again how amiable she was, Zuri had accepted the news with a sad smile. “I always knew Barrick had a life inside the city that I could not understand. No, I did not realize the full extent of it, and I never could have imagined he had not only fallen in love with a Sovereign woman, but had fathered three children with her. Still, it makes sense when I think about the man I knew. He was softer than most Mountari men. More gentle.”
Asa and I turned the corner and suddenly found ourselves on the street we both knew so well. So much had happened here, and the emotions that swirled through me when I spotted Saffron’s house in the distance warred against each other. Anger at Lysander, shame for what I had gone through, hatred of Saffron.
But there were good feelings, too. Like when we passed the spot where Asa had saved me from the grizzard. As much suffering as I endured inside these walls, I had fallen in love here, too, and I could not forget that.
“Do you still think of him?” Asa asked.
“Lysander is a phantom that will always live with me, but I am at peace. He lived a brutal life and died a brutal death. Just as he deserved.”
More than once over the years, I had found myself feeling certain that I would burn in the underworld for things I had done, but I no longer felt that way. Now, it all seemed right. The pieces of my life had come together to lead us here, to save us. To free us. Things that never should have happened, or that should have destroyed me, had instead worked together to make me stronger.
Saffron’s house faded away as we had wound our way deeper into the city and to Edwina’s. We passed people going about their business, many of them probably headed toward the center of the city. Where once it had been a place of torture, it had been transformed and was now a market for trading. Everyone was free to come and go now, and the gate was always open. Outliers could come from the wilds, bringing goods to trade such as animal meat or hides, and in return getting things we had never had access to before.
The life growing inside me moved just as Edwina’s house came into view, twisting as if trying to break free. I placed Asa’s hand on the bulge and smiled when the child moved again, this time almost in response to the touch. I had passed the halfway point of my pregnancy a few weeks ago, and with each day the baby grew stronger.
“He will be as strong as his Fortis father.”
“And as brave as his Outlier mother,” my husband replied.
I smiled as we climbed the stairs to my mother’s house. It was a grand building, tall and made of gray stone like all the other structures inside the city, but it no longer seemed cold to me. Not with the brightly colored windows and the sky above us turning from blue to pink and purple. Not with my husband standing at my side and the baby moving inside me. Not when I thought about everything we had lived through.
36
Asa
Nyko rode at my side, humming a happy tune, a forest cat draped over the back of the horse. It reminded me of the first time he and Indra met, how she’d confessed to seeing him in the forest when he was hunting. If it had happened a few months later, she would have killed him simply for being Fortis. But he wasn’t Fortis anymore, and neither was I. Now we were both Outliers, members of the Windhi tribe, and our lives had been transformed into something I never could have imagined. Something happy and sweet. Something hopeful.
The long winter had come to an end—our first without the Sovereign—and buds had begun to grow on the trees, turning the wilds green once again. I’d always loved the wilds, but had never dreamed I would one day live in them. Especially not with a heart filled with such happiness.
“We have company,” my friend said, urging his horse to stop.
I did as well, my eyes on the men in front of us as they stepped through the trees. Although I’d never met them, I knew they were Trelite. Of the four Outlier tribes, they were the only ones who’d chosen to remain separate, and at this point there was no reason to think that would ever change.
The man at the front of the group lifted his hand in a greeting, but his expression was hard. The crown of sticks atop his head told me this was Cruz, leader of the Trelite. Indra had told me about their meetings, how he’d offered to marry her, and then later hit her when she’d spoken out of turn. If I wasn’t afraid of starting a war, I would have jumped off my horse and stabbed the man. Instead, I chose to stay seated and say nothing.
“Greetings,” the Head called out.
He wasn’t much older than I was, and every inch of his dark skin was covered in passage markings. There were scars, too, cutting across his face, arms, and bare chest, making it look like he’d led a very violent life even though I’d always heard the Trelite weren’t fighters. They weren’t even hunters, as far as I knew.
“Hello there,” Nyko said when I didn’t respond.
Cruz didn’t introduce himself, but instead asked, “You are with the Windhi, are you not?”
“We are Windhi,” my friend replied.
Behind him, a couple men shifted, and I saw a face I recognized. It took a minute to figure out why, because I’d never met any of the men from this tribe, and then I remembered. He was with the Windhi when Indra and I married. I was sure of it.
I looked closer and noticed that unlike the other men, his passage markings were confined to his face. Meaning he’d at one time been Winta. The way he was looking at me now, his expression dark and untrusting, told me he recognized me, too.
Indra had told me that a few men left the tribe after our marriage, and since then only Linc had returned. We’d heard rumors that the others joined the Trelite, but until now, we hadn’t seen proof of it. The Trelite kept to themselves, and we’d been too busy rebuilding to worry about them.
“We are hoping to meet
with your Head.” Cruz looked from Nyko to me like he wasn’t sure which of us he should address.
“My wife is Head,” I said, speaking up finally.
The Trelite man frowned when he looked me over. “Indra is still Head? We thought things might have changed now that the tribes are united.”
“Indra united us.” Nyko let out a half laugh, half grunt. “Why in the name of the gods would we want someone else to be our leader?”
Cruz’s frown deepened.
“What is it you want?” I asked before he could say anything else.
“We hope to trade.” Cruz shifted, and for the first time, his hard expression cracked just a little. “We know the city fell, and we know you have access to the people there. I wish to make a deal.”
“Make a deal with them, then,” I said, shaking my head. “The gates are open, and there’s a market in the city square. You’re free to come and go as you please. Plus, I know my wife has no desire to deal with you, Cruz.”
The Head stiffened at the sound of his name. Behind him, his men shifted, and a low murmur moved through the group.
I didn’t give them a chance to say anything else before nudging my heels against my horse’s flanks, urging him forward. Nyko followed, neither of us saying a thing to the Trelite men as we trotted past.
When we were out of earshot, Nyko said, “You think they’ll try to trade with Roan?”
“No.” I snorted. “Roan hasn’t kept his preference for my wife a secret. Cruz won’t bother.”
“The Huni?”
“And deal with a woman?” I said.
Nyko threw his head back and laughed. “The Trelite are damn fools.”
“That, they are.”
We rode the rest of the way in silence. Above us, the trees swayed and rawlin sang, while the sun dipped lower in the sky, telling me twilight was nearing. Through the branches, now thick with buds, I spotted the smoke that signaled we were almost home. The village was still new, but it felt more like a home than any other place I’d lived, and for the first time, I felt like I had a real family. Indra and I lived together, and my sister Elora had a hut right next to ours. Our two groups, the former Fortis and the former Winta, had settled into a routine over the long winter, and we now felt like one cohesive group.
