by Kate L. Mary
When we reached the end, I stopped so quickly that Mira bumped into me. We had not spoken once, both of us too focused on getting out, but when I released her hand so I could feel around for the ladder, she let out a little whimper. Even surrounded by the blackness, it only took a second to locate, and then I was reaching back, searching the darkness for Mira once again. I found her arm and pulled her forward, putting her hand on the ladder so she was grounded.
“Hold on,” I said, and then I started to climb.
It seemed longer than the ladder we had used to come down, and when I finally reached the top and pushed on the door, it opened as easily as Xandra had said it would. Sunlight burst in, making me turn my head away, and I looked down to find I had been right. The ladder was twice as long as the other one had been.
At the bottom stood Mira, squinting up at me through the sunlight pouring in through the opening. I waved for her to climb, and once I was sure she was on her way, I pulled myself out of the hole.
All around me, large boulders jutted up, perfectly shielding the tunnel entrance from view. Even though I could spy the top of the wall, which was a good distance away from where I now found myself, the large rocks prevented me from getting a clear idea of where we were. The ground beneath my feet was sandy and dry, meaning we had come up somewhere in the wastelands, possibly on the opposite side of the city from the borderland we usually traveled through. Not that it mattered. It would be impossible to take the same route if we wanted to avoid getting caught. No, we would have to find a different way home.
Mira pulled herself out of the tunnel at my back, and I turned to face her.
“It is going to take us a long time to get home.”
She looked around, spotted the top of the wall that was just visible over the boulders, and frowned. “Are we in the wastelands?”
“We are.” I paused, knowing she would not like what I was about to suggest but also knowing it was our only chance. “We are going to have to go through them if we want to make it home.”
Her eyebrows jumped up, pushing the passage markings above them up as well. Despite the fear in her blue eyes, she did not argue. She knew as well as I did that traveling through the wastelands could be dangerous, but it was less risky than being spotted by the Fortis, who were most certainly looking for us by now.
“Can we make it?” she finally asked.
Her concern was understandable. As a Winta woman, she had spent her entire life being told that she could not take care of herself. A woman needed a man to protect her, or at least that was what I had always been taught. I now knew it was not true, but Mira had not yet reached that epiphany. She had never hunted or fought a man off. She had never taken a life. I had, and despite the risk of traveling through the wastelands, I could do it.
I wanted her to be as confident in her ability to survive as I was, which meant baring the part of myself that I had kept secret from everyone other than Asa. Mira and I had been friends for as long as I could remember, but I had no idea how she would react to what I was about to tell her, to the knowledge that I had hunted and killed men, even the Fortis. It was a brutal reality to face, but we lived in a brutal world, and it was time Mira adjusted to that. Time she realized she had just as much power as a man did.
“We will be okay,” I began, and then took a deep breath and held my hands out, my palms still stained with Lysander’s blood. “This is not the first time I have had blood on my hands. For months, I have been going into the woods so I could hunt, only it is not animals I have been hunting. It has been men. Fortis men and women. I have killed them. I have shot them with arrows and watched as the blood poured from their bodies, have seen the life leave their eyes, and have witnessed the fear that I—a Winta woman and an Outlier—can evoke in a man. I am not afraid of a few marsoapians because they are no match for me. I, Indra of the Winta tribe, am a warrior, and I will get us home safely.”
Mira said nothing. She stared at me as if I were a stranger, and I could not blame her. The Winta valued all life, even the lives of people as unworthy of the air they breathed as the Fortis, and it would take time for my friend to adjust. Only time was something we did not have at the moment.
“We should go.” I pulled the cover back over the hole and stood, holding my hand out to Mira. “I want to be far away from the city by the time it gets dark. We will need a fire to keep us warm after the sun sets, and we cannot risk being seen.”
Mira’s eyes were still wide when she took my hand, and her gaze still told me that she was not sure who she was looking at, but she said nothing as I helped her stand.
Together, we climbed over the boulders, and once we were on the other side, I was able to get a better look around. In front of us stood the city, and to the left of that were the wastelands, stretching out as far as the eye could see. To the right of the wall stood the skeleton trees, but just beyond them, in the distance, the beginning of the forest was visible. Taking that route would be much faster and provide us with more of an opportunity for food, but it would also lead us past the Fortis village and Sovereign Lake, which was the main water source for both the village and the city. Going that way would put us at risk of running into patrols or hunting parties, neither of which I was equipped to deal with at the moment. No, we had to make our way through the wastelands. It was the safest route at the moment.
“What is that?” Mira said, pointing to something behind me.
I turned in the direction she indicated, and a blinding light in the distance made me squint. I shielded my eyes, trying to make it out, but it was so bright that it seemed to take forever for my eyes to adjust. Even when they did, I could not put a name to what I was seeing. There was a tower that stood as high as the city wall, and all around it mirrors fanned out in circles. Rows and rows of them, each reflecting the sun, making my head hurt and my eyes burn.
“I have no idea,” I said. “It is unlike anything I have ever seen.”
The mirrors had my curiosity piqued, but there were other things to worry about—namely getting home safely—so I turned back to the wall and studied the area. There was no one in sight, which was good, and I did not expect there to be. The gate was on the opposite side of the wall, which also happened to be where the Fortis lived. When they needed to expand, they moved toward the lake, not back this way. Back here there was nothing but sand and rocks, and dry ground that rejected most forms of life.
I glanced over my shoulder, back toward the mirrors. At least I had always been told there was nothing beyond the walls but the wastelands. This was the first time I had ever been on this side of the city, though.
The wastelands stretched on and on, leading to nothing but death. Decades ago, a group of Outliers had tried to escape the thumb of Sovereign City by heading out, hoping to find more fertile ground beyond the wastelands, but they had not gotten far. Most had died, either of thirst or exposure to the elements, or from the creatures that lived in the sandy landscape. Only a handful made it back to tell their tale, and the stories they had told about what lived in that desolate stretch of desert were enough to deter anyone else from trying. So we had stayed and continued to serve the Sovereign, believing there was nothing else out there for us.
Only there was something out there. What it was, I did not know, and I had no clue why no one had ever mentioned it before. Maybe it was nothing but ruins from the old world, like the city Bodhi and I had seen the first time he took me into the forest to hunt. Perhaps that was why the Outliers who had tried to make it across the desert had not brought it up.
A groan echoed across the silence, and I ducked behind a boulder on instinct, pulling Mira with me. I could not say what the noise was or where it had come from, but I had learned from months of hunting the Fortis not to take chances.
The wall was still visible from where we were crouched, and when a horse and cart emerged, I nearly stood back up. Where had it come from? I squinted, trying to get a better look at the wall through the blinding light of the sun’s
rays, and slowly what appeared to be a gate came into view. It was smaller than the one at the front of the city, barely big enough for the cart to fit through, which may have been why I had not spotted it at first.
“There is a gate back here,” I whispered.
Mira sat up on her knees so she could see over the boulder as well. “There cannot be. The only way into the city is the front.”
“There is,” I responded.
We watched in stunned silence as the horse pulled the cart forward. The gate shut the moment they had passed through, and the horse walked faster, spurred forward by the two men driving it. They were Fortis. Their dark clothing gave them away, and the back of the cart was piled high with wooden crates and barrels. From where we sat, it was impossible to tell what they were carrying, but I instinctively knew where they were going. They were headed toward the mirrors and whatever was in that tower.
“As soon as they are out of range, we need to go,” I said. “It will be impossible to make it home before dark, but I want to be far away from the city.”
Mira and I stayed crouched until the cart had faded into the distance and was little more than a dot. Then I grabbed her hand and took off running. We needed to get away from the skeleton trees and lake, past the city. We needed to reach the wastelands that led to the wilds so we could get home.
Winter may have come to the wilds, but the scorched earth of the wastelands got no such break. The ground was dry and cracked under our feet as we ran, and every step kicked up more and more sand until it threatened to choke me. I covered my mouth and nose with my free hand, looking back at Mira to find that she had done the same. Even though I was no longer sucking in mouthfuls of sand, specks of dirt still pricked at my eyes, and before long they not only burned, but were watering as well. Moisture dripped from my eyes, but evaporated on my cheeks before it could get too far due to the scorching sun of the wastelands.
It seemed to take forever for us to pass the city. I had never taken the time, not even the first day I laid eyes on it, to think about how massive the walls were or how far they went. Dozens of houses and hundreds of people were sheltered within the city, and the walls surrounding them climbed high into the air, wrapping the privileged in its protective embrace the way a mother did a child.
We were both out of breath by the time we turned the corner and made it to the other side of the city. In front of us, the wastelands that would lead to the wilds stretched out, the dry earth only broken up by skeleton trees and boulders that looked as if they had forced their way through the cracks in the ground. I was still holding Mira’s hand when I stopped behind the nearest skeleton tree, taking a moment so we could catch our breath and look around. We were on the side of the city now, and if we rounded the next corner, we would be on our way to the front gate. Running straight from here would take us right past the edge of the Fortis village, as well as the living quarters the Sovereign were building to enslave my people. Even from our current position, the occasional bang of a hammer could be heard.
“Will they be able to see us?” Mira asked, staring toward the Fortis village with wide eyes.
“We need to move away from the wall before we head into the wastelands. It will put distance between us and the Fortis village.”
Mira’s head bobbed in silent agreement, and then we were moving further from the wall, going from tree to tree in hopes that the sun-bleached bodies of the skeleton trees would hide us from view. The sun was hot despite the chill in the air, and before long my dress was sticking to my body. I wanted to rip it off, but I would need the fabric to keep me warm once the sun went down. The wastelands were scorching during the day, but at night, the cold felt as if it was trying to kill you. It seemed like everything in my world was this way, though. Out to get me. Hoping to kill me, or at the very least kill my spirit. The heat from the wastelands, the creatures living in them and in the cliffs, the Fortis, and the Sovereign. Only, today I had shown them that I would not allow anyone to kill my spirit, and no matter what happened from here on out, I needed to remember I had made the right decision. I had sworn I would no longer stand by and do nothing, that I would find a way to stand up for my people, and that was what I had done.
8
When we had moved far enough away from the walled city and I was sure no one would notice us, Mira and I headed into the wastelands. Their existence was something I had grown up with, but never before had I ventured this far into them. The Lygan Cliffs were visible in the distance, and the wilds in front of us, but we were deep enough in the wastelands now that everything else looked unreachable in comparison. I was aware of the dangers lurking beneath the sand and rocks, and I was thankful for the knife I had taken from Saffron’s house.
Grizzards were only one of the many species that thrived despite the harsh conditions in the wastelands. Marsoapians, large hairless rodents that burrowed into the ground during the day and came out to hunt at night, were a common threat, and then there were mammoth roaches. They could pick the bones of a dead animal clean in minutes if there were enough of them, but they did not always stick to the carcasses left behind by other animals. The roaches had been known to attack, and when they did, their hard exoskeleton made them difficult—if not impossible—to take down.
When the city had faded into the distance, I finally relaxed enough to realize that not once since fleeing Saffron’s house had I asked Mira how she was.
I slowed so we were side by side, but did not stop completely. “Are you all right?”
Her blond hair was matted to her face with sweat, and when she shook her head, it barely moved. “Why did you do that, Indra?”
“What?” This time I did stop walking, not caring that the sun was beating down on me or that we were short on time. “I saved you.”
“You— You put everyone at risk for me. Is that fair? Is it fair to save one person at the peril of everyone else?”
“We have no idea what is going to happen,” I told her. “But you have to understand why I did it. You have to understand that I could not stand by and do nothing. Not anymore.”
Mira swallowed, and before she spoke again, her gaze moved to the sandy ground at our feet. “I did nothing, Indra. When Lysander had you in the mudroom, I did nothing. I ran. I left you behind. Do you hate me for that?”
“Mira—” I reached out to her, but she jerked away. When she ventured a look up, the anguish in her blue eyes told me guilt had made her do it, not anger. “I could never hate you. I told you to run, and I am glad you listened.”
“Then you should have done the same for me today. You must know I would not have blamed you if you had.”
“But I would have blamed myself,” I said gently.
Maybe he could not live knowing that he had done nothing.
The conversation Asa and I had the day my husband was killed came back to me, and I suddenly understood better than ever before why Bodhi had needed to go into the city. Why he had broken his promise to me. I had felt the same way standing in the kitchen today, listening to Mira’s cries. I could not have lived with myself if I had done nothing, and my husband had been no different.
Tears streamed down Mira’s cheeks, and I grabbed her and pulled her against me. My own tears joined hers, and together we stood in the wastelands, under the blazing sun, and cried. Cried for one another and for our people. Cried for what had and would happen to us.
“What will we do now?” Mira asked through her sobs.
I pulled away and wiped the tears from my cheeks. “We will go home to our village, pack our things, and flee into the wilds.”
“Will they send people to the village?”
“I do not know,” I said, but we both knew it was a lie. I had killed Lysander, and the Sovereign would not be able to overlook that. “We should keep walking.”
The sun moved lower in the sky, and the air grew cooler and cooler until we were forced to stop so we could make a fire. I used branches that had fallen from a few nearby skeleton trees, and the
long-dead wood was dry enough that it took no time at all to create a spark. As the fire caught, I found myself feeling more thankful than ever for the time Bodhi and I had spent in the forest. Not only had he taught me to hunt, but it had also made me proficient in building a fire.
Once the sun was down completely, the wastelands came alive. The scurry of feet echoed through the darkness, the sounds even louder than the crackle of our fire. Mira and I sat close to one another, close to the fire, both for comfort and for protection. The knife was in my hand, the blade still stained with Lysander’s blood, and I was ready to defend us if need be, but I prayed the animals would leave us alone.
“There,” Mira whispered, nodding toward a shape in the darkness.
“I see it.”
It came closer, moving slowly. The light from the fire reflected off its eyes and made them glow. Its claws scratched against the ground as it shuffled forward almost hesitantly. I gripped my knife tighter, wishing for my bow. Even without being able to see the creature clearly, I knew it was a marsoapian, and a big one, too. Without my bow, the only way to take it down would be the knife, meaning I would have to get very close. It would be a struggle, and the creature’s teeth and claws were sharp.
When I stood, Mira reached for me. “What are you doing?”
“Getting ready.”
The thing moved closer until it was illuminated by the glow of the fire. Its nose twitched as if sniffing us out, and its hairless body appeared pinker than usual in the light of the fire. The animal was as long as I was tall, and plump from scavenging desert bugs, with a tail nearly as long as its body. I prayed the fire between us would be enough of a deterrent to keep the creature away, but then it shifted as if trying to move around the blaze. There would be no avoiding this fight.
