Fire Country

by David Estes

  I feel so full of emotion I almost wanna go hug Perry. I would, too, if he wasn’t so prickly. You don’t look so huggable either, Perry says, you’re all hard edges and bone.

  I take it as a compliment.

  “Yer friend’s ’ere,” Raja says.

  “Yeah, I know,” I say. “I came with her. My sister, too.” I swivel ’round, looking for where Raja spotted them. There’s no one in sight and Raja’s looking at me strangely.

  “What the scorch are you talkin’ ’bout?” he says.

  “What are you talking ’bout?”

  “Not what…who,” he says. “Yer friend with the muscles and dimples.”

  Tingles zip up and down my body. I’m dreaming. I’m back in Call Class preparing for my Call, daydreaming, and none of this is happening and I’m ’bout to get called on and laughed at and forced to shovel blaze all by myself ’cause Circ’s gone, and Lara, too, with my mother to follow soon. All. A. Dream.

  “He’s ’ere,” Raja says.

  And I’m gone, running on all fours like a Cotee, diving through the hole, scratching my back on the underside of the cage and my arms on the rocks and debris, but not caring, not hurting, not feeling anything but hope—real, perfect hope—that somehow, some way my father was telling the truth, that something’ll go right.

  I fight to my feet, dash along the remaining cages, ignoring Raja’s cries behind me. Body after random body flashes ’fore my vision and I rush on, all the way to the end of the line, shift to the next line, race along those, too. Hafta find him. Hafta find him now, ’fore my heart explodes and sends me flying every which way. Where is he? Where is Circ? I can speak his name again ’cause he’s real—Raja wouldn’t lie to me, not after all we’ve both been through.

  The last cage emerges on my right and I practically crash into it, throw myself against the bars, scan the ground. A body, in the corner, stronger’n most of t’others—could be him. “Circ!” I shriek, trying to squeeze between the bars, not wanting to hafta wait to shovel away the entrance.

  The body turns, slowly, a face appearing.

  I can’t breathe, can’t will one more breath through my lungs. I’m choking, falling back, curling up, hoping my heart’ll stop beating of its own volition.

  The face is Hawk’s.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  “Siena,” a voice says. Not close. Not far either. A dream voice. Soft and caring, smooth and gentle. My best friend, the one I love, the one I’ve always loved. Circ, in a dream.

  I got my wish. I’ve died and joined him. Worth it—so worth it!—just to hear his voice.

  I open my eyes to Confinement. Dread washes over me. Not a dream, a nightmare, a haunting voice of torment, sent by my father from Scorch. A voice that may very well drive me insane if I hear it again.

  “Siena.” The voice again, closer, so heart-warming it’s maddening.

  I look ’round, see him, so strong and perfect and real that I know my dead father’s behind it. A cruel, cruel joke. “It’s me. Circ,” nightmare-Circ says.

  I wanna go to him, to pretend he’s not a ghost, the walking dead, but I can’t. My heart can’t take it. “No, Circ. Go away,” I say.

  He comes closer. Skye and Lara and Raja appear behind him, others, too. The prisoners they’ve released, skinny and beaten, but not dead. Not like Circ.

  “I tried to stop you,” Raja says. “Tried to tell you yer friend wasn’t in a cage. He was in the hut with Keep. Not a prisoner. Not technically.”

  I don’t know what to think—my head is a sand puddle. I’m exhausted from it all. From the death, the fighting, the searching, the hoping, the losing. My lips taste like salt and my eyes sting.

  Finding a strength beyond my own, I stand, take a step forward, then another. When I start running, he does, too. I already know how this ends, how when I go to grab him, to clutch him to me, he disappears—a wraith from a world beyond. But even running through Circ is better’n nothing at all, so I keep running, taking in his beautiful skin, his perfect smile, his natural grace through my blurry vision.

  Just ’fore I slide through him, I close my eyes.

  The collision jars my eyelids open, and then I’m in his arms, and I am clutching him, my legs wrapped ’round his waist, my head nestled against his neck, feeling the warmth of his blood, the beat of his heart, the brush of his lips on my cheeks. It’s all the proof I need to know—

  —Circ’s alive.

  “Your hair,” he murmurs into my neck.

  “Skye cut it,” I say, worried all of sudden. Perhaps the only thing he thought was pretty ’bout me was my hair. “I’m sorry.”

  “No,” he says. “I love it. You look beautiful.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  We laugh loud enough that we can’t hear the bad memories.

  Sometimes it’s at Circ cracking a joke, sometimes it’s at me, sometimes it’s at nothing at all, just ’cause our knees are touching, our hands are intertwined, our lips keep finding each other’s again and again. In our spot, in the crook of the dunes that we call the Mouth, we find happiness.

  After being friends for so long, it’s strange being like this with Circ. We only had that one kiss ’fore I thought he died, and yet that was enough for us both to know we wanted more. So much more, if it was the sun goddess’s will.

  Circ kisses me again and then pulls away, looking at me like he always does, like he sees everything—not just what he can see, but what he can’t too.

  “You’re happy,” he says. It ain’t a question.

  “More happy’n ever,” I say.

  “But your mother…”

  My smile fades and I raise my chin to the sky. Tears wanna come, but I won’t let them. Not today. “She’s up there watching,” I say. “Smiling. Like I always knew you were.”

  Circ nods. “And your father?”

  I look down, into the sand. I don’t think I’ll ever fully understand my father’s motivations for his actions. Fear of death, perhaps? Fear of life, too, I think. But none of that matters now. I understand why Circ did what he did, and that’s enough. My father threatened to kill me with his own two hands if Circ didn’t fake his own death, leave the village forever, spend the rest of his days not as a prisoner, but as an assistant to Keeper, taking over as Keep one day. Circ believed my father would do it—kill me, that is. Circ told me the only reason my father didn’t kill him is that he’s too talented a Hunter, and he’d be used in that regard only, sent on the Hunts furthest from the village so I’d never see him. I don’t know if that’s true, but I prefer to hope that maybe my father let him live ’cause of me, ’cause he knew I cared for Circ. Even from the grave, his words haunt me: I don’t want to keep you apart, Siena, but you leave me no choice.

  “I’m sad he died, too,” I say, and I think it might be true, if only ’cause of the good memories I still got, the ones that’ve never faded with time or with what he’s done to me.

  Circ chews at the inside of his mouth like he’s trying to eat through it.

  “What?” I say.

  More chewing. “And me?” he asks.

  I laugh. “Do I hafta spell it out for you?”

  I don’t blame Circ for any of it. I know he did what he thought he needed to do protect me. He did it ’cause he cared ’bout me enough to live without me.

  “Could you?” he says, grinning that grin. Sometimes I wish I could just turn it off ’cause it can be a little weird feeling those bubbles in my chest all the time. I punch him, but it don’t change nothing.

  He won’t stop grinning until I answer him. So I do. “I’m glad I’m here with you,” I say.

  “That all?” he says, those dimples staring me down.

  “What the scorch else do you want?”

  “I dunno. I thought maybe you’d say something about how you’ve loved me for a long time, or that you’ve always loved me, or that you won’t never let me go. Something like that.” I try to hold it back—my smile, that is—but I can’t, not for one
moment. ’Cause I know he’s not giving me words to say. Nope. He’s telling me everything he’s wanted to tell me for a long time.

  “Yeah,” I say. “All that.”

  He sticks his smile next to mine and I lean into him, feeling all his words in the heat of his body, not saying anything for a while.

  Everyone’s been so busy for the last few days that this is the first time me and Circ have really been alone. At Wilde’s suggestion, we buried, rather’n burned, the dead. The quicker we get away from the old ways the better. Everyone agrees that much. I cried for each’n every Wilde we put in the ground, my friends, my sisters. Several Marked died, too, but not as many due to their late arrival and overwhelming numbers. The Heaters took the most casualties, hundreds. I cried for them, too.

  We burned the pale Glassy bodies.

  “Do you think the Tri-Tribes will work?” Circ says all of a sudden, like he’s just thought to ask.

  I close my eyes, remember all that’s happened since the battle. After a lot of arguments and plenty of fights, a tenuous decision was made to join forces, at least for now, creating a new tribe, called the Tri-Tribes, comprised of the Marked, the Heaters, and the Wildes, with shared leadership amongst all three groups. I don’t know how long it’ll last, considering everyone seems to pretty much hate each other right now, but it’s nice to have a little peace and stability for a while. Wilde and Skye’ll represent the Wildes. Circ’s father and Lara’s mother’ll vote on behalf of the Heaters. Two dark, mysterious Marked men who I don’t know stepped forward for them. Not Feve, that’s the important thing.

  “It could,” I say, trying hard to believe it while shooting prayers to the sun goddess.

  Circ pushes his foot into mine. “I think it will,” he says. “The Heaters seem to be falling into line with it.”

  “After the beating they took, they better,” I grumble. “But it’s not them I’m worried about. I don’t trust the Marked any further’n I can throw them.”

  As it turns out, the mysterious Marked weren’t so mysterious after all. They’ve been struggling for a long time, barely surviving the winters, losing numbers every year. Which is why they’d been working with the Greynotes the whole time—to survive. But still, with men like Feve amongst them, I’ll be keeping my eyes on every last one of them.

  “They decided to move the village,” I say, my eyes lighting up all of a sudden, remembering. There’re so many other things I like to do with Circ now that I keep forgetting to tell him everything I find out from my sister.

  “Really?” Circ says.

  “Yeah. Four votes to two. Guess whose representatives voted against.”

  “The Heaters?” Circ says, raising an eyebrow.

  “Of course,” I say.

  “Stubborn baggards.”

  “That they are. They’ll never learn.”

  “It’s a good move,” Circ says. “The further and more hidden we get from the Glassies, the better.”

  I couldn’t agree more. The Glassies’ll be back, that’s for certain, but we don’t hafta make things so easy on them. “They’ll announce it tonight,” I say. “Now they’ll hafta fight ’bout where to move it.”

  “Now that could take a while,” Circ says, and I laugh. “Anything else you forgot to tell me?”

  I think’bout it and then shake my head. “Everything else’s up in the air, but Wilde’s been hinting that another big decision’ll be made soon.”

  “About what?”

  “The Cure,” I say.

  “What about it?”

  “Well, it’s all pretty knocky that the Icers don’t want us on their land, and they only gave my father such small amounts of the Cure. We wanna know why.”

  “Guess someone’s gotta go pay the Icy King a little visit,” Circ says slyly, narrowing his eyes.

  “Yeah, someone,” I say.

  Sounds like another adventure, I think. Another adventure for another day.

  “What’s with Skye and Feve?” Circ asks and I groan.

  “What’s with all your burnin’ questions?” I snap back.

  Circ laughs and the anger drops outta me like a sinkhole. “Just seems like they’ve been spending an awful lot of time with each other,” Circ says.

  I wrinkle my nose ’cause he’s right. Skye’s definitely been talking to Feve, which I both hate and like. I hate it ’cause it’s Feve, and he’s a low-life baggard who I don’t want my sister talking to. But I like it ’cause it means I don’t have to talk to him, and Skye can ask him all the questions I been meaning to. Like why the scorch he did what he did, turning us in to my father and then bringing the Marked to save us all. According to Skye, there’s been a longstanding agreement with the Marked and the Heaters. Like everything else with the burnin’ Greynotes, it was a secret one. They had each other’s backs, so to speak. And as for giving up the Wildes, he’s sticking to his story that he didn’t realize how bad my father really was. As if.

  “She’s just pushing him for information,” I say.

  Circ nods but I can tell he don’t think that’s all there is to it. “I’ve been talking to some of the Marked too,” he says.

  My head jerks to the side. “You have? Why?”

  “Welcoming them, making friends—you know, the things normal people do.”

  “And I ain’t normal?” I say.

  “Not even close,” he says, laughing. But ’fore I can even hit him or shoot him a stony stare, he says, “And the guys I’ve been talking to told me all about where Feve comes from.”

  “Like I care ’bout where a no-good baggard like him comes from,” I say. But then, nonchalantly, I ask, “So what’s his story?”

  Circ smiles. “It’s nice knowing something you don’t.”

  “Just spill it.”

  “You know the story you told me about your mother and Brev?”

  I freeze, remembering every word of it. But what’s Brev got to do with Feve?

  I nod.

  “Brev was Feve’s father,” Circ says.

  My head falls back, crunching into the sand. “Of all the stupid, wooloo, good-for-nothing…”

  “Not thrilled, eh?” Circ says.

  Thrilled? More like disgusted. “It’s an insult to my mother and to Brev,” I say, squeezing my eyes shut and casting a wish on my mother’s star. The wish: that Feve melts into a pile of mush.

  I feel Circ grab my hand and I’m pretty sure he knows I’m not happy with the news. He changes the subject again. “Do you think Hawk’s a changed man?” he asks.

  It’s my turn to chew through my mouth. ’Cause it’s a tough question. Evidently there was more goodness in Hawk’n I ever knew, although I still can’t stand to look at his ugly face. Word is he protested the attack on Wildetown, but my father forced him to go. Afterwards, he spoke out, and was sent to Confinement, ending up in that last cage, when I mistook him for Circ and nearly fainted. He’s more’n made up for anything he ever did to wrong me. But still…

  “I dunno, but he ain’t my friend or nothing,” I say.

  Circ grins. “Mine either,” he says. “But maybe at least we don’t have to hate him anymore.”

  Yeah to that, I think. I been tired of hating for a long time.

  But none of that matters to me right now, ’cause I have all I need. I rest my head on Circ’s chest, relishing the magnificent sound of his strong heartbeat, as if it might burst from his chest. For this moment I can just be me, Siena, Skinny and Strong, all at the same time.

  Circ’s hand brushes against my wrist, draws lazy circles on my arm, lingers on my charm bracelet. His pointer charm rocks under a gentle breeze. “You kept it,” he says.

  “You can’t take it back,” I say, grinning. “It means you’re mine until the sun and the moon and the stars fall from the sky.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Searin’ right.”

  “I wouldn’t take it back in a million years,” he says, clasping my hand.

  “How long can we stay here?” I as
k.

  “Only for ever,” he promises, a lie that’s as real as fire country being safe.

  ~*~

  Keep reading for a sneak peak at the action-packed sequel, book two of the Country Saga (a Dwellers sister series), Ice Country, coming April 5, 2013!

  Acknowledgments

  I would be nothing without my readers, who’ve searin’ stuck with me through thick’n thin, who’ve made all the hours of hard work, of stressing over burnin’ deadlines and going wooloo over word count…so now I say, to scorch with all that, ’cause you’re awesome and you’ve made this journey so special and worthwhile and it would mean nothing—nothing!—without all of you along for it. So a special thanks to you, my readers, particularly those of you in my Goodreads fan group, which, at the time of writing this, was over 900 members! I never believed it could grow so big, but you all did, and it’s all thanks to your efforts, for you forcing your friends and family members to read my books when they probably didn’t want to (like really didn’t want to!). I couldn’t do what I love to do on a fulltime basis without all of you.

  I also have to give a give a high five and a big hug and kiss to my wife, Adele, who supports me each and every day when I’m lost in other worlds, in other people’s (or prickler’s named Perry) heads for more than five hours a day, plus another five of tap-tap-tapping on my iPhone, chatting in my fan group and answering reader messages. You are my ultimate beta reader, and our many discussions of plot, the cheesiness of my dialogue, and how much you love my writing helps me in ways I can’t even explain. Oh, and your coffee is the most delicious and having you by my side is what keeps me sane. Thank you for changing my life and for believing in me.

  To my marketing team at ShareARead, Nicole Passante and Karla Calzada, as usual you never cease to astound me at your unceasing ability to get my books in the right readers’ hands. We started this together, and before our very eyes it’s turning into something very special. Thank you for being my partners in all the fun (and for staying up till all hours of the night planning blog tours and giveaways!).