Promised

by O'Brien, Caragh M.

  He nodded, his smile grim. “Tell him his mother would like to see him.”

  CHAPTER 9

  peg’s tavern

  GAIA LEFT THE PROTECTORAT and hurried through the massive gateway. Down the sloped road, she could see Evelyn approaching from Wharfton to exchange places with her. Leon waited with the Chardo brothers and a dozen others below, alongside a stone dwelling which served as a shelter from potential gunfire. One of the guards above audibly shifted his rifle along the parapet to adjust his aim. To Gaia’s left, along the rooftops, dozens of Wharfton men and New Sylum archers were similarly primed.

  From a distance, Evelyn had a carefree air and a loose gait, as if she’d gone visiting for a picnic. Her white blouse had short, scalloped sleeves, and a graceful white wrap draped through her elbows. Her soft blond hair touched her shoulders in a tidy way, and her cheeks were bright with color. As she came nearer, however, and Gaia could see her refined, delicate visage, lines of strain bracketed Evelyn’s eyes and mouth.

  The younger girl held out both her hands to clasp Gaia’s.

  “How mad is my father?” Evelyn asked.

  “He’s livid, but not at you,” Gaia said. “I can’t thank you enough for helping us.”

  “Going out seemed like the surest solution. Besides, I couldn’t wait to see Leon. He’s so different!” Evelyn said.

  “Not in a bad way, I hope.”

  “He’s happy,” Evelyn said. She had fluid, expressive features, and a quicksilver quality to her smile. “I mean, aside from how furious he is that you got yourself arrested.” Her fingers found the red bracelet at Gaia’s wrist. “So cute!” She sighed. “My brother’s gone all crafty. When will you choose a date?”

  “He told you we’re engaged?” Gaia asked.

  She glanced down the road to see Leon waiting, his arms crossed, impatience visibly emanating from him.

  “Maybe this isn’t the best time to chat,” Evelyn said. Her finger slid beside the mark on Gaia’s wrist from where she’d been bound and her smile vanished. “Did the guards hurt you?”

  “We’re saying they didn’t,” Gaia said.

  Evelyn looked stricken. “Oh, Gaia. I’m so sorry.”

  “We’re here to stay, Evelyn. It isn’t going to be easy.” Gaia stepped backward down the slope. “Your parents don’t know about me and Leon.”

  “You’re kidding. Why didn’t you tell?”

  “It wasn’t the time, believe me,” Gaia said. “Can you keep a secret?”

  “I can try, but that’s news that will travel.” Evelyn smiled again slightly. “It will be so amazing to have a sister again. I just wish Fiona could have known you, too.”

  Gaia could hardly imagine being in the same family with this girl. She seemed so innocent and young, yet she’d been bold enough to go outside the wall to help them, too. “I’ve never had a sister. You’ll have to show me how it’s done.”

  “I’ll like that,” Evelyn said. She pointed a warning at Gaia. “Just don’t back out on Leon. He seems tough but he’s really not. Break his heart and you might as well kill him.”

  “I know,” Gaia said. She looked down the road to where he was waiting. Peter and the others were beckoning her forward, but Leon stood immobile, staring at her, as if seeing her so exposed robbed him of the ability to move.

  “Got to run,” Evelyn said.

  With a wave, she spun and continued up the path toward the Enclave, while Gaia began to run down the last slope of the road. As she reached the edge of safety, Leon lurched forward to meet her and she flew into his arms.

  “Hold me. Tight,” she said.

  He pulled her around the corner and up against the sheltering wall. He held her hard against him, squeezing her nearly breathless, while the Chardo brothers and the other scouts kept watch.

  “What did they do to you? Did they hurt you?” Leon asked. Tenderly, quickly, he touched her shoulders, examining her, and then he turned her cheek to see her ear. “What’s this?” He took her hands, turning them. The sore marks from the strap still showed clearly on her wrists. His eyes went merciless and hard. “We’ll torch the whole place tonight. As soon as it’s fully dark.”

  “You sound just like him,” Gaia said.

  Leon froze. “Excuse me?”

  “I need you to be yourself,” she said. “Don’t change on me.”

  A struggle crossed his features. “Gaia,” he said, his voice ragged.

  She burrowed forward into his embrace again, gripping his shirt in her fists, blind to everything but the relief of being in his arms. He swayed with her, drawing her half off her feet.

  “You can’t go in there again,” he said.

  “I know. Not like that.”

  “Not ever,” Leon said, and kissed her.

  “Save that for later,” Peter said. “We have to move you out of here, Mlass Gaia. We’re still too exposed.”

  A gunshot exploded from the wall as if to prove his point and Gaia flinched. People on the rooftops of Wharfton scrambled for shelter, some jumping off the lower roofs. Peter yelled a command, and armed men and women retreated back from the south gate. Leon took Gaia’s hand as they zigzagged downhill through the cottages. Though a few windows offered glimpses of candlelight, most of the cottages nearest the wall were shuttered and dark, as if abandoned or hulking in fear.

  When they reached the quad, a crowd of people was gathered outside the Tvaltar, and Gaia slowed.

  “We have to keep going,” Will said. “To the unlake. It’s safest there.”

  “No, wait,” Gaia said, recognizing faces now. People from New Sylum were mixed with her old acquaintances from Wharfton. “Did everyone watch the broadcast?”

  “Yes,” Leon said.

  It meant her people already knew she’d promised their DNA to the registry tomorrow, and the people of Wharfton knew it, too.

  “Are they mad?” she asked, looking to Will.

  “Not everyone’s pleased, but we’ll work on them,” Will said. “It’ll be worth it for the water.”

  “Are you kidding?” Leon said to Gaia. “We just wanted you out. We had no idea what they were doing to you.”

  “I was all right,” she said.

  He scoffed out a laugh. “You were not.”

  “Okay, I wasn’t. But your stunt with Evelyn didn’t help. You enraged your father. He wanted to come out and exterminate us all. Only Genevieve was able to stop him.”

  “I don’t care,” Leon said. “It worked. You’re here. If he wants to attack now, let him.”

  Gaia was about to elucidate the holes in his strategy when a young woman called out to Leon. “You’re Derek’s boy, aren’t you?” she asked.

  “Can I help you?” Leon replied.

  The woman’s rosy cheeks had an invigorated glow, and her eyes were small and bright below a mess of frizzy hair. “You wouldn’t know me,” she added, as she came nearer, slightly out of breath. “I’m your stepma, Derek’s trophy wife. That part about the trophy’s a joke. You can call me Ingrid.” She pointed a thumb over her shoulder. “Derek sprained his ankle earlier jumping off the roof like a regular dufus. That’s what he gets for being a hero. Come by the tavern. All of you.” She turned with interest toward Gaia. “You’re Gaia Stone, right? Heard a lot about you.”

  Gaia recognized her now as the woman who had stood behind Derek on the roof earlier. Gaia glanced up at Leon, who was watching Ingrid with a polite, stiff smile. Leon had mentioned to Gaia that he had a stepmother. He hadn’t met Ingrid during the first, short time he’d been outside the wall with Derek because Derek had wanted to let his young wife adjust to the idea of an advanced, teenage son showing up in their lives before he introduced them. Or so Derek had said.

  Now Gaia was suddenly dying to see Leon interact with his new family. She beckoned to Peter and Will. “Want to come with us to the tavern?” she asked.

  “I’m game,” Will said. “So’s Peter.”

  Peter deadpanned his brother, then nodded at Gaia.
/>   Dinah came forward to give Gaia a hug. “Are you okay? You had us worried.”

  “I’m all right,” Gaia said. “Who’s watching Maya?”

  “Norris and Josephine have her down by the campfire. Myrna took Jack and Angie up to your parents’ place,” Dinah said. Her expression lit up. “Are we going to the tavern?”

  “Evidently,” Leon said.

  “Oh, good,” Dinah said, grinning. She pushed back her hair with both hands. “We are long overdue for a little fun.”

  A bustle of commotion overtook the quad as Peter directed a dozen of Gaia’s scouts to keep guard, and the people of New Sylum shifted toward Peg’s Tavern. The door was pulled open, and an overabundance of candlelight and stale, hops-flavored air spilled out into the quad, inviting them in. Gaia stepped over the threshold just as the crack of billiard balls broke from the back room.

  “Leon!” a voice hailed them from a table by the window. Derek Vlatir had his foot up on an adjacent stool and a cold pack on his ankle. Still, he reached to give Leon a hearty handshake and slapped him on the back. “So good to see you, my boy! Come! Pull up a chair.” Derek smiled at Gaia. “I was no use to you today, young woman. No use at all. And now this.”

  He jerked his chin at his ankle, but when Gaia wanted to see how it was, he shooed her away from it.

  “I want to hear about your trip and all these new people.” Derek’s gaze returned to Leon, and a fatherly hunger warmed his expression. “Have a seat, Leon.” He gripped the back of the chair beside him.

  “Gaia?” Leon said in a low voice, pulling out the chair on his other side.

  “Make yourself useful while you’re catching up,” Ingrid said to Derek, and she plopped a baby on his lap. A dish of cooked carrots and turnips arrived next, with a small mycoprotein patty and a cup of yogurt. “I’ve got to help my folks.”

  The place was rapidly filling up, and after a twitch to the baby’s bib, Ingrid went behind the bar to pull tankards of ale. Gaia saw that Dinah and Peter had been waylaid by a couple of people near the center of the room, and Will had edged over toward a piano, where a young woman was trying to adjust the angle of a candle stand so the light would fall better on the keys.

  The low-ceilinged tavern had thick wooden beams crossing overhead, and a dusty collection of hand-blown bottles on a narrow shelf that ran around the upper perimeter of the room. Gaia had been inside Peg’s only twice before, when she was much younger, and then only for as long as it took to locate her father and tell him he was wanted at home. It was a strange to be old enough now to be a customer, but no one seemed to question her right to be there.

  Gaia felt for Leon’s fingers under the table. He tucked her hand into his.

  “Meet your little sister,” Derek said to Leon, beaming. “Half sister, that is. This here’s Sarah.”

  Leon faced the little girl, a sturdy baby of about eight months, who looked at him with big-eyed interest and then opened her mouth automatically for a spoonful of yogurt from her father.

  Gaia couldn’t get enough of seeing the three of them together. Even with them both sitting, it was clear Leon was taller than his father. Leon’s hair was darker, too, and Derek’s mustache and beard made it difficult to know if he had Leon’s steady jaw. A kindliness warmed Derek’s brown eyes, while even now, smiling, Leon’s blue eyes retained a hint of cool reserve. It made Gaia ache for him. Two decades of age separated Leon and his father, and two more decades fell between Leon and the baby, but Gaia could trace elusive similarities in all three faces. She wondered how long it would take to learn what resemblances ran deeper.

  “Pleased to meet you,” Leon said, and gave the girl’s foot a gentle squeeze. He looked up at his father again. “I meant to ask you before. Do I have any other siblings?”

  “Not anymore,” Derek said. He passed Gaia a basket of dark bread and a plate of cheeses, pointing to her to eat as he kept talking. “Your ma and I had two more little ones after you were born, girls both, but neither of them made it, and then Mary, your ma, died of the fever a few years later, and I moved to Eastern Sector One to start over. You might end up with more siblings if Ingrid has her way.” Derek smiled, his gaze going toward the bar, where Ingrid was working. “I know you’re thinking she’s too young for me. Everybody does. The truth is, I waited as long as I could. I gave her every chance to meet someone else, but she wouldn’t hear of it, and I have to say, I never thought I could be this happy again.” He turned again to Leon, and his gaze grew warm and gentle. “I loved your ma, Leon. A smarter, nicer, more giving woman you’ll never meet. She’d have been proud to see who you’ve become.”

  Leon shook his head briefly. “There’s no need—”

  “No, let me say it. It’s a miracle to have you back in my life,” Derek said. “Ingrid nearly took my head off when she found out you’d come outside the wall and I didn’t tell her. She didn’t used to approve of my, shall we say, underwall activities, but she’s fully on board now.”

  “Did you ever realize that Leon was your son?” Gaia asked. “I mean, that your advanced son had been adopted by the Protectorat?”

  “Yes. Sure. Mary always knew,” Derek said, feeding the baby more yogurt. “She was positive the first time she saw you on one of those Tvaltar specials,” he said to Leon. “It took me a little longer to believe it. We were lucky. We were able to follow your progress and see how smart and happy you were. For a while there, at least.” He held the spoon over the cup. “Why’d they stop those specials?”

  Under the table, Leon released Gaia’s hand and he shrugged. “We got busier, I suppose. Teenagers aren’t as cute as toddlers.”

  “We called you ‘Liam’ when you were a baby,” Derek said. “Remember?”

  Leon laughed. “No. I was pretty little. Maybe I didn’t notice the difference.”

  Ingrid brought over two fists full of tankards and plunked them down on the table before hurrying back to the bar. Bill and another miner had joined a pool game with some locals. The noise of talking voices was loud in the low-ceilinged tavern, but underneath the buzz, Gaia heard the first notes of the piano. It was a folksy, cheerful tune, not loud, and the volume of the hard voices diminished several notches as if the tavern’s patrons subconsciously wanted to listen. Will was leaning near the piano, a relaxed angle to his shoulders, and the musician was talking, smiling up at him while she played. She wore a black ribbon through her dark curls, and her dusky cheeks gleamed in the candlelight.

  Wait, Gaia thought. She shifted, searching out others from New Sylum. Dinah had vanished in the crowd, and Peter was surrounded by three young women who were talking and laughing in lively animation. When one of them casually put her hand on his sleeve, he practically jumped. The girl went on talking, clearly unaware of the effect of her gesture, while Peter’s cheek turned ruddy with color. The Chardo brothers are meeting women! she thought. It was exactly what was supposed to happen, but somehow Gaia felt completely unprepared.

  “Gaia, are you all right?” Leon asked, finding her hand again under the table.

  She blinked back at baby Sarah and Derek, who was also watching Gaia.

  “I’m just tired,” Gaia said. “I’m sorry. We’re you saying something?” She drank from her tankard and licked the foam from her lips.

  Leon’s smile turned quizzical. “Nothing important. I should take you home.”

  A solid man in dusty overalls approached their table. “Gaia?” he asked.

  She lowered her ale and as she recognized Theo Rupp, Emily’s father, she rose eagerly.

  “Did you see Emily in there?” Theo asked.

  Startled by his lack of welcome, she paused. “I did.”

  “How was she?”

  “She was fine,” Gaia said. “I mean, she’s mad at me, but she was fine. She’s pregnant.”

  “We know that much.”

  Gaia came around the table, studying her old neighbor. She glanced behind him, wondering if his wife was with him, too, but he was alone. “How’s Am
y?” she asked.

  “Broken-hearted. How else would she be?”

  Gaia took his arm, drawing him aside. In concise, pained words, Theo tallied up the changes in his family since Gaia had left: his son-in-law murdered, his daughter a permanent guest of the Protectorat, his grandsons growing up where he could never see them. Gaia told him the little she could about seeing Emily that afternoon.

  “It’s wrong,” Theo said. “It’s just wrong, all of it.”

  “You blame me,” Gaia said. “I can see it.”

  He shook his head. “No. I can’t blame you. Not now that I see you again.” He slowly opened his arms, and she leaned near for a hug, inhaling the earthy scent of clay that always clung to the potter.

  “I’m so sorry,” Gaia said.

  “Maybe you’ll fix things now that you’re back,” Theo said softly.

  “Have a seat, Theo,” Derek said. “Come. Join us. Ingrid’s brought you a tankard.”

  Worried, Gaia watched Theo’s sad eyes. Leon hitched over an extra stool. Ingrid poked Theo none too gently in the arm and ordered him to sit. The man lowered himself beside Derek, and settled his gaze on the baby. He quietly accepted a tankard of ale.

  “There’s one good thing that’s come out of all the ruckus with the strike a year ago,” Derek said. He glanced over his shoulder and then leaned forward, lowering his voice. “When people heard that Emily got in trouble over the birth record ledgers you stole, that got their attention. Emily had to give back the ledgers, but people here in Wharfton started creating a new record, from memory. We started a clearing house, Ingrid and me. Mothers from every sector have come to tell us the birthdates of their advanced babies, and we’ve created a new, centralized directory of our own. Now, when any advanced child comes outside the wall, we can tell them who their parents are. And they’ve been coming out, advanced children as young as ten and some in their early twenties. We’ve been having reunions all over the place.” He nodded at Leon. “A little like this. It’s pretty crazy. Emotional.”

  “Does the Protectorat know about this?” Gaia asked.