Eden's Embers

by Helena Maeve

  “I was among those people,” Jackson said more quietly. “You didn’t seem to mind it so much when you begged me to take you along…” He canted his head to one shoulder, something soft and evaluating in his gaze. “Changed your mind?”

  Alana scoffed. “Why, do you plan to return me to sender so I can be chewed up by mutts?” She reached for the gourd. “Thanks to you, there’s nothing for me back home. Cheers,” she said and drank deeply from the skin.

  It tasted like bliss, like wine. Alana hadn’t realized how thirsty she was until the moment she touched the water to her lips.

  “You can’t talk to me like that,” Jackson said, once she’d stopped to catch her breath.

  “What?”

  His furrowed brows betrayed his ire. “You’re my thrall. If I am to claim you, you don’t give me lip.”

  “Or what? You’ll beat me until I learn the value of silence?” Perhaps it was the bruises on her skin or the many aches that had slithered into her bones during the night—or perhaps it was just the image of everything she’d held dear lighting up like a bonfire—but whatever the reason, Alana couldn’t force herself to be quiet and meek. She knew it was the only way to save herself a world of pain, she just couldn’t seem to care.

  Jackson only shook his head. “No… I’ll leave you behind.”

  It was a threat so quietly spoken it might as well have been a lover’s whisper. Alana felt the blood drain from her face.

  “Last night you told me you’ve never left your town,” he recalled, absent-mindedly winding a blade of yellow grass around another. “Believe me when I say that’s a significant weakness. You need me, Alana.”

  I hate you and everything you stand for. In her heart she knew he was right. “Fine,” she said, biting her tongue. “I’m sorry I reminded you that you’re a murderer. Won’t happen again.”

  “You think I’m in danger of forgetting?”

  It wasn’t the question she’d been expecting. “I don’t know how you can go through life like this… Taking from other people who work hard to carve out a future for themselves and their families. It’s beyond me. But as you said, you’re my ticket to survival, so I’ll keep my thoughts to myself.”

  “I certainly wouldn’t want to have any effect on what happens in that head of yours,” Jackson said, climbing to his feet. “Eat or pack that up. We need to get moving soon.”

  “We’re leaving again? But you said the mutt—”

  “Can see slightly better in daylight,” Jackson finished for her. “Then again, so can we.”

  Alana liberated only one small piece of meat, on account of knowing her body well enough to suspect that she would need to eat again soon, and stuffed it into a pocket sewn into her grimy, blood-spattered shirt. Jackson showed her where to bury the cloth-wrapped bundle so the next pack of roving murderers would find it. He didn’t say it in so many words, but Alana had a hard time thinking of his people in gentler terms.

  They set out on foot, down the slopes of the small, rocky outcropping where they had spent the night, into a deep ravine through which slithered a thin rivulet of water. It seemed clear enough, so they refilled the gourd and washed their faces clean of sweat before trudging on.

  The landscape changed around them slowly, from the windswept valleys that bordered New Eden into lush green forests.

  Alana kept her eyes peeled for signs that might indicate where they were headed, but other than the odd smattering of green moss here and there, she couldn’t say. As far as she knew, there was nothing to the north save for a few desolate, long-since ransacked townships. She had seen pictures of the tall towers that had once housed the world’s rich, but that all seemed like fiction. She couldn’t understand why people would ever want to build so high from the earth, or how they went about climbing so many steps without running out of breath. It seemed to her like a poor way to spend one’s money.

  Jackson had them stop in a small inlet by the river around noon, then again in the mid-afternoon, when Alana’s pace began to flag. She could feel his gaze on her as she tugged off her shoes and sank her blistered feet into the icy stream.

  “Does it hurt much?” he asked at length.

  “Some,” Alana answered with a wince. It wasn’t quite the reprimand she’d been expecting, but she was fast discovering that Jackson had a habit of going against the grain. “Don’t suppose you have some of that sagewort on you?”

  Jackson shook his head. “I passed it along.”

  “Right…” So his lady love had been present in New Eden. Terrific. Alana hoped she had enjoyed the massacre. She made to slide the boot back on, grimacing as her abused flesh scraped the inside lining of the shoe.

  “We’ll make camp here,” Jackson said suddenly, leaving Alana to wonder if she’d misheard.

  “Here?” It was nowhere near as camouflaged as last night’s shelter. There was nothing to cover them if it rained.

  Jackson nodded, pressing his lips into a thin line. “Since I’m the only one who actually knows what he’s doing, I’d tone down the disbelief. I’m going to find us something to eat.” He bounded to his feet before Alana could so much as open her mouth.

  For once, she had been hoping to apologize for mistrusting him.

  * * * *

  “Aren’t you going to ask why I wanted to leave New Eden?” Alana asked when the silence became too much to suffer. The cackle of nocturnal birds and the howl of the wind rattling through the tree branches only made for so much entertainment. As their modest campfire smoldered and turned to ash, Alana’s patience dwindled with its flames.

  Jackson shook his head. He was braiding leaves into last night’s grassy rope, having added ivy to its coils while Alana had paced the shoreline.

  “Really?” She canted her head back against the rocks. “Aren’t you curious? Or is it poor form to take an interest in your thrall?”

  “You speak as if your people do not take prisoners,” Jackson muttered, his voice barely pitched higher than the murmur of the river.

  “We— They,” Alana corrected quickly, “do not. It is against the law.” Whatever their errors of judgment, the council would not have allowed it. “Why do you?” she wondered aloud. “It’s not as if you need the help. You have no farms, no trade… If all thralls are like me, then they’re more trouble than they’re worth.”

  “All thralls are not like you,” Jackson retorted, a sharp edge slithering into his words. He seemed reluctant to indulge her questions. Perhaps he didn’t want to speak to Alana at all.

  But if he didn’t want her to delight him with her—admittedly aggravating—wit, then what? He hadn’t made any attempt to ravish her. He didn’t seem interested in carving his name into her flesh, like the rapers from stories told to the young girls in New Eden to keep them on the straight and narrow.

  “I don’t know how to hunt,” Alana said. “I’m hopelessly lost… Other than my body, I have no earthly clue what you could want from me.” And she was glad her voice didn’t shake when she mentioned the last.

  Jackson shifted forward abruptly and, though there was nowhere left for her to go, Alana still found herself recoiling. Her breath caught.

  “Are you trying to provoke me?”

  Alana shook her head quickly.

  “Then give up your prying,” he hissed.

  Or else what? Alana’s morbid curiosity nearly got the better of her. She couldn’t help but want to know what was the worst fate that could await her if she failed to submit. For once the words stuck to the roof of her mouth like honey. “All right. I’m sorry…”

  For a moment, she thought Jackson might say something else, but he only shook his head and went back to braiding his weeds. It was all kinds of absurd, but his indifference was proving harder to bear than the cold and the wilderness and the creeping realization that everything she’d ever known—the place she’d called home and the neighbors who had whispered about her when she walked past—was forever lost.

  She turned her gaze back to the
river. “I was to be married” fell from her lips on a whisper. She could only hope that it had been too soft for Jackson to overhear, lest he take offense at being perturbed from his task.

  He said nothing. I was right, Alana thought. He doesn’t care.

  Sleep found her no more knowledgeable than she’d been upon waking. She should have been too tired for dreams, but the scorch of flames found her quickly enough. Suddenly, Alana was slip-sliding through a deluge of blood and viscera, pushing past wide-eyed corpses who seemed surprised to discover they were dead.

  She was trying to crawl out of the mire, but there was blood in the back of her throat, choking her with its sharp, metallic tang, and the more she swam, the farther she seemed to be from shore. Her limbs were growing heavy, each stroke painful, and the sea of blood seemed to be growing thicker, congealing like amber with her at its center.

  A scream was building in the back of her throat—had been for a long, long time—but it didn’t seep out until she felt hands grasp her shoulders.

  Alana jerked awake in the sand and river silt, with Jackson perched over her and the moon looming fat and pale in the starry sky. “Let me go!” she shrieked, kicking out wildly.

  It was no use. Jackson was the stronger between them. “It’s all right,” he gritted out. “Alana—you’re all right.”

  Her knee connected with his shin double-quick, but Jackson barely even flinched. He took the swats of her hands as though he couldn’t even feel the sting of pain. You’re not human, Alana thought dizzily. She didn’t have the strength to keep up her assault, just like she hadn’t been able to fight him off back in town.

  It wasn’t strength that had subdued her. Suddenly, grief morphed into the bitter bite of guilt. Her people were dead and she had betrayed their memory by fleeing with their murderer for company.

  Tears blurred her vision and she doubled over, away from Jackson. She didn’t want to retch on him and she felt like that was a very real possibility, what with her breaths coming too fast and sobs tangling viciously in her throat.

  “You’re all right,” Jackson repeated, pressing the words into her ear and his body flush against hers. It should’ve scared Alana, but there was no room left for panic.

  Jackson slid an arm around her waist. He used the other to give her a better pillow than the cold, uneven ground. He held her tightly, but not tight enough for bruises. It didn’t take long before Alana found herself clinging to his solid, warm arms as sobs racked her body.

  She didn’t beg him to release her again.

  Chapter Four

  It came as little surprise that Jackson saw no need to tie her hands or put a rope collar around her neck. After the first day, he had ceased pulling her along by the wrist, instead choosing to warn her of any sharp divots in the forest floor in his usual, barking brogue as he led the way. Even if Alana had wanted to entertain the thought, where could she flee? The wood looked equally treacherous on either side and Alana remembered her run-in with that gargantuan mutt too well to trust in chance.

  She was grateful, though. There was little dignity in what she’d done to save herself, but at least she didn’t have a constant reminder looped around her throat like the reins on a horse. And despite her aversion to anything drifter, she had begun forcing herself to show a gentler side to Jackson in hopes that he’d see some use in keeping her beside him, unharmed.

  Two days in a row, she stayed behind as loyal and placid as a well-trained dog while Jackson took care of gathering their breakfast. With no hourglass or sunstone, she had only her own thoughts to help her mark the time—a useless pursuit and one she gave up quickly when she realized it was a great deal more necessary to treat her wounds so they could be on their way again quickly.

  Jackson still hadn’t said where he was taking her. It could just as well be another trading town, where he could exchange her for goods he needed, as it could be a cave. Anything was possible and Alana knew she had little in the way of personal talent that could sway him. She felt like kicking herself when she thought of how lightly she’d spoken of her ignorance. Sure, she was versed in the language of herbs and spices, of poisons and potions, but of spears and mechanisms for snaring wild game, she knew nothing.

  The raw, pink wounds suppurating on her feet spoke of how ill-suited she was to the nomadic way of life. And Jackson clearly had no other interest in her. He might have taken advantage last night, when she was not only incapable of fighting him off but when she might have allowed him to take his pleasure with little struggle.

  The crackle of twigs alerted her to his return. “I’m almost finished,” she said, glancing quickly over her shoulder. “We can leave when you wish…”

  Alana did a double-take.

  That was no man standing in the shadows of the copse, a tall, curved blade in hand.

  “Jackson!”

  “Shh,” the woman cooed. “You’ll draw the wolves, little girl.” She was very blonde, her silvery hair tied up in many braids and pinned high onto the crown of her head. She reminded Alana of Elnora Lewis, if only briefly. There was a violence in this woman’s gaze the likes of which Alana had never seen before.

  Only the slant of her smile was familiar. It had been etched into Alana’s memory the night of the massacre, when the woman had stood on the pleasure house balcony and slit an innocent man’s throat.

  Alana opened her mouth to shout again, warning be damned, but didn’t get the chance.

  The woman stiffened as a blade slid under her chin, poised to slice open her jugular. A haughty leer endured on her wind-chapped lips. “Is this how you greet guests now, Idaho?”

  “I don’t recall issuing an invitation,” Jackson growled, tilting up his knife so the sharpened edge bit lightly into skin.

  The woman scoffed. “We’ve been tracking you since you left town. This one leaves footprints like a mongrel bitch.”

  It took Alana a moment to understand that she was the bitch in question. By the time she did, the potential for indignation had already been exhausted.

  “Don’t be a fool,” the woman was telling Jackson. “My lad has you in his sights.”

  “You’d be dead before his arrow struck.”

  She laughed. “Perhaps, but do you wish to die before you’ve plucked this pretty blossom? I don’t think so.”

  A moment passed, then another, every second weighted by the glint of silver clutched none too gently in Jackson’s fist. Alana didn’t dare move for fear that any sudden moves might be mistaken for an attack. Whoever was watching them from the bushes had the advantage of shadow and tree cover. Alana couldn’t make him out. She couldn’t guess where the threat might come from.

  Jackson, she realized, was none the wiser. Their eyes met, his gaze flinty and dark like spilled ink. For a moment, it looked as though he might try to make a point, but the instant passed with no one getting hurt and, much to Alana’s relief, he released the blonde woman and sheathed his blade. “You’re playing with fire, Leona. I told you not to sneak up on me.”

  “Ah, but where would be the fun in that?” The woman laughed. “Well, who’s this? Aren’t you going to introduce us?” Her own blade was still out. Alana darted to her feet at the sight. Leona’s smirk grew. “Aw, she doesn’t seem to appreciate my steel.”

  “Perhaps it’s your sly arrival she objects to,” said Jackson. “Alana, meet Leona. She’s a friend.”

  “Alana,” the other woman drawled, stretching out the consonants. “Isn’t that a pretty name…? And a pretty face to boot. You always had an eye for beauty, Idaho, but you’ve outdone yourself this time.”

  “Pay her no mind,” Alana heard a male voice say behind her. She whipped around, her heart lodged firmly in her throat, only to find a ginger-haired youth slinging a tall bow across his back. “She likes to flirt.”

  “Calumny!” Leona protested, but no one paid her any mind.

  “”I’m Finn,” the youth said and went so far as to hold out a hand, like they did in books from the Old World. Ala
na wouldn’t have known she was supposed to shake it if not for the novels in the mission house library. Finn’s palm was soft in hers, fingers long and delicate in her grasp. “Hope we didn’t scare you. Sometimes it’s easy to forget not everyone’s used to our ways.”

  There was something gentle in his expression, but whether that was owing to the freckles on the apples of his cheeks or the slant of his lush mouth, Alana couldn’t say. She was still trying to reconcile what she knew of drifters and rapers with the man standing before her when Leona cleared her throat.

  “Enough small talk,” she said. “We need to get moving.”

  “I’ve only just laid snares—”

  Leona cut Jackson short. “You won’t catch anything. We’ve been trying for two days. Think walkers might be coming.”

  “Walkers?” Alana echoed, recovering her voice with a mortifying, high-pitched squeak.

  “Oh, she talks!” Leona’s good humor was short-lived. “Yes, walkers. Every living thing flees them. Hares, squirrels… Those flocks of starlings fluttering by all the goddamn night.”

  “They’re afraid,” Finn added with an apologetic shrug. “As we should be. You don’t want to come face to face with a horde.”

  Alana could well believe it.

  She’d heard stories about the hungering, hulking masses that had once brought society to its knees. They still terrorized the open country between one town and the next, though there were far fewer of them now. New Eden had been lucky that its border wall had never had to hold back a herd. That would change with no gate left to shut out the monsters.

  It was the kind of thought that Alana couldn’t afford to dwell on. “Let me get my shoes,” she said and forced herself into motion. Her makeshift bandages would have to do. Better torn skin than torn flesh—or, worse, becoming one of the lumbering, brainless undead.

  * * * *

  Leona set a merciless pace. She had them skirt the river until they reached a sudden drop, then it was straight across, through the thigh-high froth and racing against the rising sun. Her blonde hair made her easy to spot between the thick tree trunks in their path once they reached the neighboring shore, but Alana still worried every time she lost sight of the other woman. Knowing what awaited them if they delayed was just as bad as traipsing blindly beside Jackson with no destination in sight.