“Jeremiah Krunkel, sir. Head groom to the Commander for nigh unto thirty years. Done my fair share of travel.”
I stare him down. “Thirty years of loyal service to the Commander. Why not leave with the others three days ago and seek asylum at one of the southeastern city-states? Why follow me?”
Jeremiah’s pale eyes lock onto mine. “Figured thirty years of brutality was more than any man should have to bear.”
“Fair enough. Can you draw me a map?”
Jeremiah stands and shoves his hat onto his head. His fingers curl and twist like hairs held too close to a fire. “Have a bit of trouble holding a quill these days, but I’ll manage.”
“There are drawing supplies inside the compound. Meet me there in twenty minutes, and I’ll show you.” I look at the rest of the crowd. “We’re going out through the tunnel. I’ll collapse the basement ceiling in the compound to cover our tracks. It will be like we simply vanished. Until then, though, we have two days and a lot of work to do. Let’s get started.”
As the crowd slowly disperses, I gaze out past the city’s Wall at the vast expanse of the Wasteland that stands between us and safety.
Best Case Scenario: Everything runs smoothly, and we’re able to leave within the next two days without anyone realizing where we’ve gone.
Worst Case Scenario: Rowansmark or the Commander arrives before we leave, and I’m forced to flee across the Wasteland with a group of untrained, inexperienced men, women, and children while an army closes in behind us.
Because I’ve never once known anything to go according to plan, I dismiss the group and then head to my tent, where my pack of salvaged tech supplies beckons to me. I might put most of my faith in the tunnel, Rowansmark’s tech, and the steadily improving fighting abilities of those who are training each morning, but it never hurts to have a backup plan.
Just in case.
Chapter Two
RACHEL
After Logan’s speech, I approach the training ground, located fifteen yards away from the first line of tents that mark our camp. Willow is already waiting for me, her olive skin glowing in the sun. The rest of the survivors are hurrying toward their various job assignments, casting furtive glances at the distant Wall that surrounds Baalboden as if wondering when Rowansmark might arrive to claim their stolen tech.
Quinn, Willow’s older brother, weaves around the scattering of people walking through this row of shelters, his movements graceful and controlled. I stop at the edge of the training ground and wait for him. His dark hair has grown past his shoulders, but unlike Willow, he doesn’t seem to care about restraining it before our practice sessions. He still wears the leather breeches and rough-spun tunic of the Tree Village that declared him an outcast before he met up with me in the Wasteland to fulfill my father’s last wish.
“I heard you screaming in your sleep last night,” he says as he walks up to me. His voice is as calm and emotionless as always. “I was walking past your tent after my guard shift.”
I glare at him. “What, no ‘hello’? No small talk? Just straight into things that are none of your business?”
“Rachel.” His tone is gentle but unyielding. “We’re friends. How is it none of my business?”
I sigh. “They’re just nightmares. They’ll pass.”
“Not until you face what causes them.”
There’s a glimmer of pain buried in his words, but I have to search to find it. I used to hate the way Quinn always holds himself under such tight control. Especially after he told me that, like me, he’d killed a man he wasn’t sure deserved it. Back then, fury and guilt burned inside me with equal strength, and I couldn’t help but scorch everything I touched.
But fires only burn until you starve them for fuel. And the ashes of my fury are as cold and silent as the streets of Lower Market.
“I’ll face what causes my nightmares as soon as we drop all these people off at Lankenshire and I can search for the Commander without risking their lives.” My lips feel stiff with cold, though the morning is warm. It’s like the icy silence that swallowed the grief of losing Oliver, my father, and my city is leeching the warmth from my skin. I walk toward the group waiting on the practice field without a backward glance while the silence inside of me shivers.
A breeze lifts silvery bits of ash from the wreckage behind us and slaps us in the face with grit as the twenty-three survivors who’ve faithfully attended every practice session spread out on the field. A pile of salvaged knives and swords lies to my right, and a stack of practice sticks fashioned from tree limbs is on my left. A few have reached the point where they can train with real weapons, but most are still using the practice sticks.
I clear my throat, and twenty-three pairs of eyes lock on me. My best friend, Sylph, is here, her curly dark hair tied back with rope, along with her new husband, Smithson. Jodi, a small blonde girl I recognize from my few years at Life Skills, the domestic arts class all Baalboden girls attended in place of a real education, stands next to Thom, who must’ve found someone to take his place in the tunnel in order to attend this session. A small knot of boys, most of them younger than me, stand close to Willow, eyeing her hopefully. Ian stands near her as well, the sun painting his brown hair gold as he flashes a charming smile in her direction whenever she makes eye contact. Most of the girls in camp melt when Ian aims one of his smiles at them. Willow is a notable exception.
Another boy elbows his way to the front of the pack, and I roll my eyes. If we could get the rest of the survivors as interested in Willow’s instruction, we’d have a battalion full of trained soldiers in no time.
“Are we going to get started, or what?” someone asks.
I look past Thom and see Adam. Bruises mar his golden skin, and his dark eyes glare into mine. He’d be almost pretty if someone hadn’t recently used him as a punching bag.
“Get in another fight?” I ask him.
“He deserved it.” His expression is mutinous.
“You always think everyone deserves it. What if you’re wrong?”
Melkin’s face, pale and cold, burns into my memory, and I shove it away before I can remember the terrible wet sound of my knife sliding into his chest. Before his blood pours over my hands, a stain I’ll wear beneath my skin for the rest of my life.
Adam glares at me. “I’m not wrong. This?” He gestures at the ruins behind us. “This is what’s wrong.”
“I know,” I say, and turn away from the pain I see in his eyes. He needs comfort, and I’m all out.
“That and the fact that our true leader disappeared into the Wasteland, and we’ve got a nineteen-year-old boy trying to take his place.” Adam’s voice is sharp with derision, but beneath it I hear the kind of fathomless grief that drags you under until you no longer care if you ever find the surface again.
Blinking away the stark memory of my father’s grave, I walk toward Adam. I recognize the fury that drives him. I once used something like it as fuel to give me a reason to face one more day. To take one more step forward, even though it meant leaving behind the life I once thought I’d have. Stopping in front of him, I ask, “Who did you lose in the fire?”
He glares at me. “Everyone.” Waving a hand at the unending sea of destruction at my back, he flings his words at me like a challenge he doesn’t think I’ll answer. “I lost everyone. You?”
“I lost everyone I loved long before. Everyone but Logan.”
“Lucky for you,” he says, and looks away. “Must be nice not to have watched your family burn.”
“Oh, yes, I’m very lucky.” My voice is as unyielding as his. “I’m so incredibly fortunate that I had to watch my grandfather die in front of me because our true leader decided killing a harmless baker to get my cooperation was acceptable. So fortunate that my father was a man of honor who tried to stop our leader’s treachery and paid for it with his life.”
He meets my eyes, and I step closer. “By the time our city burned, I had no family left to lose. So don’t you stand th
ere and call me lucky. Don’t you shame Logan by referring to the Commander as our true leader when all he ever delivered to us was heartbreak, fear, and death.”
For one terrible instant, Adam’s face blurs and bends until the Commander stands before me, his sword dripping Oliver’s blood in a river of crimson that refuses to stop no matter how hard I beg.
I don’t remember releasing the blade on the Switch, but it gleams silver-sharp in the sunlight as I lift my arm. Quinn is at my side a second later, his hand pressed firmly against my shoulder.
Silence holds us captive for a long moment as Adam looks from me to Quinn. Slowly, I lower my arm and step back.
“Break into three groups now, please,” Quinn says, and the twenty-three survivors, now armed with practice sticks, slowly gravitate toward Willow, Quinn, and me.
Mostly toward Willow, who seems oblivious to the way the boys watch her every move with hungry, admiring eyes, or the way the girls pretend indifference but are careful to copy her stance and the tilt of her chin.
Adam stares me down for another second, then moves to Willow’s side. I wish her luck.
Jodi, Thom, Sylph, and Smithson surround me in our corner of the practice field. A man old enough to be my father joins us as well, along with three boys who can’t possibly be more than fourteen. The youngest, a boy named Donny Miller, keeps stealing glances at Willow like he wishes he’d joined her group instead.
We begin running practice drills, and the sharp slap of wooden sticks slamming against each other fills the air. The practice sticks are heavy enough to approximate the weight of a short sword and long enough to give our recruits a sense of the way a weapon lengthens your reach and changes your balance. I pace around my group, calling out instructions.
“Keep your grip loose.” I tap Donny’s white knuckles. “Hands wide apart to give you stability and power.”
Hefting my Switch, I demonstrate. “You need to be able to block effectively. Watch.” I nod toward Smithson. “Hit me.”
“I—what?”
“Hit. Me.” When he hesitates again, I snap, “Did you think this would be all safe little practice drills? Swing that stick at me, Smithson. I’m going to show everyone how to deflect a blow.”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he says as he lifts his stick.
“You won’t.” I roll to the balls of my feet and widen my stance. He swings at my side. I pivot and slam my Switch into his weapon. It goes flying out of his hand.
I swear viciously. “You’d be dead right now. Dead!” Springing forward, I get in his face. “When you swing your weapon, you give it everything you’ve got. Every time. Now pick up your stick and come at me again.”
Smithson’s face flushes red. “You’re a lady—”
Swearing again, I snatch his stick off the ground and thrust it at him.
“Not with that mouth, she isn’t,” Jodi says with a tiny smirk on her face.
I glare at her, and then include everyone else for good measure. “The Baalboden protocol that promised protection in exchange for absolute submission is dead. Forget everything you think you know about being a girl.” I look at Smithson. “Or how to treat a girl. This is battle, and despite the Commander’s protests to the contrary, girls are capable of attacking, defending, and killing. Anyone who comes at you with intent to harm you must be put down.”
Melkin’s dark eyes stare at me, full of accusation. I ignore the memory and lift my Switch. “Now attack me like you mean it.”
His stick whistles through the air. I whip my Switch up and block the blow. The power of it reverberates up my arms. “Good. See how I block with the middle of my weapon? My balance is still centered, and I can safely pivot to either side and deliver a blow of my own.”
I swing to the left and slam the lightest end of the Switch against Smithson’s thigh.
“Block me!” I pivot again and swing.
He blocks me. Barely, but it’s a victory, and I reward him with a smile. Then I divide up my group and set them to sparring with each other while I study all twenty-three trainees and size them up.
Jodi has potential. So do two of the boys and, to my utter surprise, Sylph. Smithson, now that he’s recovering from his gentlemanly instincts, isn’t half-bad either, and neither is Thom, though I knew that already. I turn to study the other groups and find several who’ve developed decent instincts, strength, and agility. A man in Quinn’s group can block almost any blow aimed at him. Another kicks with enough power to knock Quinn off balance. Even a few of the boys in Willow’s group aren’t half- bad. Elias, who is a year older than Smithson, and Derreck, a man with creases in his forehead and strength in his arms, move like they’ve been training for months instead of weeks.
But the real star is Ian. The flirtatious charm he uses to turn most of the girls in camp into starry-eyed idiots is gone. He fights with focused intensity, and his blows are swift and precise.
A frown digs in between my brows as I study his moves. He dances around his sparring partner, a girl of about eighteen with long brown hair and wide eyes who grips her practice stick like she isn’t quite sure how it came to be in her hand. Ian jumps forward to deliver a light tap the second she drops her guard. Which is often. When she finally decides to take a swing at him, he pivots to the left and lunges forward as if his weapon is an extension of himself.
Where did he learn to fight like that? And why is he in the sparring session for beginners instead of in the postlunch session for those who are more advanced?
I’m halfway across the field, intent on pulling Ian aside and getting some answers, when the girl swings wildly as his head. He ducks, executes a half turn, and taps her smartly across the back with his own stick. She flinches and releases her stick so she can press her hand against the skin he bruised. He grabs her arm, spins her around, and drives her to her knees.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he demands.
I walk faster.
“Hold the stick steady. Use the core of your body when you swing. And whatever you do, don’t take time to deal with your injuries until your opponent is dead. Why am I having to repeat this to you? A girl your age should be able to hold her own.”
My fingers curl around my Switch. “Ian!”
“She knows better than to drop her weapon,” Ian says, straightening slowly. “You’d think she’d never given one thought to self-defense until we started these sessions.”
“Maybe she hadn’t,” I say. “Certainly she never thought about it until the city burned. Have you already forgotten Baalboden had a protocol that required girls to be dependent on male Protectors?”
He looks away. “I was just trying to help.” Reaching his hand out toward the girl, he says, “I’m sorry. You can take a free swing at me if it will make you feel better.”
“I’m fine,” the girl says as she picks up her stick and lets Ian help her to her feet. “He’s right. I know better than to drop my weapon.”
“Sometimes I forget that all Baalboden girls aren’t as experienced as Rachel and Willow. Plus, you’re beautiful, and that’s an unfair distraction,” he says, and she returns his smile.
Ridiculous. Between the girls throwing themselves at Ian’s feet and the boys panting after Willow, you’d think we were at a Claiming ceremony instead of learning how to fight.
“I’m not a Baalboden girl,” Willow says softly, and her voice carries an edge I don’t often hear from her.
Ian winks at her. “You are now.”
I watch to see if Willow’s golden skin will turn pink as well, but she seems impervious to Ian’s charms. Instead, she hefts a sword, hands it to Adam, who stands beside her, and says, “I didn’t say we were finished for the day. Back to sparring.”
Slowly, the twenty-three recruits regroup, some with practice sticks and some with swords. I keep my eye on Ian as he faces off with Quinn, but the skill he displayed earlier is nothing compared to the lethal force of Quinn’s movements. Maybe Ian only looked good because he was sparrin
g with a girl who can barely manage to hold on to her weapon.
Or maybe he has more experience than he wants to let on.
Either way, I decide Logan needs to know that Ian might be hiding something from us, and that Adam isn’t going to stop causing trouble in camp until he accepts Logan’s leadership.
I hope Logan has a plan for how to ferret out secrets and stop rebellion with typical Logan-ish practicality, because if he doesn’t, I might suggest giving me and my Switch five minutes alone with each of them. We have to worry about the Commander lurking somewhere in the Wasteland, Rowansmark’s bounty on our head, and gangs of highwaymen who will surely see us as easy prey. We shouldn’t have to add idiots from our own camp to that list.
Chapter Three
LOGAN
Striding into my tent, I toss my cloak onto my bedroll and crouch beside my tech bag. The machine I built to dig the tunnel is down.
Again.
This time, it’s a stripped gear and some broken teeth. Last time, the battery cables were pulled loose. The time before that, I found my stash of spare parts strewn across the basement floor. Either some of the younger kids are getting a thrill from messing with me, or someone is disgruntled with my leadership but lacks the courage to say so to my face.
It’s childish nonsense, but still, it takes time. Time we don’t have. I want to tunnel at least one thousand yards into the Wasteland before we surface so that the trackers who come to Baalboden won’t have any signs to follow. I can’t do that if my machine keeps breaking down.
Snatching my tech bag, I flip the latch open and look inside. I need another battery, and I only have a few left from the stash I kept at the armory with my barrels of glycerin and acid and my extra wires. I can make more, but I’m not sure I have all the supplies I’d need, and another salvage expedition through the ruins would slow me down further. The extra batteries are near the bottom of the bag. I shove my hand inside and my fingers scrape the edges of something smooth and soft.
Deception Page 2
