Aria jammed her feet into her boots—nothing like an audience to motivate—and straightened.
Molly set the lamp down on a trunk and came over. “Are you sure you should be up and about?”
Aria swept her hair behind her ear and tried to slow her breathing. Cold sweat had broken out along her neck. “I’m sure I’ll go insane if I stay here any longer.”
Molly smiled, her full cheeks glowing in the lamplight. “I’ve heard that very comment a few times today.” She pressed a rough-skinned hand to Aria’s cheek. “Your fever’s down, but you’re due for more medication.”
“No.” Aria shook her head. “I’m fine. I’m tired of being asleep.”
Asleep wasn’t really the right word. For the past few days, she had a few murky recollections of surfacing from a black abyss for medicine and sips of broth. Sometimes Perry was there, holding her and whispering in her ear. When he’d spoken, she’d seen the glow of embers. Other than that, there’d been nothing but darkness—or nightmares.
Molly took Aria’s numb hand and squeezed. Aria felt nothing, but as Molly probed higher, she sucked in a breath, her stomach clenching.
“You’ve had some nerve damage,” Molly said. “I suppose you’re figuring that out for yourself.”
“But it’ll heal, won’t it? Eventually?”
“I care for you too much to give false hope, Aria. The truth is, I don’t know. Marron and I did the best we could. We were able to save the limb, at least. For a while it looked like we might have to remove it.”
Aria drew away, turning toward the shadows as the words sank in. Her arm had almost been removed. Taken off, like some expendable part. An accessory. A hat or a scarf. Had she really come that close to waking up and finding a piece of herself missing?
“It’s the arm that was poisoned,” she said, tucking it close to her side. “It wasn’t much to start with anyway.” Her Marking, the half-finished tattoo that would have established her as an Aud, was the ugliest thing she’d ever seen. “Will you show me around, Molly?”
Aria didn’t wait for an answer. The urge to see Perry—and to forget about her arm—was overwhelming. Ducking through the tent flaps, she came to a dead stop outside.
She looked up, overcome by the sheer presence of the cave, a hefty immensity that felt both close and everywhere. Stalactites of every size emerged from the darkness above, darkness unlike what she’d experienced in her medicated haze. That had been empty, an absence. This darkness had sound and volume. It felt full and alive, droning low and constant in her ears.
She drew a deep breath. The cool air smelled brackish and smoky, the scents so strong she could taste them.
“For most of us, the darkness is the hardest part,” Molly said, coming to her side.
Around them, in neat rows, Aria saw more tents, ragged ghosts in the gloom. Sounds carried from farther off, where torches flickered—the crunch of a cart wheeling over stone, the steady trickle of water, the pleading bleat of a goat—all echoed frenetically in the cave, assaulting her sensitive ears.
“When you can’t see more than forty paces off,” Molly continued, “it’s easy to feel trapped. We aren’t, thank the skies. It hasn’t come to that yet.”
“And the Aether?” Aria asked.
“Worse. Storms every day since you arrived, some right on top of us.” Molly threaded her arm through Aria’s healthy one. “We’re lucky to have this place. Sometimes it’s not easy to feel that way, though.”
An image of Reverie crumbling to dust came to Aria’s mind. Her home was gone, and the Tide compound had been abandoned too.
Molly was right. This was better than nothing.
“I suppose you want to see Peregrine,” Molly said, leading Aria past a row of tents.
Immediately, Aria thought. But she said, simply, “Yes.”
“You’ll need to wait a little while, I’m afraid. We had word of people entering the territory. He’s gone out with Gren to meet them. I’m hoping it’s Roar and that he’s brought Cinder with him.”
Just hearing Roar’s name brought a rawness to Aria’s throat. She worried about him. She’d only been separated from him for a few days, but it felt like too long.
They came to an open area, wide as the clearing at the heart of the Tide compound. At the center spread a wooden platform surrounded by tables and chairs—all packed with people gathered around lamps. Dressed in browns and grays, they blended into the dimness, but their chatter drifted toward her, their voices tinged with anxiety.
“We’re only allowed to leave the cave when it’s safe outside,” Molly said, noticing Aria’s expression. “Today there are fires burning close by and a storm just south, so we’ve been stuck here.”
“It’s not safe to be outside? You said Perry was out there.”
Molly winked. “Yes, but he gets to break his own rules.”
Aria shook her head. As Blood Lord, he needed to take risks, more like.
By the stage, people began to notice them. Sun-bleached and salt-scrubbed, the Tides were an aptly named tribe. Aria spotted Reef and a few of his strongest warriors, a group known as the Six. She recognized the three brothers: Hyde, Hayden, and Straggler, the youngest. It didn’t surprise her that Hyde, a Seer like his brothers, spotted her first. He lifted a hand in a tentative greeting.
Aria returned a shaky wave. She barely knew him, or any of these people. She’d only spent a few days with Perry’s tribe before she left the Tide compound. Now, standing before these almost strangers, she felt a powerful longing to see her people, but she didn’t. Not a single person she and Perry had rescued from Reverie was there.
“Where are the Dwellers?” she asked.
“In a separate portion of the cave,” Molly said.
“Why?”
But Molly’s attention had moved to Reef, who left his men and stalked over. In the darkness, his features looked even harsher, and the massive scar that cut from his nose to his ear appeared more sinister.
“You’re finally up,” he said. His tone made it sound like Aria had been lazing around. Perry cared for this man, she reminded herself. Trusted him. But Reef had never made any attempt to befriend her.
She stared into his eyes. “Being injured is boring.”
“You’re needed,” he said, ignoring her sarcasm.
Molly wagged a finger at him. “No, you don’t, Reef. She just woke up and needs a chance to get acclimated. Don’t put this on her so soon.”
Reef squared his shoulders, his thick eyebrows drawing together. “When should I tell her then, Molly? Every day brings a new storm. Every hour, our food stores dwindle. Every minute, someone else comes closer to going mad inside this rock. If there is a better time for her to know the truth, I’d like to know when it is.” He leaned in, a few of his thick braids falling forward. “War rules, Molly. We do what’s needed, when it’s needed, and right now that means she needs to know what’s happening.”
Reef’s words shook any last wisp of fuzziness from Aria’s mind. They brought her back to where she’d been a week ago, alert and tense, a little breathless, with a sense of desperation curling inside her like a stomachache.
“Tell me what happened,” she said.
Reef turned his intense gaze on Aria. “Better if I show you,” he said, striding away.
She followed him from the gathering area, deeper into the cave, where it grew darker and quieter and darker still, her dread mounting with every step. Molly let out a sigh of exasperation, but she came along.
They wove through the melting formations—a forest of stone that dripped from the ceiling and rose up from the ground, gradually molding together—until Aria walked through a natural corridor. Here and there, the tunnel opened to other passageways, which breathed cool damp drafts against her face.
“Down that way is the storage area for medicines and supplies,” Molly said, gesturing to the left. “Everything that’s not food or animals. Those are kept in the caverns at the south end.” Her voice sounded a litt
le too cheerful, like she was trying to compensate for Reef’s gruff manner. She swung the lamp gently as she walked, causing the shadows to tilt up and back along the cramped space. Aria found herself growing slightly light-headed and seasick. Or cavesick.
Where were they taking her?
She had never known darkness like this. Outside there was always Aether, or sunlight, or moonlight. In the Pod, within the protected walls of Reverie, lights always blazed. Always. This was new, this suffocating pool. She felt the pitch black fill her lungs with every breath. She was drinking the dark. Wading through it.
“Behind that curtain is the Battle Room,” Molly continued. “It’s a smaller cavern where we brought one of the trestle tables from the cookhouse. Perry meets with people in there to discuss matters of importance. The poor boy hardly ever leaves.”
Walking silently ahead of them, Reef shook his head.
“I worry about him, Reef,” Molly said, with plain irritation. “Someone has to.”
“And you think I don’t?”
Aria worried too—more than either of them—but she bit her lip, leaving them to argue.
“Well, you’re good at hiding it, if so,” Molly shot back. “All you seem to do is lecture him about what he’s doing wrong.”
Reef glanced over his shoulder. “Should I start slapping him on the back and telling him he’s wonderful? Will that do us any good?”
“You could try it once in a while, yes.”
Aria stopped listening to them. The hair on her arms lifted as her ears latched on to new sounds. Moans. Whimpers. Sickly sounds that swept toward her through the tunnel. A chorus of need.
She broke away from Molly and Reef, clutching her wounded arm to her side as she rushed ahead. Rounding a bend in the corridor, she arrived in a large, dim cavern, lit along the perimeter by lamps.
Spread across the floor on blankets lay dozens of people in varying states of consciousness. Their faces were ghastly white against their grays—the same clothes she’d worn her entire life until she’d been cast out of Reverie.
“They took ill immediately after you all arrived,” Molly said, catching up to her. “You went to Perry’s tent, and they came here, and that’s how it’s been. Perry said this same thing happened to you when you first came out of Reverie. It’s the shock to your immune systems. There were inoculations onboard the Hover you arrived in. A supply for thirty people—but there are forty-two here. We administered equal amounts to everyone, at Perry’s request. He said it’s what you’d have wanted.”
Aria couldn’t respond. Later, when she could think clearly again, she would recall Molly’s every word. She’d consider the way Reef watched her with his arms crossed, like this was her problem to fix. Now she moved further inside, her heart stuck in her throat.
Most of the people she saw were still as death. Others shook with fever, their complexions sallow, almost green. She didn’t know which was worse.
She searched the faces around for her friends—Caleb and Rune and—
“Aria . . . over here.”
She followed the voice. A pang of guilt hit her when she spotted Soren; he hadn’t come to mind. Aria stepped past the quaking bundles, kneeling at his side.
Soren had always been so burly, but now the thickness in his shoulders and neck had deflated. Even wrapped in a blanket she could tell. She could see it in his hollow cheeks and sunken eyes, which were heavy, half-lidded, but focused on her.
“Nice of you to come by,” he said, clearly more lucid than the others. “I’m a little envious you got private accommodations. Pays to know the right people, I guess.”
Aria didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t absorb this level of suffering. Her throat was choked with it. Tight with the need to help. To change this somehow.
Soren blinked tiredly. “I can see why you love the outside,” he added. “It’s mega champ out here.”
2
PEREGRINE
You think it’s Roar and Twig?” Gren asked, pulling his horse alongside Perry’s.
Perry inhaled, searching for traces of the riders who’d been spotted earlier. He smelled nothing but smoke.
Ten minutes ago he’d left the cave, eager for fresh air. For light and the feeling of openness and movement. What he’d gotten was a thick gray haze from the morning’s fires blanketing everything, and the stinging sensation of the Aether like soft pinpricks over his skin.
“I’d be surprised if it was someone else,” he replied. “Hardly anyone besides me and Roar knows this trail exists.”
He had hunted these woods with Roar since they were kids. They had killed their first buck together not far from here. Perry knew every bend on this path, which cut through land that had once been his father’s, then his brother’s, and then—half a year ago when he’d become Blood Lord—his.
It had changed, though. In the past months, Aether storms had started fires that sheared through the hills, leaving wide, charred stretches. The temperature was too cold for late spring, and the smells of the wood were different too. The scents of life—earth, grass, and game—seemed buried beneath the acrid stench of smoke.
Gren tugged his brown cap down. “What are the odds they have Cinder with them?” he asked, a note of desperation bleeding into his voice. Cinder had been kidnapped while under Gren’s watch, and he hadn’t forgiven himself.
“Good,” Perry said. “Roar always comes through.”
He thought of Cinder, of how weak and frail the boy had been when he’d been taken. Perry didn’t want to think about what was happening to him in Sable’s and Hess’s hands. They had joined forces, Horns and Dwellers, and abducted Cinder for his ability to control the Aether. He was key to reaching the Still Blue, it seemed. Perry just wanted him back.
“Perry.” Gren reined in his horse. He angled his head, turning to better catch sounds with his keen ears. “Two horses. Riding hard right toward us.”
Perry couldn’t see anyone yet as he scanned the trail ahead, but it had to be them. He whistled to let Roar know he was there. Seconds passed as he waited for Roar’s answering call.
None came.
Perry cursed. Roar would have heard and whistled back.
He swept his bow off his shoulder and nocked an arrow, his gaze never leaving the bend in the path. Gren drew his bow as well, and they fell silent, bracing for anything.
“Now,” Gren murmured.
Perry heard the horses thundering closer. He drew his bowstring back, aiming at the trail, as Roar tore around a stand of birches.
Perry lowered his bow, trying to sort out what was happening.
Roar approached at a gallop, his black mount kicking up clods of dirt. His expression was focused—cold—and it didn’t change when he spotted Perry.
Twig, one of the Six like Gren, rounded the bend behind him. Like Roar, he rode alone. Perry’s hope of getting Cinder back crashed.
Roar rode hard until the last moment, and then checked his mount sharply.
Perry stared at him, unable to speak, the silence stretching between them. He hadn’t expected to look at Roar and think Liv, though he should have. She had belonged to Roar too. The loss landed like a blow to Perry’s stomach, as hard as it had days ago when he’d first learned.
“Good you’re back safe, Roar,” he said finally. His voice sounded strained, but he got the words out at least.
Roar’s horse stamped in agitation, tossing its head, but Roar’s gaze held steady.
Perry knew that hostile look. It had just never been directed his way.
“Where have you been?” Roar asked.
Everything about that question was wrong. The accusing tone in Roar’s voice. His implication that Perry had failed in some way.
Where had he been? Looking after four hundred people who were withering away in a cave.
Perry ignored the question, asking his own. “Did you find Hess and Sable? Was Cinder with them?”
“I found them,” Roar said coldly. “And, yes. They have Cinder. Wh
at are you going to do about it?”
Then he put his heels to his horse and rode away.
They returned to the cave without a word. The awkwardness clung to them, as dense as the smoke hanging over the woods. Even Gren and Twig—best of friends—said little to each other, their usual banter banished by the tense mood.
The hour of silence left Perry plenty of time to remember the last time he’d seen Roar: a week ago, in the eye of the worst Aether storm he’d ever been in. Roar and Aria had just come back to Tide territory after spending a month away. Seeing them together after weeks of missing Aria, Perry had lost his mind and attacked Roar. He’d swung his fists, assuming the worst of a friend who had never once doubted him.
Surely that contributed to Roar’s dark temper, but the real cause was obvious.
Liv.
Perry tensed at his sister’s memory, and his horse shied beneath him. “Whoa. Easy, girl,” he said, settling the mare. He shook his head, streaked at himself for letting his thoughts slip.
He couldn’t let himself think about Liv. Grief would make him weak—something he couldn’t afford with hundreds of lives in his hands. It would be harder to stay focused with Roar back, but he’d do it. He had no choice.
Now, as he took the switchback trail down to the protected cove below, he caught sight of Roar up ahead and told himself not to worry. Roar was his brother in every way except by blood. They’d find a way past a fight. Past what had happened with Liv.
Perry dismounted on the small beach, staying behind as the others disappeared into the dark cleft that led into the belly of the mountain. The cave was his personal torture, and he wasn’t ready to return to it yet. When he was in there, it took every bit of his concentration to quell the panic that tightened his lungs and stole his breath away.
“You’re claustrophobic,” Marron had told him yesterday. “It’s an irrational fear of being trapped in close spaces.”
But he was also Blood Lord. He didn’t have time for fear, irrational or otherwise.
He drew a breath, savoring the outside air for a few moments longer. Afternoon ocean breezes had blown away the smoky haze, and for the first time that day, he could see the Aether.
Brooke: An Under the Never Sky Story Page 7
