“You don’t legally have that right. Only your Protector does.”
“You’re my Protector.”
“Which is what he’s going to use against me,” Logan says in his I-have-a-puzzle-to-solve voice. “He’s going to say as your Protector, I can’t both Claim you and speak for you. But why bother? What does he stand to gain? He doesn’t want you Claimed by someone else because he’s planning to send you into the Wasteland …”
I can see the answer written in his eyes even as I say it. “He’ll publicly renounce your Protectorship so you can’t legally stop him. He wants us separated because you aren’t going with me.”
“The hell I’m not.” His face is hard and bright.
“He said …” Grief surges through my chest, burning a path to my throat.
“Tell me.”
“He’s going to kill you.” Suddenly the words are there, tumbling over themselves in a rush to be heard. “He said I’m loyal to a fault, and I’ll do anything to avoid having him kill someone else I love.”
The wagon bed. The cloth-covered lump. Crimson everywhere.
I can’t breathe as the blood-soaked image of Oliver burns itself into my brain and stays. Pushing away from Logan, I rush to the back door, wrench it open, race across the porch and fall onto the grass, retching.
He’s behind me in seconds, holding my hair back.
When my stomach is empty, he helps me sit on the bottom porch step, goes into the house, and returns with a glass of cold water and a sprig of mint.
I chew the mint and sip the water in grateful silence, but it’s a brief reprieve. He needs the rest of the story, and I have to find a way to give it to him.
He sits beside me, his shoulder touching mine, and says quietly, “Did he claim to have killed Jared?”
I shake my head, and set the glass down before my shaking hands drop it on their own. “He took me. In a wagon. There was a cloth-covered lump. And he said we were plotting behind his back.” My voice rises as I rush to get through it all. “I thought it was you. I thought he’d taken you, and I prayed it would be a stranger. Another guard like the one in the tower. But it wasn’t.”
My voice trembles. “He stabbed the person beneath the cloth, and there was blood everywhere, and I tried to reach him, but I couldn’t.” I reach a hand out to Logan, for absolution or for comfort, I don’t know. “I couldn’t save him. I thought he was safe, waiting for us in the Wasteland, and I didn’t save him. I’m so sorry!”
My voice breaks, and I drop my hand as terrible awareness comes into Logan’s eyes. “Oliver?” he asks in a voice that begs me to lie. To make the truth something he can still fix.
I nod.
He stares at me, eyes glassy with shock, then jumps to his feet and strides across the yard. When he reaches the sparring area, he takes a vicious swing and sends Bob flying along his wire. Minutes pass as Logan pounds his fists into Bob as if by obliterating the dummy, he can obliterate the truth.
Finally, his arms fall to his sides and he drops to his knees on the grass. I go to him and lay a hand on his shoulder. Turning into me, he wraps his arms around me and drags me against him. I hold him and vow I will make the Commander hurt for what he’s done to us. When Logan finally lifts his face to me, I can see he feels the same. His eyes are haunted, his expression hard.
“I’m sorry.” My voice is small against the weight of our loss, but it’s all I have to give.
“I can’t believe he’s gone.” His voice chokes on the last word, and he scrubs his hands over his face. “Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“They took him away in the wagon?”
“Guards came in and took him.” I can’t look at him. I can’t bear to see the shadows in his eyes. “They just … dragged him away.”
“I want to see him. I want to …”
Say good-bye. Say the things he now wishes he’d said the last time he saw Oliver. I don’t know if it would make it easier, but I know he needs it. I do too, but we aren’t going to get it. We aren’t going to get another word to say on the matter that doesn’t involve the sharp end of a sword.
“He should have a proper burial.”
“Yes. But he isn’t going to get it.” The words taste like ashes. We’ll never lay Oliver to rest. Never say the words he deserved to hear. Never bring flowers to a sacred patch of ground set aside for Oliver alone. “He isn’t going to get it. But he can have justice. If we work together.”
I make sure Logan meets my eyes and say, “You can’t Claim me today, or the Commander will turn it against you and separate us.”
Logan looks fierce. “We’re going to turn his plan against him instead. I’m going as your Protector. We’ll hide our travel bags before we get to the Square. Someone will try to Claim you, and I’ll agree to it, but it won’t matter. When everyone is dancing and celebrating, you and I will sneak away, grab our bags, and be gone before he even realizes he’s lost the game.”
Suddenly, his arms are around me again, and I’m against the hard wall of his chest. “Rachel, I’m sorry you had to see Oliver die.”
“No, I’m sorry. If I’d just stabbed the Commander like you said—”
“This wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t mine. It was the Commander’s. And one day, I’ll make him pay for it in full.”
“No, one day we’ll make him pay for it in full,” I say.
“Yes,” he says, holding my gaze. “We will. Starting today.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
LOGAN
Rachel doesn’t want breakfast, but agrees to eat something when I point out she can’t execute our plan on an empty stomach. I don’t want breakfast either. The knowledge that I’ve lost the only father I’ve ever known burns within me.
My heart aches, a constant pain that makes it hard to breathe. Losing Oliver is like losing the best part of me. The part that believed I could rise above. The part that said I was worth something even before I proved him right.
I don’t know how to move forward without him, but I have to. I have to put our plan in motion. Get Rachel away from here. Find the package. Find Jared before a Rowansmark or Baalboden tracker finds him first. And return to Baalboden with a foolproof plan for destroying the Commander and avenging us all.
I don’t have solid plans in place for all of it, and I’m worried the grief that tears at me with bitter fingers will compromise my ability to think, but I do know how to get us through the Claiming ceremony and into the Wasteland, so I decide to focus on that alone. There will be time for both grief and planning later.
Rachel dresses in the bathroom, and when she enters the living room, I take one look at her and feel as though all the oxygen has been suddenly sucked out of the air.
The dress fits her. The neckline dips down and curves over breasts I didn’t realize until just this minute were so … substantial. I force my eyes to scrape over her trim waist, but in seconds I’m staring once more at the way the glittering line of thread along her neckline barely contains her.
Every man who sees her will be paying attention.
Me included.
I don’t want to admit my attraction to her is strong enough to rise above my grief and my sense of responsibility, but they’re breasts. And they’re nearly spilling out the top of her dress. I look around for a scarf or some other piece of cloth to cover her up, but all I have is a scrap of a kitchen towel, and I already know she’d never agree to it.
Which settles it. I’ll have to stand in front of her the entire time.
The deep blue of the dress brings out the blue in her eyes, and the diamonds sewn into the bodice sparkle in the light.
Which draws the eye straight to her breasts.
She’s wearing the dish towel. I don’t care what she says.
“Acceptable?” she asks, and bends to look down at her full skirt. I want to tell her to straighten up and never bend down again, but my mouth has unaccountably gone dry.
Acceptable? She’s breathtaking.
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I nod, but when she slides her skirt up her leg to strap her knife sheath to her thigh, I turn around and begin rummaging aimlessly through the papers on the kitchen table.
“How am I going to reach this in a fight?” she asks, and I make the incredibly foolish mistake of turning around while her pale leg is still completely exposed.
I turn back around and address my comment to the table in front of me. “Make a slit in the silk and that stiff, crinkly stuff beneath it. You can hide the slit with your arm while you’re on the stage, but you’ll be able to reach your weapon if you need it.”
I wait until I’m sure she’s had enough time to cover herself again before turning. Her leg isn’t showing anymore, but she’s bending over her travel bag, packing a box of flint.
What kind of man looks at his ward like she’s a temptation? Especially on the heels of such trauma and grief?
I instruct myself to regain my common sense and focus on getting ready for the day. Closing my eyes helps. First order of business: Make sure Rachel isn’t in danger of going into a homicidal rage at the wrong person again.
“Be sure you know if the person you’re drawing on deserves what you’re about to give him,” I tell her. I have to trust that she’s found enough of her equilibrium to handle herself. There’s no way I’m sending her into Center Square today without a weapon.
Second order of business: Make sure we have everything we need. “Let’s do a last bag check,” I say, and realize I can’t do my end of it with my eyes shut.
Which isn’t a problem because I can just look at my bag. I don’t have to look at her and see her double-check the contents of her pack—fuel, clothing, Switch, dagger, and a bow with arrows. I don’t have to see the way the sunlight plays with the red-gold strands of hair she’s left unbound.
She ought to look girlish with her hair down below her shoulders. Instead, the wild strands make her look both fierce and feminine, a combination I’m confident every single man signed up to Claim today will find irresistible.
When I realize I’m staring again, I look down at my bag and carefully go through it without once looking up. Everything is there, and I feel a sense of accomplishment for breaking whatever strange hold Rachel’s had over me since the moment she came out wearing that cursed dress.
“I’m ready,” she says, and I look at her, standing in the sunshine, grieving and beautiful, her boots peeking out from beneath her silk skirt, her eyes hard with something I’ve never seen there before.
I look, and I’m afraid.
That he’s taken her innocence. That something will blow up in our faces today, and this will be our last moment of peace together.
That somehow I’ll fail her. Oliver. Jared. Myself.
“I’ve made a new magnetic bracelet for you,” I say, and scoop it off the table. It’s a cuff of battered copper that covers the tracking device I’ve worked so hard to perfect. I’ve burned the outline of a Celtic knot into the center and filled it with brilliant sapphire wires, each attached to an inner gear that, unbeknownst to her, can turn this tracking device into a weapon.
I’m hoping I never have to activate it. But it’s better to be prepared than dead.
She takes the cuff, runs her fingers over the wires, and then tugs it over her arm. “Why do I need a new magnetic bracelet if I’m going to be in the Wasteland?”
“I hid the tracking device inside of it.”
“How will we know if it’s working?”
“You’ll feel a gentle buzz against your skin, and the wires will start to glow. They’ll glow brighter the closer we come to him.”
I don’t tell her I’ve embedded a tracking device inside the cuff that will lead me to her as well. Just in case.
“Then we’re ready,” she says, and the hardness in her eyes makes me ache.
I want to give her something more valuable than just another one of my inventions. Something that will remind her of love. Family.
Me.
I reach into my front pocket and close my fist around the leather pouch I’ve carried since the day my mother died. “I want to give you something else,” I say as I pull the pouch out into the open.
“What is it?” She glances at her bag as if wondering what else she can possibly add to the pile.
“No, not a weapon. Something more … feminine.”
Which sounds incredibly stupid, but I don’t know how to do this.
She frowns and looks down at herself. “I think I’m already feminine overkill.”
“Yes,” I say in fervent agreement, and she raises puzzled eyes to mine. But I have no intention of explaining myself. Instead, I say, “I have a gift for you. It would mean a lot to me if you’d accept it.”
She holds out her hand, and I press the soft, time-worn bag into her palm while making sure to look at the wall behind her. She tugs open the brown drawstring and dumps the contents into her hand.
It’s an intricately designed silver pendant made of a dozen interlocked circles with a glowing blue-black stone in the center of it. The necklace hangs on a glittering silver chain. It’s the one thing of beauty I can call my own.
“It was my mother’s. The only thing I have left of hers,” I say, and hope she understands that this means she’s my family now.
She clenches her fingers around it, and then slowly reaches out to hand it back to me. “I can’t accept this.”
I close my fingers around hers, the necklace still resting in her palm, meet her eyes, and say what Oliver once said to me.
“You’re worth so much more than anything I can give you. If you can’t believe that right now, believe in me.”
She stares at me, and I hold her gaze. I don’t know what she sees in my face, but she turns, lifts up her hair, and waits for me to fasten the chain against the back of her neck.
When she turns back, the pendant rests against her chest, glowing like it was always meant to be hers. I can’t tell what she’s thinking. She still looks fierce, running on rage and grief. But one day, maybe, she’ll look at the necklace and realize I see much more inside her than the tangled mess she feels now.
“It’s a Celtic knot. The same design I burned into the cuff I just gave you. It symbolizes eternity. The stone is a black sapphire, which symbolizes faithfulness.” I reach out and trace my finger over the pendant.
She looks at my finger, and then back at me, and a tiny tremble goes through her.
“It means”—I lean closer and will my words to take root within her—“I will always find you. I will always protect you. I won’t let you down. I promise.”
Something softens the fierceness of her gaze. It’s a small shift, but I catch it. “Do you remember the first time we met?” I ask, closing my hand around the pendant, her skin warm against mine. “Reuben Little stole bread from Oliver, and you chased him through the Market, cornered him in an alley, and were pelting him with items from the trash heap.”
“Oliver sent you to find me, so he wouldn’t have to tell my dad I’d run off into the Market on my own again. I was eight,” she says, and grief shivers through her voice at the memory.
It shivers through me, too, and I welcome it. It’s my last connection to Oliver.
I lean a little closer, until the space between us can be measured in breaths. “You were this wild girl with spirit, brains, and so much beauty it almost hurt to look at you. I was this penniless orphan, spurned by our leader and scrounging in trash heaps for my dinner. I never thought I’d be in a position to offer you protection, but I am. And nothing is going to stop me.”
“Nothing is going to stop me, either,” she says, and I hear the warrior she’s becoming coat her grief with purpose.
I lean my forehead to hers, our breath mingling for a moment, while my hand still clenches around the pendant and every rise and fall of her chest scrapes against my skin and makes me feel alive in a way I’ve never felt before.
Then she steps back, picks up her bag, and feels for the weight of her knife sheath bene
ath her skirt. I strap on my sword, heft my bag, and meet her gaze.
“Ready?”
Her smile is vicious as she holds her hand out to me. “Time to start paying our debt to the Commander.”
I match her smile with one of my own, lock fingers with hers, and together we walk out the door.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
LOGAN
As we walk hand in hand through Country Low, I realize it’s the last time I’ll see the fields stretching between the orchards and offering the space to breathe. The last time I’ll come around this bend and see the city laid out before me. I should probably feel a sense of loss, but with Oliver dead, Jared somewhere in the Wasteland, and Rachel leaving with me, I find I have nothing left to tie me to this place but a burning hatred for the Commander.
We enter South Edge and Melkin steps out from behind a building. If he wonders why we’re bringing travel bags to the Claiming ceremony, he doesn’t show it. Instead, he follows us as we head toward Center Square. As soon as we turn north, he falls back, apparently satisfied that we’re obeying the Commander’s orders. I scan the street for any guards who might be following us as well, but see no one.
The Commander thinks he’s broken Rachel so badly he’s already won. I can’t wait to prove him wrong.
The streets bustle today, full of people heading to the Square for the ceremony. Most of Baalboden’s citizens will attend. Some because of the ceremony itself. Some because the Commander provides a banquet and dancing afterward.
The deserted shops work to our advantage. I pull Rachel into a side street a block from Center Square, and we hide our bags behind the bushes at the back of the mercantile. It’s closed for the day, and if we duck out of the festivities early enough, we should have no problem reclaiming our belongings.
“That’s good,” I say as she pulls at the branches of a bush until it covers any sign of the bag hidden behind it. We slide back into the crowds heading toward the ceremony. The closer we come to the stage, the more color Rachel loses. We’re nearly to Center Square when I stop and squeeze her hand gently.
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