by Cait Ashwood
But if not him, then who?
“What do you mean, you’re not free to choose? Brana, you could have anyone, literally anyone.”
She bit her lower lip, unconvinced.
“He wouldn’t even have to be a Seeker. All he’d have to do is be okay with a max of four nights a year where you had to attempt your duties. If your heart is somewhere else, that’s fine.”
But it’s not. It’s tradition. The mate of the First is always the commander of the Seekers. How could a non-Seeker lead them?
“You don’t believe me.” It wasn’t a question, but he seemed frustrated.
“Is it, I mean, you don’t like girls, do you?” Jasper blushed, but it was nothing to the rush of embarrassment she felt.
“No, of course not.” She tilted her head to the side. “Would it be a problem if I did?”
Jasper ran his hand over the back of his head. “Well, it certainly wouldn’t be comfortable for you, having to be with men.”
For some reason, that got a laugh out of her. Maybe because it was simply so odd to think about.
He laughed with her, and eventually they both settled down. He offered her hand and she took it, following him as he led them back to the cliffs. Staring out at the ocean, he spoke again. “So, are you going to tell me what’s really bothering you?”
She picked up a small pebble and turned it over in her hands, rubbing her thumb against the smooth, tumbled surface. She felt about as tall as an ant, talking to him about this, but he was all she had.
“My choice of mate determines the leader of the Seekers.” There. She said it.
Jasper shrugged, not looking at all bothered. “Says who?”
Her mouth dropped open and she furrowed her brows. “Says... everyone?” It was so obvious, she couldn’t even cite the dozens of sources. As someone who spent far more time among the records than was healthy, that was mortally embarrassing in itself.
Jasper shot her a wry glance. “Funny. I didn’t see Hound at the commander’s desk every day.”
Brana rolled her eyes. “Well, my parents were different. Dad was tainted once, and they were afraid the men wouldn’t follow him.”
He seemed to entertain the idea for a while. “Still, I say the precedent has been set. My dad’s been leading the Seekers for the last twelve years. He’s got the respect of the men, and is happy in the position. No reason he can’t stay there for a while.”
“Um...” That math was not adding up in a direction she liked.
“Oh god, I’m not saying to--jeeze, Gwyn would kill you, are you insane?” Jasper shook his head vehemently. “Look, this tradition you’re so worried about upholding... do you know what the Seekers were during that time?”
Brana shook her head. They were what they had always been: males of the bloodline of the Order. Jasper seemed to be hinting at something else, though.
He sighed. “I’m trying to think how best to put this.” He watched the waves for a bit, and then started to explain. “Look, Seekers were kind of, well, glorified bums. They leeched off the donations given to the Order. Most refused to learn an actual trade, but they didn’t do any protective work. All they did was show up on moon nights, and take the Leaves to and from the Groves as needed. The position of commander was largely an empty one. All he had to do was arrange for men to be available when the Order needed them.”
Brana turned the rock over in her hand. “You guys do a lot more than that now.”
“Yes, that’s exactly my point!” He turned toward her, his face more animated than she’d seen him in a long time. “We do things now, Brana. We’re important, and we serve a purpose. We protect the Order, we guard the Groves, we provide transport, we do so many things. We train, we drill, and we’re constantly pushing ourselves to learn more things. We all have more than one craft. We accept donations of raw materials now, instead of finished items, and we make what we need.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I still don’t see what that has to do with the role of commander.”
Jasper blinked, then looked away. “Why do you think your mom was in charge for so long?”
She knew the answer to this one. “Because things were very unstable after she rescued the Order. She had the vision they needed, and she was the only one with the respect of the common folk that could get it done. People were and still are afraid of anyone with the taint in their blood. She led because she had to, because there was no one else.”
“So, in short, stability.”
Brana nodded.
“The Seekers aren’t so different from the Order, Brana. We need a chain of command, and we need steadiness in our upper ranks. We need to make sure we stay on the right path as we move forward. Our versatility, our expansion, all of it requires a steady leader. If the First was a, shall we say, adventurous woman, do you think we’d fare well, changing commanders with every moon at her whim?”
“Well, no.” The corner of her mouth fell into a frown.
“And do you think you’d have order among the men with their chain of command jerking around all the time? Powerful men surround themselves with powerful allies. There are factions in any group, Brana. You’d end up with so many that got a taste of power and had to give it away, that the Seekers would fall apart from the inside out.”
If this was true, then what he was saying was that the tradition was going to do more harm than good in their current time. For an absurd reason, Brana found herself thinking of the chickens they’d started keeping at the Tower. There was always a lead hen, the one who, under the roosters, was in charge of all the other hens. That bird generally stayed in power for life, unless another came along and successfully dethroned her. When that happened, the entire flock had to figure out their pecking order again, and it was often a bloody affair. It took weeks for them to settle back down, and nothing the roosters did would have an impact. That kind of change benefited no one.
“So, what you’re saying is...” she trailed off, still in thought.
“Is that the commander of the Seekers should be chosen based off his merits and credentials, not by who he’s sleeping with.”
It made so much sense and was so obvious that she couldn’t see how she hadn’t thought of it before. I’ve been so wrapped up in how things have always been, how they’re always represented in the records, that I never bothered to ask if the system was flawed. And it was flawed. Jasper was absolutely right. Sleeping with the right person shouldn’t determine who was in charge of the Seekers.
The revelation shook her confidence to its core. If she was so blind over such an obvious issue, how could she ever hope to lead?
“Brana, you’re not alone. You’ve to remember that. Amelina? She’s not stepping down any time soon. It won’t even be an option until the next election, by which time, you’ll have a few years’ experience leading the Order. My dad’s not going anywhere. Neither’s my mum. Leave things as they are for now. Don’t start making huge, sweeping changes just because of tradition. Your mom tore down the old Order and created a new one, because the old Order was flawed.” He reached over, took her chin in his hand, and made her look at him. “This new job you have? It’s to create systems that work, that are flexible, that can adapt as needed. If something doesn’t work for you, don’t just deal with it. Change it.”
Her heart hammered in her chest. Was that the power she had in this new position? Was that really what she was being called to do? When she thought about all the old records, and then thought about how things were today, it appeared that her mother had done exactly as Jasper said. She’d replaced broken traditions with new systems.
There wasn’t even a First Advisor in the old Order.
The possibilities were endless, and for the first time, Brana felt a sense of wonder instead of the dread that had hovered over her for weeks.
A slow smile stretched across Jasper’s face. “You’re beginning to see it, now, all the good you can do.” His brown eyes were nearly hypnotic as she stared into them.
/> “Only because you made me see.” She was woman enough to admit she’d have flung herself headlong down the wrong path without guidance.
“So don’t push me away again, Ana. Let me help you, let all of us help you. It’s what we’re here for.”
Her voice was a breathy whisper as she thought about her First Rights. “And will you help me with everything? When the time comes?”
His expression remained blank for a second, then he tilted his head to the side, his question silent.
She bit her lower lip and nodded bashfully.
Slowly, carefully, he leaned in. His breath was warm against her cheek and he cupped her face with his palm. She closed her eyes as the distance between them shrank, and when their lips finally met, it was in the gentlest of touches. He didn’t pull away, leaving their noses side by side.
“I thought you’d never ask.”
She smiled and wrapped a hand behind his neck, pulling him in for another kiss.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Stryker cast another glance around the chamber, the hair on the back of his neck promising him that eyes in the shadows watched his every move. Well, they’re not interfering. Not yet, anyway. He tied down another bunch of scrolls to the back of his saddle bag, the lizard hardly paying him any attention.
He’d ditched his normal mount as he fled the Dweller city, in part because the beast was fractious animal anyway, and in part because he hadn’t had time to be picky. It was better to not have a mount with a taste for human flesh when wandering the tunnels alone, however. The lizard he rode now was a thinner creature, body more lithe than Stryker was used to. He was slower on foot, but his gliding abilities were unparalleled. Best of all? He hunted for his own damned food.
He’d never expected Lily’s life to be all sunshine and roses under his father, but her screams from the Grove less than an hour after dropping her off had broken something in him. Suddenly, his father and his expectations could be damned. It wasn’t right, and he couldn’t stand to let her suffer for his cowardice. He’d raced back to the Grove, only to find it swarming with Surfacers. It was a chaotic crap shoot, with his men fighting the Surfacers, Lily screaming, and the eye of the storm: a single man holding a woman’s corpse with such an expression of grief that everyone rotated around them, no one getting too close. He still didn’t know who they were, but he supposed it didn’t matter. The second he’d turned on his own men, it had been over for him. He’d lost his home, and had nowhere else he could go.
That didn’t mean he didn’t have a purpose, though. Sabre’s teachings had finally gotten through to him. It wasn’t enough to simply stop supporting the evil in your world. You either fought it, or you allowed it. Zaddicus had accomplished seemingly impossible feats with the aid of the taint, and if there was any way Stryker could start unraveling his work, he was going to do it.
In the rush to leave their original stronghold behind, Stryker bet his father hadn’t taken all his research notes. He probably only packed the more recent stuff, his current projects. When Stryker finally made his way into the lab, his assumption proved true. There were whole books of notes on the stuff, though most of it was gibberish to Stryker. The only similarity he’d seen between the Surfacers and the Dwellers was that they both abhorred scientific research. Science had destroyed the world, they argued. They didn’t need to encourage its development and repeat their mistakes.
That’s why he’s impossible to beat. He’s using science, and we don’t even know what we don’t know. This would have to change. But where had Zaddicus learned it? He’d extended his life, sure, but did that still give him enough time?
A small glass tube rolled off a table across the room. The lizard turned his head, tongue tasting the air, as they watched it roll in slow motion off the edge and begin its fall to the floor. It shattered into a million pieces and Stryker dropped his current load. Time to go. He’d mapped out his escape route in advance and vaulted into the saddle, kicking the lizard into motion. They scrambled up the nearest wall and up an exhaust vent. It was tight going and Stryker was pressed against the narrow channel more than once, but that was half the benefit of this path: no armored men on larger lizards would be able to follow them.
A few hours later, they reached the surface with no signs of pursuit. They’re still coming, they’ll just have to find a different way. His mind drifted, recalling the way the Surfacers had tracked his jumps. He’d heard of Trackers, but Zad insisted he didn’t have any. I bet that’s a lie, too. His mount hissed, his eyes designed for the darkness of underground, not the light of the surface. They’d have to travel at night and find cool, dark places for the lizard to shelter in during the day. It was tempting to cut the beast free and let him go, but he had too much gear to carry on his own. He hadn’t grabbed any of the Surfacer’s currency either, so he couldn’t exactly buy a horse.
Dad knew exactly what he was doing. He’d fallen right into the trap. Here he was, no rations, no money, running for his life from a situation he’d never fully understood. The only person he really knew on the surface wouldn’t be able to help him, and he was on his own.
But I know where they are. He’d stolen all the research for them. What they would be able to do with it, he had no idea, but if they were fighting his father, that’s where the documents needed to go. It was also the main reason he wasn’t overly concerned with giving up the lizard. The beast could scale walls, so no matter where the Order or the Seekers hid, he could get to them. No horse could pull that off.
It took a few days to reach the nearest town, some backwater called Chipley. They were near a river, though, and that was a start.
He hid the lizard and remained there a few days, helping to gather chips from the fields after the cattle moved through. It was disgusting work, but earned him some coins he desperately needed. As a bonus, the shipping master had a map pinned to the wall. If he followed the river northeast and then took the northerly turn, it would take him right by the Order’s tower.
Skipping town was as easy as it was necessary. He was afraid to stay in one place for too long. He wasn’t sure exactly what part Lily had taken in his father’s plans, but Zaddicus was going to be pissed as hell that Stryker helped her escape. With no other conquests, he fully anticipated Zad pursuing him until his inevitable capture. He had no clue what he’d do after delivering the documents to the Order, but he had a few more days to figure that out.
Nearly a week later, the fabled Tower finally came into sight. He’d been traveling slower than he’d have liked, but the lizard simply wasn’t made for life on the surface. Tall grasses aggravated him, and he startled often at sounds and shifting shadows. He absolutely refused to enter the river, and Stryker had to be careful to discard of his droppings properly. Not too many giant lizards on the surface, and a scat trail would be all too easy to follow.
He waited for sun down, and then scanned the building. There were so many Lilies here, and he had no idea which one was his. There were a fair number of guards on the walls as well, though nearly half of them didn’t appear to be Seekers. Were they hired men? He hadn’t the slightest clue. He began his approach, using the shadows of the hilled lands to hide his advance.
He closed in on the Tower, but had only cut the distance in half before a shout rang out from the top of the wall. He’d missed the first set of glowing eyes, but as more and more pairs joined the crier on the wall, Stryker gave up his attempt at a stealthy approach. Even if they shoot me down, they’ll go through my belongings. Heavens knew a death at the hands of the Seekers would be faster and far less painful than any his father would give him.
That knowledge still didn’t make it easy to sit still in his saddle as archers put him in their sights from the top of the wall. He felt energy waves radiate behind him and knew the Seekers were fanning out, surrounding him. He swallowed back his fear and slowly raised his hands in the air in surrender.
“The boy has come back.” The artesian accent behind him sounded vaguely familiar
, but he couldn’t place it right away.
He knew the first Seeker that came into his sight, though. Vex had scored him horribly across the back, but it appeared he’d survived his wounds. “Where’s your sister?” His eyes scanned the deepening twilight around them, but Stryker shook his head.
“Likely hunting for me.” Vex would enjoy the challenge, and she’d love nothing better than to drag him back in chains, the perfect trophy for their father.
“Had a falling out, did we?” The man clucked his tongue behind him. “For shame.”
“I didn’t come here to be interrogated.” More men phased in around him, and Stryker felt trapped. The urge to flee was getting awful close to overriding any sense he had left, the need primal in his core.
“Then why did you come? Certainly not for my sister.” The words were dry, and as he identified the Seeker before him, Stryker finally placed the accented man behind him. They were the pair that snatched him in Ebonwallowe.
“I have documents from Zaddicus’ lab. Nothing he’s working on currently, but all of his previous notes that I could save.” He paused, measuring the reaction. “They’re in my saddle bags if you’ll promise not to shoot.”
Rowan shook his head. “You’ll stay put, and we’ll fetch them.” He took a step forward, but Stryker’s lizard didn’t react well to the mounting pressure, either. The beast hissed and snapped at Rowan’s legs, the man barely jumping back in time.
Stryker shrugged. “I haven’t been able to feed him for a few days.”
A slow chuckle started behind him. “Let the boy dismount. He knows it’s death to try and run.”
Isn’t that the truth. He was still within range for the archers on the wall, and the area around him was getting thicker with Seekers by the moment. Add in the knowledge that they could track him, and he was quite literally stuck.
He moved slowly, sliding off the lizard and keeping his hands in view at all times. A few men came forward with torches to better monitor his actions. He moved with care, using only one hand to undo the ties. It took longer, but kept them from thinking he was going for a weapon. As the seconds stretched into tense minutes, he finally got the bag open and began removing documents. He piled them up at Zeche’s feet, figuring the assassin was the man least likely to kill him at the moment.
