by Chele Cooke
What confused her most was that Edtroka had told her that she was to have nothing to do with the rebellion against the Adveni yet now he was telling her to go to the Belsa and convince them of the loyalty of one of their own. He’d known all along that she had been close to some of the Belsa and yet he’d never asked her about it and had protected her from Maarqyn. He’d bought her from the compound when really he should have been telling them to collar her.
She didn’t want to betray the Belsa. She didn’t want to convince them of Keiran’s innocence while she questioned it herself. Alec knew her, he would be sure to spot the lie, yet she couldn’t think of what else to tell him while she knew so little. Why had Keiran been passing information? How had all of this even started? She couldn’t tell the Belsa anything concrete until she knew more. While she didn’t want to believe that Beck would allow the murder of a man because of a suspicion, she knew that he had lied to everyone for two years about Alec. What if Edtroka was right? If she didn’t convince them, Keiran would be dead before they ever learned the truth.
She didn’t care about Edtroka’s orders. His word meant very little whilst he still refused to tell her what was going on. The only person who could tell her the truth was Keiran, and she wouldn’t be able to talk to him if the Belsa found out what he’d done. She would have to make sure that Alec believed her just long enough for her to tell Keiran what she knew. If he refused to tell her, she could reveal what she knew to Beck. If he told her the truth; well, she would work that out when she got there.
“Alright,” she finally murmured. Even then, as he paced back and forth, she didn’t think Edtroka heard her.
Despite promising Edtroka that she would convince the Belsa of Keiran’s innocence, Georgianna didn’t head to the tunnels after he left for the compound the next day. She walked west, skirting the city to reduce the chance of running into anyone she knew. She needed time to think, to convince herself that she was doing the right thing in delaying the inevitable. Alec and Wrench already suspected that Keiran was a traitor. By not telling the Belsa about it, she was putting more people at risk.
If Keiran was a traitor, she wondered why he’d been trying to keep her out of danger. It had been at his insistence that she’d been in the compound at the time of the escape, even when she and Taye had argued against it. Had he demanded it because he’d known where people would be arrested and he’d wanted her out of the way?
What was confusing her, however, was why no one else had been arrested? By the time the Adveni arrived, she had been the only one left and she was never supposed to be there. If Keiran had sold them out, it didn’t make sense that the Adveni hadn’t arrived until after they’d left. The questions went round and round in her head, but she wasn’t able to come up with any suitable answers.
Georgianna trudged through the Veniche camps, doing her best to take paths that were less likely to cross with Adveni patrols. She weaved around the backs of houses, through the tall, dry grass, and stayed off the roads as much as possible, though she wasn’t sure why. The Adveni had no reason to question her.
Approaching her home from the rear, Georgianna hopped the low fence at the back. The foal, which had been small and bandy-legged the last time she had seen it, had more than doubled in size. It watched her from where it was tethered to the fence, a rope harness looping around its muzzle and neck. She didn’t want to spook the animal, so she edged around it to the door into the kitchen.
She had to stop herself from crashing straight into the half-full pot of stew cooling on the doorstep. Moving it to the side, Georgianna moved through the house, following her father’s voice. They were in the living room. Braedon sat on her father’s lap while Halden counted out some coins.
“Hi,” she said, stepping through the doorway.
“Gianna!” Halden beamed.
Braedon leapt from his grandfather’s lap and bounded across the room to greet her. After hugs all around, Georgianna settled onto the floor next to her brother.
“How are you?” her father asked.
“I’m…”
“What is it?”
Georgianna blinked. She’d barely gotten a word out before her father was certain that something was wrong. Was she really that transparent? She wasn’t going to be able to lie to the Belsa if people could see through her lies so fast.
“I wanted to convince you to go south,” she admitted.
Halden frowned and placed down the coins in his hand. Braedon, not caring for the conversation, gathered the pile in his small hands and began stacking them haphazardly.
“Not this again, Gianna.”
“Da’, please, listen to me.”
“No, I won’t hear of it unless you are coming with us.”
“You know I can’t.”
“Then this conversation is over.”
Georgianna leaned forwards, tugging the permission papers from her pocket. Alec had insisted that she take them, though she’d left one in her bag. No matter what anyone said, she knew that there was no way she could go with them, especially not now.
“I have papers for you. All you need to do is get past the patrols. Say you left before permissions were cut off. Da’, please, it will be good for you. For all of you.”
“Gianna…”
“Come on, why not?” she demanded. “I can’t go, you know that, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. You can get trade on the trail. Halden can maybe get some new foals to train up, and Braedon… he’s not made the trip, Da’, he shouldn’t lose out.”
“And there’s no way for you?” Halden asked quietly.
Georgianna laid her hand on his and shook her head.
“If I came you’d be in danger the entire way. Any Adveni we came across would be suspicious. We wouldn’t be able to join up with a tribe, it would be too dangerous.”
“I don’t know why we’re even discussing this. I said no,” her father interjected.
She shuffled across the floor on her knees. Grasping his hands, she stared up at him with desperate eyes. Everything was so messy. She knew that she couldn’t remain in the middle of it all while she was so worried about her family. The further they were from this, the better, even if she couldn’t be with them.
After seeing what Maarqyn had done to Landon, she didn’t want there to be even the slightest chance that he would try to convince her to cooperate by doing the same to her family.
“Da’, please, I’m begging you,” she whispered. “You say that you won’t take the trip without me and I know it’s because you want to protect me.”
Tears gathered along her lashes. It was killing her, asking them to leave. She knew that she would regret it the minute they left, but it was better for everyone.
“You’ve always protected me, Da’, but now you need to think about yourself. You need to protect this whole family and the best thing for that is for you to go. Knowing that you are all safe is all I care about. Please, for me.”
He watched her, and Georgianna could see his resolve melting away. He no longer looked determined but sad and resigned. He kissed each of her hands in turn.
“Alright,” he murmured. “Alright, we’ll go.”
“You will?”
“Are you sure that you’ll be safe?”
Georgianna nodded, hoping that, for once in her life, someone wouldn’t see through the lie.
“I promise.”
Georgianna couldn’t remember the last time she’d packed for the trail, but it had a comforting familiarity, even though she wasn’t going this time. Her father began packing up the essentials while Halden harnessed the young horse outside. It did not appreciate having a cart attached to the harness and a chorus of snorts and stamping interspersed with obscenities from Halden drifted through the open windows. Braedon was more excited than anyone and so was completely useless. He moved items from bag to bag until her father gave up and ordered him outside to play, muttering under his breath about children being more of a hindrance than a help when it came
to packing.
Georgianna packed away her own belongings into trunks that would stay in the house. She took out everything expensive or of personal value and filled a bag to take with her for safekeeping. She had agreed to check in on the house as often as possible and her father had gone to see Kadey Lane, who often looked after Braedon while Halden was at work. She only lived a few houses away and would be able to keep an eye on the place the rest of the time.
It took all day to pack the things they would need for the trail, even though they were taking much less than usual. Her father checked the cart and tightened some of the bolts. They all hauled bags and loaded the cart up as the sun set.
Her father suggested that they wait until morning before leaving but Halden disagreed, saying that there would be fewer patrols through the night. The Adveni knew the risks outside of the city almost as well as the Veniche; they wouldn’t expect people to travel without light. Plus, Braedon would be asleep, so they’d probably get further without as much fuss. It was this fact that finally convinced her father of the plan.
When it finally came time for them to leave, with Braedon already asleep atop two large bags in the back of the cart, Georgianna hurried them as much as she could. She wasn’t sure that her resolve would hold if they dragged out the goodbyes. She kissed Braedon on the top of his head and tucked the blanket a little tighter around him. Hugging Halden as tightly as she could, she promised him that she would stay safe if he did the same. Finally she came to her father, who insisted on listing everything she should be worried about. He also told her every place he figured that they would be stopping so that, if she ever needed, she could follow after them. Georgianna knew that she wouldn’t remember more than two or three of the locations, but she listened and blinked back tears.
He cradled her face in his hands and kissed her forehead. He didn’t speak as he wiped the tears away from her eyes with his thumbs. Georgianna buried her face against his chest and hugged him tightly.
“You make sure that man of yours looks after you, my girl,” he whispered into her hair.
Georgianna sniffed and nodded, feeling all the worse for not telling him what she knew about Keiran and Edtroka.
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
“Stay safe.”
“You too.”
She watched their slow disappearance down between the houses, away from the roads. The horse, Halden leading it by a thick rope, threw up its head and whinnied in the predawn. After they had melted into the darkness, Georgianna sat in the doorway and sobbed, feeling more alone than she had ever felt in her cell in Lyndbury.
The “G” looked correct. She didn’t have Keiran’s note from the compound with her and she could only go on her memory of how it had looked. It looked shaky where she had tried too hard to get it right but she figured that she could pass it off as being written in a rush. She could only hope that neither Alec nor Wrench were experts in Keiran’s handwriting. It was only as she wrote the first letter “a” in her name that she realised he had never called her by her full name. She quickly changed it to an e and hoped nobody would notice. Maybe they wouldn’t even ask to see the note she had faked and would instead take her word for it.
The sun had risen fully by the time she made her way through the tunnels, her bag of precious belongings on her back. She walked the length of three cut-off tunnels before she found the one Alec had led her to. The door of the car was pulled closed. A sliver of a gap let a dim flicker of lamplight through and Georgianna knocked quietly, hoping that she wouldn’t be waking anyone.
She waited, wondering if she should knock again when the door finally slid open, revealing a half-naked Belsa rubbing his hand against his eyes.
“Someone order a medic?” he asked over his shoulder, giving Georgianna a sleepy smile.
A rustle of movement came from inside and the man didn’t say anything else before disappearing. From the end of the car, she heard a thump as he fell back into his bunk.
Alec appeared at the doorway, pulling a shirt on, his trousers still undone. Georgianna grinned and raised an eyebrow. Ruffling his fingers through his hair, Alec hopped down from the car and slid the door closed behind him.
“Sorry for waking you.”
“Nah, it’s alright,” he said. “Been sleeping far too much these days. Not much else to do.”
Without thinking, Georgianna reached out and picked a thread off his shirt, dropping it to the floor. Alec rubbed his hands vigorously over his face, stretching out his jaw. She liked remembering him this way, back when it had all been fun between them, without the lies and suspicion. It had been a time when the most serious discussion between them had been about her work for the compound and the danger he thought it held. Back when she could cut him off with a kiss or a cheeky joke. That time had gone for them but seeing him waking up, it was easy to remember.
“What’s going on?”
“Was coming back from the camps and thought I’d stop in.”
“Seeing your family?”
She walked away from the car. Alec followed and when she took a seat on the tunnel floor, he sat close enough so that his thigh pressed against hers.
“They left,” she explained. “Went south. I gave them the permissions you gave me.”
“I wish you’d have gone with them.”
“I know, Alec,” she sighed. Despite the reasons she had given Alec and her family, she knew that he’d only been thinking of the best for her. He was annoyingly good like that. “But you know why I can’t. I can’t put them at risk like that. They’re safer without me.”
Whether he knew that it was too late to argue or he simply didn’t want to upset her, Alec grinned.
“Everyone’s safer when you’re not around, George,” he chuckled, bumping his shoulder against hers. “I still remember that time you fell from that tree, and took me and Halden with you.”
Despite how hollow she’d felt since she caught the last glimpse of her family disappearing in amongst the houses, Georgianna found herself laughing.
“Suns, I remember that.”
“Surprised you didn’t knock the memory out, how hard you hit your head. I thought Lyle was going to beat both of us for getting you up there.”
They looked up as the door to the car opened again and Wrench appeared in the doorway. He glanced both ways before spotting them. Hopping out, he slid the door closed and walked over to join them.
“Alright?” he asked.
“Yeah, fine,” Alec said.
“Actually, there was something I wanted to tell you both,” Georgianna interjected. “I saw Liliah on my way to see my family. She gave me a note from Keiran.”
“She did?”
Alec was sceptical. She could hear it, even in those two words. Georgianna nodded enthusiastically. She shuffled forwards and reached for her back pocket, though she didn’t pull out the note.
“He was out in the camps, checking up on Jacob.”
“The kid in Medics’?” Wrench asked. “The herber?”
She felt horrible that she would have to pull Liliah and Jacob into her lie. She felt even worse that she would be asking Jacob to lie to Lacie. They had bonded and she could imagine how difficult that was for two people who had been through as much as they had. Still, she resigned herself to stopping in on Jacob and making sure he could corroborate her story.
“That’s the one,” Georgianna answered, glad that she’d thought out every detail of the story. “Keiran asked Liliah to help Jacob out with training. Anyway, there were a group going out of the city to hunt, get some hides and meat in before freeze comes. They had permissions for a couple of days. He’s gone with them.”
“And he left a message with some herber?” Alec snorted.
“She’s my friend,” Georgianna insisted, dropping her hands back into her lap. “He left a note with her to get to me. She just hadn’t had time to bring it down here.”
“I dunno, George. The Adveni cut off the permissi
ons. I don’t buy it.”
“I have the note…”
Her hand went to her back pocket again but Alec shook his head.
“I don’t doubt it,” he said. “I just think he lied to save his skin. Leave a note so that no one follows after him. By the time we realise, he’s already far enough away.”
“Why bother?” Georgianna demanded. “It’s not like Beck can spare a bunch of guys to go off looking for him. If he’d wanted to leave, he would have. Why didn’t he go weeks ago?”
“I…”
Alec fell silent and stared past Wrench at the opposite wall of the tunnel. Wrench shifted his weight back and forth between his feet, a thoughtful look on his face.
“He went with Nerrin?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Why didn’t he ask me to go? Keiran and I always used to team up for hunts.”
Georgianna paused. She’d not thought of that. She’d known that they’d both been hunters and they had been friends. She should have remembered.
“Only one pass left,” she lied. “Plus, I don’t think he had much time. Last-minute thing, otherwise I’m sure he would have come back to talk to Beck and to tell his other girlfriends that he’d be unavailable.”
She gave them a self-mocking grin, which was a lot easier to fake when Wrench snorted. His smile faded all too quickly for her liking.
Neither of them had an answer after that and though Georgianna wasn’t sure whether they believed her or not, she was positive that she had at least managed to make them question their certainty on the situation. She had bought Keiran a day or two, at least. Hopefully, when he returned, she would have a chance to talk to him before he returned to the tunnels. If she didn’t intercept him before his return, her story would fall flat. She could only hope that whatever Edtroka had asked of him, Keiran would need to report back before returning home. If they caught her in the lie, no doubt they would question what he had really been doing and, not knowing that herself, she couldn’t tell how bad the fallout would be.
