by Chele Cooke
“It was something Lacie said.” Georgianna dumped a few root vegetables into her lap; the last of their stash. “She said she was scared about something happening to Jacob, but that she liked the chaos of being here.”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
“Well, she was talking about how regimented life was under the Adveni, and how she can choose what she wants now. I guess I was wondering how Edtroka overcame that.”
Dhiren reached into the rabbit with his free hand, grasping organs and cutting them free. He dumped the mush onto a dirty piece of sheeting and flicked his fingers, splattering blood. “I don’t think he did, not entirely. He wanted everything organised, controllable.”
“He loved you.”
“And I drove him insane.” Dhiren’s voice showed no emotion as he went about carving off the meat, dropping strips into the water to boil. “He was still an Adveni, no matter what he thought of their actions. He was used to things being a certain way.”
Drawing a knife from her bag, Georgianna cut the vegetables into chunks, carefully slipping each section into the water.
“Do you think that’s our strength against them?”
“What?”
“Chaos.”
He stared at her, waiting for her to continue. When she didn’t, he waved the knife. “We detonated the Mykahnol, something they probably didn’t think we’d risk. Beck was able to attack the Volsonnar.”
Dhiren nodded. “Also something they probably didn’t expect.”
“Exactly. The Cahlven and the Adveni are so regimented and organised. They act in familiar patterns. We don’t.”
“I don’t know about that,” he said. “The tribes travelled the exact same routes for centuries, right? You could probably walk that trail in your sleep.”
“And yet, the only time we’ve gotten anywhere is when we’ve done something unpredictable.”
“Yeah, and look where it got us.” Dhiren waved his knife around at the tunnel they currently called home.
“Because the Cahlven knew they couldn’t control us.”
Dhiren rolled his eyes. “You say that, but how many of us are out here, living outside of their control?”
Georgianna sighed and dumped the rest of the vegetable chunks into the water. “I guess you’re right.”
“No, no. Your argument has merit.”
“You sound like Edtroka.”
He laughed. “Perhaps. But look what happened when he realised he couldn’t control me. He left me in Lyndbury. The Adveni force control on the few in the hopes of mastering the many. The Cahlven have done the same, haven’t they? They banish us from the shield, proving to everyone else what will happen if you don’t follow the rules.”
Georgianna stirred the water and chunks of meat and vegetables, gazing into the fire. “The Adveni and Cahlven both grew up with order drilled into them, and anyone who goes against that is banished. They can’t handle things that don’t go as expected.”
Dhiren dropped the last of the meat into the pot and discarded the rest of the bones and the intact head onto the sheeting. “Okay, so say we’re right, and the Adveni and Cahlven don’t like chaos. How do we use that to win a war?”
She sighed. “That’s the thing. I haven’t figured that bit out yet. Chaos was as far as I got.”
“Well, when you figure it out, you can come tell me. We can cause a little chaos.”
“Ha. Thanks.”
“It’s either that, or we find you a nice dank prison where you can stew on it for a year or two. Perhaps there’ll even be a handsome vagabond you can drag into this whole mess.”
Georgianna rolled her eyes and scooted around the fire to sit beside him. She leaned into him and knocked her shoulder against his.
“No, thanks. I have one of those already and, to be honest, I think he’s about as much chaos as I can handle.”
The crunch of boots on rough stone echoed as Lacie jumped down from the train car. She grasped Jacob’s hand and they disappeared into the gloom, back to the other tunnel car. Georgianna sat back on her bed, swiping her finger around the rim of her bowl, catching the few spots of stew that clung to the clay. The food hadn’t been particularly good, but it was better than a than the Adveni freeze-dried stuff which always clung to the roof of her mouth like damp sand, grainy and tasteless.
“We managed to scout all the possible locations in the area Keiran gave us,” Alec said, reaching over and taking Georgianna’s bowl. He rested his elbows on his knees and peering at her.
Georgianna glanced over at the doorway, her eyes narrowing as her gaze twitched between Alec and the space Jacob and Lacie had just vacated. They’d been back in the tunnels for hours, and Alec had said nothing of their scouting while the youngest two of their number had been present. Still, Jacob knew enough already, and Lacie wouldn’t be kept in the dark for much longer.
“Yeah?” Georgianna said. “And what happened?”
“There are a few possible targets.”
“It’s a meeting, Alec. Not an attack.”
“Targets for us. We looked for protectable areas. After Beck’s attack on the Volsonnar, I doubt they’d come unarmed.”
“Both sides,” Dhiren said. “Neither the Cahlven or the Adveni are about to let themselves be undefended, which means it’s plausible that it’s a larger location. No little alleyways.”
“It’s Maarqyn,” Georgianna said. “Even without the previous attacks, he’s not going to be skulking about alleyways. Plus, he’s Volsonnar now. He’ll bring soldiers. Probably a lot of them.”
Alec nodded. He reached under his pillow and pulled out the map Georgianna had taken from the house. He laid it out beside him.
Dhiren sidled closer to get a good look. “And here we see the classic male posturing in the form of measuring their… entourage.” He raised an eyebrow at Georgianna. She giggled.
Alec rolled his eyes and gestured to the map. “There is one spot where we can see each of the locations.” He pointed to a building at an intersection.
Georgianna had to peer closer and trace the streets down to their names to figure out what she was looking at. “Crisco?” she asked. “Seriously? I mean, that’s great, I used to work there, I know my way around.”
“Actually, it’s the apartments above it,” Dhiren said. “We need the height to get a good look at all locations.”
“Okay, and where are those?”
Alec pointed them all out as Georgianna leaned across the gap. There were five in total, and while all lay in the same general area, each stood a good distance from Georgianna’s old workplace. She chewed on her lip and shook her head. “We won’t be able to hear a thing from any of those.”
“Alec could shoot to any of them,” Dhiren said, grinning.
Alec glared over. He frowned and readjusted his seat, scratching at his neck. Georgianna had seen how good a shot he was. He’d been one of the shooters stationed high up when the Cahlven had stormed Javeknell Square, and she and Keiran stood on the podium about to be executed. He’d been a good hunter, too. Silent and steady; able to hit from a distance with a gun or a bow.
“I wouldn’t be shooting,” Alec said. “It wouldn’t make a difference. New people would step in, just like what happened with the Volsonnar.”
“But it’s Guinnyr,” Dhiren said. “You both want him dead.”
Georgianna nodded. “Alec’s right, Dhiren. If we shoot at them, we lose our chance to find out what’s going on. We kill a few, perhaps, but it doesn’t change anything.”
Dhiren sat up straight and stared at her. His gaze searched her face, perhaps looking for some indication that she was joking, or that she was holding back. “We had an agreement, George. Ehnisque and Maarqyn.”
“What agreement?” Alec said.
“It was before…” She glanced at Dhiren and quickly looked away. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me,” Dhiren said. “We agreed. Once Ehnisque and Maarqyn are dead, we were gone.”
&n
bsp; Alec glanced between them. He wet his lips with the tip of his tongue and took a deep breath. “Is that true? George?”
Georgianna avoided Dhiren’s glare. She reached across the gap and took the map from between the two men. “We need a closer spot if we’re going to hear anything. From Crisco, we can scout good places and the paths that lead to them. Once we know where the meeting is, we move to the right location.”
Dhiren snatched the map back and folded it up. “What they say doesn’t matter. None of this matters. We shouldn’t be finding ways to listen in to self-important assholes. We should be using this meeting as a distraction.”
Alec frowned. “A distraction?”
“We should act. Kill that Vtensu Maarqyn once and for all, or get out of here.”
Georgianna stared down at her knees. She shuffled on her bed, pushing her back against the cold shell of the tunnel car. Above ground, the snow was settling thick and fast, no longer washed away by heavy rains. Wherever they went now, they would be leaving a trail behind them. She’d known for a while that Dhiren wanted to get out of Adlai; he’d been talking with Edtroka about it before they left Nyquonat. But she’d hoped that he would change his mind, that he’d realise why they couldn’t go.
“Who’s ‘we’?” Alec said. “There are Veniche under the shield, and those who aren’t there are still innocent in all this. We can’t all run and hide while the Adveni and Cahlven fight it out. It could be years.”
Dhiren waved an arm. “And what have all these other Veniche done for us? Why should we be saving anyone?”
“Dhiren, we can’t leave them here,” Georgianna said. “What about Keiran? What about Beck?”
Dhiren shook his head. “We need to look out for ourselves. We’re gonna starve down here before the freeze is through. You said we should be more unpredictable, and trying to save everyone is exactly what Maarqyn expects of you.”
Alec scoffed. “So we should abandon everyone because it’d be a surprise? Yeah, alright.”
“No. We need to protect ourselves. We need to fight for us for a change.”
He turned to Georgianna, staring, waiting for an answer. She knew what he expected. She could see in the way his eyes narrowed that he was waiting for her to tell Alec that he was right and that she had said she would leave once Maarqyn was gone. She remembered the way he had tried to convince Edtroka to leave and let the Adveni and Cahlven wipe each other out. They could have a decent life out in the wilds, at least for a while.
Georgianna got to her feet, avoiding Dhiren’s expectant glare. She had no doubt that Alec, opposite to Dhiren in so many ways, was expecting her to shut down Dhiren’s ideas. Of course she wouldn’t leave; there were other people to protect. Alec had spent two years as a slave to Maarqyn in order to protect others, so why couldn’t she stick around and do the same?
“I’m going to get some more salve from Jacob,” she said.
She didn’t wait for the arguments or the calls for her to come back. She jumped down from the tunnel car and hurried away into the gloom.
Georgianna strode down the tunnel, a lamp hanging from her hand. The light pooled on the floor around her feet; it was impossible to see any further than the edges. The oil was quickly running out, and the patch of light grew smaller each time they lit the lamp. It no longer reached both walls in the wider tunnels, but here it was fine, especially as she came to the bottleneck into their little camp.
Dhiren sat on the floor with his back against the wall and a rifle laid across his lap. He turned his knife end over end in his hands, pinching the blade between finger and thumb. By the time Georgianna had returned from collecting salve from Jacob, Dhiren had already left for his shift of protecting their camp. They didn’t guard it during the day, when at least one of them would have heard someone coming, but at night it had been decided that they should keep up the old Belsa traditions.
“Hey,” she said, holding the lamp over him. “My turn. Go get some sleep.”
He didn’t look at her, and he made no move to get up. He peered past her legs, his eyes narrowing as he squinted into the darkness. Georgianna checked behind her, holding the lamp a little higher. It didn’t help much, but then she already knew nobody had been following her. Alec had been asleep and snoring lightly when she’d slipped out of the tunnel car to relieve Dhiren.
“I don’t know why you won’t admit it in front of Alec,” Dhiren said, finally looking up at her. “But we agreed to leave, George.”
Georgianna sighed and shifted her weight.
“I know. But things changed.”
“I don’t see how.”
“They just changed. I need to know what’s going on.”
Dhiren moved the rifle off his lap and propped it against the wall. He pulled up his legs and wrapped his arms loosely around his knees.
“How is that going to help? So what if you know that the Adveni plan on blowing Adlai sky high? Or that the Cahlven won’t release Casey? What will that information change for you? Will it make you feel better? We can’t stop them.”
“I don’t know. Maybe it changes nothing, or maybe it changes everything. I just know I can’t run away any more.”
Dhiren got to his feet, and stood in front of her. He took the lamp and laid it on the floor. He stepped in closer and grasped her elbows. “This is the best chance to run we’re going to get. Let everyone be distracted by this meeting. We can get out, get a good distance from Adlai while they fight among themselves. The snow will cover us, cover our tracks. There’s enough falling.”
Georgianna took hold of his arms and extracted herself from his grip. She stepped back, shaking her head. “Can you live like that, Dhiren? Always hiding?”
“We’re hiding now.”
“That’s not the same. This is temporary, just until we—”
“Until we what? Die, trying to fight an impossible war? We can’t protect anyone if we’re dead, and that’s the only way I see this going. We don’t have the numbers.”
“And everyone else?”
“They had the chance to leave and you know it. They stayed where they thought they were safe. We have to do the same.”
“We’re not safe if we don’t know what’s going on.”
Dhiren turned away from her and dug his fingers into his hair. He grabbed at the longer tendrils at the back, tugging them in frustration. He whirled around. “What do you think is going to change? Seriously, George?”
“I already said I don’t know.”
“Then why risk everything for this? It’s reckless and stupid.”
“Why did Edtroka even choose you?” Georgianna stepped away from him, shaking her head in disbelief. “He wanted to make a difference, to help people. He risked everything for this, and you… You only want to help yourself. Did you forget him so easily?”
His face was in shadow as he turned, his heaving chest blocking the light from below. But Georgianna could see the fire of fury in his eyes.
“You’re being naive,” he said. “You know nothing about what he wanted.”
“I know he gave up everything to help us start this war, to bring the Cahlven here.”
Dhiren snorted. “And look what happened.”
“He gave his life to stand up to his father.”
“Yeah, and how much did that help? Look where we are.”
Georgianna balled her hands into fists, her broken and chipped nails digging into her palms.
“We’ve made changes. We’ve helped people.”
“Oh, stop being so fucking sanctimonious. Is your ego so big that you think you can change things alone? What, you’re going to take on the Adveni and the Cahlven? Just you and Cartwright?” He shook his head and laughed. He stepped in close again, his lips pulled back in a sneer. “Or are you going to use those two kids back there? Pull them in? Get them caught, to be tortured and killed, just so you can say you did all you could?”
A shudder ran down her spine. She stepped away, but her back pressed into the wall and sh
e had nowhere else to go as Dhiren glared down at her. Anger flared through her blood, pounding in her ears. He knew how much she had given up, how much had been taken from her, and yet he kept right on poking into the wounds.
“You know, maybe you should run,” she said. “Protect yourself, just like always. Is that why he left you in Lyndbury? Not because he couldn’t control you, but because he knew you’d run, the minute things got hard. He needed to cage you because he knew you’d be gone if he ever let you out.”
If Dhiren looked angry before, it was nothing to his expression now. His teeth ground together, his eyes narrowed to slits. He gripped his knife in one hand and the other balled into a fist. Georgianna didn’t know if he planned to hit her or cut her throat. She held her head high, staring right back at those dark eyes.
Dhiren turned away with a snarl and, without taking the lamp, stalked off through the bottleneck in the tunnel, away from their camp and out towards the rest of the world.
Giorgianna sat and guarded the tunnel, watching and waiting until Lacie came and ended the shift by bringing her some breakfast.
The bottom of her trousers soaked through as they trudged down the street. Drifts of snow had slipped from the rooftops to create waves that crested against the walls of the buildings, high enough to reach the knees. Alec had suggested they stay close to the buildings, deep in the shadows of the late afternoon, but the snow had made for such slow going that they’d had to risk exposing themselves to patrols by moving further out.
It had been a quiet trip, though Georgianna knew it wasn’t merely safety that kept her silent, but for the crunch of snow beneath her boots. Dhiren hadn’t returned to the tunnels, and despite her anger over his accusations, she worried that he had taken her own furious words to heart and left Adlai for good. It was pride that kept her quiet when Alec had asked where Dhiren was; she didn’t want to admit that she was the reason he’d left. She cared deeply for Dhiren, but she was not ready to apologise for the things she had said. Worse still, she wasn’t sure he deserved an apology for the accusations he had laid at her feet.
