by Chele Cooke
At this point, Alec might have pushed past and told him they were wasting time, or Georgianna might have rolled her eyes. But having never seen this side of Dhiren before, not to mention Braedon’s delighted expression as he waved to his father and then turned to lead Dhiren, nobody said a word. They moved on, at about a third of the speed, thanks to Braedon’s small legs.
“Are you sure we’re going in the right direction?” Halden said from somewhere near the front of their column.
Dhiren glanced over his shoulder and shushed him, tutting as he turned back to Braedon. “Suns, adults are so stupid sometimes,” he said to Braedon, loud enough that they all heard. “Of course we’re going in the right direction. Braedon here would never lead us wrong. Would you, Braedon?”
“Nope!” trilled the little voice from the front of the line.
They came to a sudden stop, almost walking straight into each other as Braedon paused, looking down the two intersections in the tunnel. He glanced up at Dhiren. “Which way?”
Dhiren leaned forwards. “Which way do you think?”
“Down here!”
Dhiren clapped his hands together and turned to Halden, shaking his head in amazement. “It’s a miracle!” He marched off after Braedon.
Halden held back a few steps, and joined Georgianna in their procession. “Where in the world did you find him?”
Georgianna beamed. “Prison,” she said, and marched on with the same enthusiasm as Dhiren.
Just before they reached their little camp, Georgianna had to flatten herself to the side of the tunnel as a streak of red hair rushed past.
Lacie threw her arms around Jacob, hugging him tight and burying her face into the curve of his neck. “I was so worried!”
Jacob wrapped his arms around Lacie’s waist, holding her close as he pressed his cheek against the top of her head.
“We took a long way back,” he said. “I’m sorry we were so long. We’re all fine.”
Georgianna ushered the others along the tunnel and out into the little enclave housing the tunnel cars, urging the others to give Jacob and Lacie some space.
Dhiren was already lifting Braedon up into the tunnel car, with Halden hot on his heels. Georgianna watched with a small smile as Dhiren stood back, offering a hand out to her brother. Halden took his hand, grabbed the frame with the other, and pulled himself up.
As he straightened up, he came face to face with Dhiren, their bodies close in the doorway. “You’re good with him. Thank you.”
Dhiren nodded. “No problem.”
He squeezed out of the way, directing Halden further into the car.
Georgianna stood in the mouth of the tunnel and folded her arms, watching as the others slipped past, heading back to the car. All that planning, all those discussions, and they’d only gotten three people out from under the Cahlven shield. The rest were still in there to be used as the Cahlven’s protection, to be tested on for their end game. Yes, she had her family out, but how much would that matter if the Cahlven killed everyone else?
Georgianna jumped as a hand came down to rest between her shoulder blades. She turned and saw her father watching her. She offered him a watery smile.
“My girl,” he said. “Oh, my darling girl.”
She turned properly to him, letting him wrap her into one of his rib-crushing hugs. The moment she embraced him, the tears fell thick and fast.
“See, this is why I didn’t push for hugs and proper greetings earlier,” he said.
Georgianna sobbed out a wet laugh and held on tighter, letting him hug the air out of her. “I thought you were dead.”
“I know. When the Cahlven picked us up, explaining that they had a ship at Adlai, I demanded to see you immediately, but—”
“But I’d been banished.”
“Yes. My once well behaved daughter had been kicked out of an army for blowing up half a city.”
Georgianna pulled back and wiped her eyes. “It wasn’t half. A tenth, at best.”
He laughed and nodded. “Well, that makes all the difference, doesn’t it?”
The tears gathered along her lashes, threatening to fall again. Her father wiped his thumbs across her face, just beneath her eyes, stopping them in their tracks.
“I’m so sorry, Da’. After we heard about Nyvalau, I just… I should have come to you.”
He shook his head. “Gianna. You have done more than I ever hoped, or ever feared. You were always stronger willed than your brother. He was happy with quiet, but you…” He smiled and held her shoulders, as if it would make her hear him better. “I am so unbelievably proud of you. Proud of you and your friends. I’m not going to lie and tell you I’m not terrified of what all this might do to you. You care so much, and I know you won’t stop until things are set right. But I could not ask for a stronger, kinder daughter.”
Georgianna flung her arms around his shoulders again. “And I couldn’t have asked for a better father. I love you so much.”
“I love you, too, my girl. I love you, too.”
Jacob jumped down out of the tunnel car, turning and grabbing Braedon around the middle, helping him down. He was quickly followed by Halden, Dhiren, and Alec.
“He’s awake,” he said, before taking hold of Georgianna’s arm, easing her closer. “He’s started to vomit.”
Georgianna nodded and climbed in through the doorway, turning back to help her father get up the large step.
“I’m gonna work on a step,” Alec said, watching. “Halden? Bit of help?”
“Should have asked Da’,” Halden said, chuckling as he watched Braedon run off after Jacob. “But sure.”
Georgianna stood to the side and let her father pass. Beck was upright on the bed with Lacie perched on the end. Despite the grey, sickly tinge to his skin, he beamed as he saw his old friend coming towards him.
“Lyle,” he said, opening his arms. “Come here.”
Lyle raised an eyebrow and smirked. “I don’t know about that, Beck. Have you seen the state of you?”
Lyle approached the bed and leaned in to accept the loose hug. He stood up straight, glanced around and took a seat at the head of Georgianna’s flimsy bed.
For a moment, there was silence.
“So, you brought another group here,” Lyle said, his voice deadpan. “Adveni not enough of a challenge?”
Beck laughed, which immediately turned into a hacking cough and had Lacie reaching for a bucket. He waved her off. “This coming from the guy who headed to Nyvalau only to have the whole thing blow up on him?”
“I had nothing to do with that.”
“Like you had nothing to do with the tents burning down?” Beck grinned and surveyed Lyle with mock scrutiny.
Lyle laughed. “You had as much to do with that as I did, you sneaky bastard.”
Lacie and Georgianna watched the two men tease each other with a quiet fascination. Georgianna hadn’t seen the two of them together for a long time, and was having a hard time remembering them like this. They had always been more serious. Or, at least, her father had been. She wondered how much of it had been for their benefit, and once the children were in bed, they had reverted to young and carefree men. Lacie had only ever seen Beck as the Marshall of the Belsa. Had she ever seen this truly carefree side of him?
Lyle turned his attention onto Lacie, as if Georgianna’s thoughts had alerted them to their present company. “So, you must be this daughter of his.”
Lacie blushed sunset red and nodded. Lyle reached across the gap and offered his hand to Lacie. When she took it, he clasped her small hand in his own rough palms. “I’ve been waiting a long time to see my friend with a family. Always knew he was picky. You must be a very special girl.”
“She is,” Georgianna said.
“And my own says it, too. So it must be true. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. Would have been a lot sooner if your Da’ weren’t such an incompetent twit.”
“Hey!” Beck scolded, laughing.
Beck’s
skin had turned from grey to ever so slightly green in the low lamplight. The energy expended in the conversation had been too much. He waved for Lacie to pass him the bucket.
“Da’. Maybe we should…”
“Pssh, girl. You think I’ve never seen him lose his lunch? And for much less than this, let me tell you.” He looked at her. “Why don’t you take Lacie? Give me and my old friend time to catch up properly?”
Lacie glanced between them, unsure, but she stood and leaned over Beck. “I’ll get you more of the herb water from Jacob. That at least eased the vomiting.”
Georgianna jumped down onto the rocky ground after Lacie, and the two of them headed over to the other tunnel car. Before they reached the doorway, they could hear raucous laughter, as well as Braedon’s chiming little giggle.
Georgianna glanced at Lacie, surprised to find her staring at her feet with a look of mild terror. She slipped an arm around her shoulders and hugged her close. “Lacie, Beck will be okay. We’ll find a way to heal him.”
Lacie looked up, and for a moment Georgianna thought she saw confusion on the girl’s face. But it was gone in an instant, and she nodded. “I know. It’s just hard seeing him like that.”
“Well, it looks like your little car is about to get a lot more cramped. Who do you want to share with? I’ll give you first pick.”
Lacie laughed and brushed Georgianna’s arm from her shoulders. “I should get that herb water,” she said, and before Georgianna could call her back, or question her further, she was jogging off to the tunnel car and climbing inside.
Despite his initial excitement at having so many new people to fuss over him, Braedon began to cling more to his father over the course of the day. There was too much going on for him to sleep, and so Dhiren had been the one to suggest that they all clear out for a little while. Jacob and Lacie moved themselves to the other tunnel car, taking a pile of herbs and powders to catalogue. Dhiren insisted that he go hunting, with so many mouths to feed, and while Alec offered to go with him, it had been Georgianna who’d won that honour. She needed time to think, time to clear her head, and she needed to talk to Dhiren.
It was a hard trek north out of the city, and while Dhiren seemed perfectly willing to walk at half his usual speed to accommodate a small child, he didn’t extend the same courtesy to Georgianna, and forged ahead, leaving her at an almost constant half-run to keep up with his long strides.
Still, she enjoyed the silence and the crisp air of the lands outside the city. Whenever she had tried to talk to Dhiren, he was quick to shush her, or to hurry off in a different direction, looking for tracks. In the end, she had given up, at least until he’d completed a hunt.
Recently, they’d almost exclusively eaten rabbit, but Dhiren had ushered Georgianna back as he spotted a young buck not far off. Georgianna had hunkered down and shivered in the snow as Dhiren tracked and shot the animal. She only approached when he’d confirmed it was dead.
Now, thankfully, there was no way for Dhiren to get away from her. It took the both of them to strap up the sack between them, loops of thick canvas around their shoulder bearing the weight. Georgianna hadn’t seen a harness used in a long time, and she’d never worn one before. They were a lot more uncomfortable than she’d ever imagined. But at least the set-up kept Dhiren close.
“You like kids, then?” she said. “I never would have guessed.”
“Why? Because I was in prison? Because I know how to kill things? Or because I—”
“Because you were never in a tribe. You said you don’t like people.”
Dhiren snorted. “Kids aren’t people. Not that young.”
“What?”
He shrugged, and he opened his mouth to reply when they hit a dip and the buck shifted within the sack. It took them a few minutes to distribute the weight again, and they moved slower to ensure it didn’t happen again.
“People have agendas,” he said once they were moving again. “They have alliances and grudges. Kids aren’t complicated. They only have one agenda. To have fun, to enjoy themselves, or get something that will bring them enjoyment. They’re easier.”
“Not saying it’s a bad thing. Just wasn’t expecting it, that’s all.”
“Well, admittedly you’ve never seen me around a child before.”
“True.”
They walked in silence for a while, watching the blank white landscape leading up to a white horizon and cloud white sky. As loath as she was to admit it, Georgianna was relieved to be away from everyone, out with Dhiren who wouldn’t force her to be happy. She loved her family more than anything and was thrilled to see them alive, unhurt, and back with her. But with that happiness came the guilt of all the people still under the shield, the ones they hadn’t saved in lieu of getting to her family. Maybe they wouldn’t have managed to open many other doors, but it felt selfish, having only her family released, especially after the sacrifices the others had made for her. Dhiren had given up Edtroka, as unwillingly as it had been.
“You think Beck’ll make it?” Dhiren said, as they neared the outskirts of the city.
Georgianna sighed out a big cloud of warm breath which froze in the air. “I don’t know. We had no way of treating Adveni attacks before. Not properly. We still can’t set these damn nsiloqs without their technology. I can’t imagine the Cahlven viruses will be any easier. We could be working for years, using things that make the symptoms better but don’t cure anything. I just don’t know.”
He peered down at his shoes, half hidden in snow with each step.
“You think he can spread it to us?”
Georgianna gulped, and glanced at him. “I don’t know. It doesn’t seem likely.”
“Why?”
“Because the Cahlven are still testing, right? They don’t want all their test subjects catching the same illness if they don’t know if it’s lethal.”
“So the fact we’ve not all dropped dead already is a good sign?”
She laughed. “Something like that.”
“That’s good to hear, I guess.”
Georgianna paused, and gazed down at her feet, sinking into the snow and rising again with each step. They came to the most northern tunnel entrance, and since Dhiren and Alec had already confirmed there was a route that took them unimpeded back to their camp, they manoeuvred themselves sideways to take the steps, edging down one at the time, the sack swinging between them.
At the bottom of the steps, Dhiren helped Georgianna out of the straps, and fixed them around his own body, carrying the sack against his back. Georgianna helped him secure them, but when he started walking, she stopped him.
Her time to talk had come, and as scary as it was, she had to do it.
“About the sickness.”
“What?”
“I think you should go.” Dhiren stared at her through the murky darkness. “You agreed to stay while we went under the shield, and I know you said you’d go before the wash, but I think you should go now.”
“After all those arguments, you’re trying to get rid of me?”
“No, of course not. I mean… I don’t want to, but actually, yes, I think I am.”
Dhiren shifted the weight against his back. He frowned and drew the inside of his cheek between his teeth, giving him a half-hollowed look. “Why?”
“Because if I’m wrong and this sickness is going to spread, I think you should be out of the way before it does.”
“You’re giving up,” he said. “After all your, ‘we can take down the Adveni and the Cahlven’ talk?”
“I never said that.”
He shrugged, as if her words were of no consequence to his understanding of her intentions.
“So, are you giving up?”
“Actually, I’ve been thinking. Quite the opposite.”
“And you don’t want someone to help you fight?”
Georgianna shook her head. “This isn’t something you can help with, Dhiren. It’s not something I want you to help with.”
H
e peered at her, eyes narrowed and lips tight. “What are you planning?”
She turned away from him and stared down the tunnel. “I’m not sure yet, but I know there are only two people who can help me, and only one of them who’ll be willing.”
“George?”
She looked at him and beamed. “Come on. Let’s get back. My brother’s quite good with hunting kills, you know. He’ll be able to help with that.”
They set off along the tunnel. This time it was Georgianna who was too fast for Dhiren to catch while he carried the buck in the sack.
“George, what are you planning on doing?”
She ignored the question. It was still just fragments of an idea in her head, and she knew that the moment she tried to explain it, the notion would crumble, before she’d had the chance to figure out if it was even possible.
Georgianna crept out of the tunnels in the early hours of the morning. Alec was on duty; something she’d made sure of before going to bed the night before. Dhiren was asleep on the floor, having given up his bed to Halden and Braedon, and Georgianna had frozen as she stepped over him, certain that he’d wake and demand to know where she was going. Alec did ask, but he was easily placated by the excuse that she wanted to check on Keiran.
The one benefit of the almost-agreement between the Cahlven and the Adveni was that it nearly eradicated the fighting within the city. Both stayed on their opposing sides, only sending small scouts to ensure the other side was holding up their end of the temporary ceasefire.
Georgianna jogged through the city streets towards the camps. It was odd, coming down here like this, without hiding, and without dressing in some disguise to get her past the guards. This time, she didn’t want to get past the guards. In fact, she was counting on them stopping her.
The sun, if it planned on making an appearance, was not yet above the horizon. Streams of pink and red stretched up from the distant ridges of earth. The second moon still lingered above the mountains in the distance, ready to turn in for the day, like the soldiers currently standing guard at the edge of the shield.
