The Wandering (The Lux Guardians, #2)

by Saruuh Kelsey

  “Missing the Guardians’ base?”

  He shoves his hands in his jean pockets. “Missing our shed.”

  That draws wistfulness from me. It might have had more leaks than I have fingers and been falling apart but the shed that we lived in for more than four months will always be home. It’s the only shelter we’ve had for longer than a few days. “It was a great shed,” I say, softening. My forgiveness is plain in my voice.

  He’s silent for the rest of the walk but I think I see a smile playing about his mouth in the hazy light.

  I weave around the sleeping bodies of Guardians, scanning them until I find my brother and sister. I lie quietly beside Livy as Siah half-falls to the ground. I’m not gonna point it out to him, but his limp has gotten worse since he jumped off that train back in F.L. The urge to touch Yosiah slams into me, my stomach flopping. I press my palms together to keep them from reaching out. I might desperately need to know he’s still here but I haven’t stopped fuming at him for walking off without telling me.

  Honour wandered off earlier tonight as well but I heard him tell his sister he was leaving, even though she’d never speak back. Siah should have done that too, told me. I need to know exactly where he is. I need to know he’s not running off on some suicidal mission. I need—

  I need him to get better. I need his leg to heal. I need him to stay alive, here, with me.

  “I thought—” I can’t get the rest of that sentence out. It feels like a giant lump of emotion is stuck beneath my voice box.

  I take a slow breath and shut my eyes. If I can’t see Siah’s face I won’t know when the guilt crosses it. I don’t want to say this, to make him feel worse about everything, but he has to know. He can’t keep walking away without telling me. And I can’t keep having a heart attack every time he’s more than a metre away. “You left—and you didn’t say anything. And I thought—”

  Heat pushes into my skin from where his hand has sought my wrist but I roll out of his reach. I can’t let him touch me. I won’t be able to hold the tears back if he does.

  “I’m sorry.” His whisper barely disguises the way his voice cracks.

  “You left me on that train and I can’t … I can’t forget that.”

  He repeats his apology and he sounds so wrecked that I open my eyes to look at him. I needn’t have been so worried about seeing his guilt; I can’t see his face at all in this darkness. I can only place where he’s laid because he obliterates a cluster of stars. But the clouds must shift because moonlight falls through the night, quick and without warning. It highlights the intense expression that’s taken up residence on Yosiah’s face.

  For a second I mistake it for anger, but I know what anger looks like on Yosiah. His jaw clenches, his eyebrows cut deep black lines of disapproval, and his eyes—his eyes burn hotter than a solar flare. But now? None of those signs. Just this steady, fixed stare that has my heart jumping. I frown at him for what must be half a minute, and then I realise I’ve seen him look this way before.

  I skitter away from him, pulling my knees to my chest as a barrier.

  Yosiah chews his lip, then says, “I’m not leaving you. Ever. Just so you know.”

  I bite down on my tongue because the words that want to pass my lips are something neither of us wants to hear.

  “Shut up,” I say instead. Siah’s exhale sounds like relief. I chance a look at him and find the intense look gone. My body deflates. My ribs give a half-hearted ache as I sink back into the grass, facing away from Siah just in case he gets that look again. He doesn’t touch me or move any closer but I know he wants to. I see his heated expression behind my eyelids and have to make an effort to keep my breathing regular.

  Siah asks, “Are you still angry?”

  “Very.”

  “Still scared?”

  My face automatically shifts into a glare even though he can’t see me. He’s overstepped and he knows it. I am, though—still scared that I’ll lose him. “Yes,” I surrender.

  “Can I hug you?”

  I snort. “If you want to lose your arms.”

  He mutters a harmless curse. The grass whispers as he shuffles closer. My body relaxes, Siah’s proximity a comfort blanket, even as my mind flares with alertness. If he puts his arms around me I might give him a black eye.

  “Do you think the Officials are looking for us?” I ask to distract him.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you think they’ll find us?”

  “Yes.”

  My inhale is sharp. “And then what?”

  “And then we’ll kill them.” His finger brushes the back of my neck. I’m sure he’s following the scar I have there. I have to fight simultaneous urges to shiver and to flee.

  “Miya?” I hate the tone of his voice.

  “No.”

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “Still no.”

  He huffs, removing his touch. “How are you feeling about your mum?” Now I really want to thump him. “She must have been killed by the collapse.”

  “Thanks genius, I hadn’t worked that out for myself.”

  He’s silent, probably thinking his quiet will coax an answer out of me. I make myself borderline comfortable and focus all my energy on going to sleep.

  I’m not going to talk about this now. Or ever.

  ***

  Honour

  07:32. 11.10.2040. The Free Lands, Southlands.

  The Free Lands are not what I expected. All the time I lived in the confines of Forgotten London, I imagined a wide land that looked like the area we walked through yesterday—dead, unforgiving wastelands. But the further away we get from the crater of F.L. the more I have no choice but to face the idea that I was wrong.

  Even though I’ve been rebelling for years, fighting against Official rules by thieving and going out way after curfew, the truth settles on me like a lead weight as we walk through the thriving row of fields, green and yellow grasses bathed in pale morning light. I’ve always believed what the Officials told me. I never questioned them, not even once. I might have thought I did, but deep down I believed everything they said.

  When they told us the lands beyond our fence were deadly, uninhabitable places I didn’t question it. I knew they were keeping us inside the fence for a more malicious reason, to kill us, but I also knew—thought I knew—that being free would kill us anyway, that we’d be struck down by the Strains.

  It never once occurred to me that there might not be as many Strains out here as we were told.

  I was willing to risk whatever dangers the Free Lands might throw at us for a sliver of freedom, even if that freedom took our lives. But the thought that this place with its sharp, clean scent and its chattering nature was always here, safe and waiting for humanity to return to it …

  As Tia walks mutely beside me and Branwell trails his fingers through rustling white flowers, I go to war with myself to keep tears from spilling onto my cheeks.

  I’ve been so stupid. So naïve. I let someone else tell me what was true. Did I ever have a thought that wasn’t influenced by someone else?

  Starting now, I’m thinking for myself.

  The only question is: Do I know how?

  12:18. 11.10.2040. The Free Lands, Southlands.

  There is water. Clean, drinkable water. My shock is quickly trampled by a tightness in my chest. There has always been a way to live in the free lands, and for years we’ve struggled for no reason. If I’d tried to get through the fence years ago, if I’d discovered my father’s letter years ago, we would have been living here.

  But would I have been ready for this? For the expectations and pressure put on me because of that letter?

  Unite the Forgotten Lands. Unite the island you live on. Its real name is Great Britain, The United Kingdom, and it belongs to you. You are royalty, my children. You have royal blood. You are both Prince and Princess, and this island, no matter how small and ruined it is, is yours.

  Unite the Forgotten Lands. Yeah, because it
’s that easy. What the hell made my father think a couple of kids would be able to make that kind of worldwide change?

  I guess I know where I get my naivety from.

  I fill my lungs with fresh air and shove those thoughts away. I don’t have time to worry about what the Unnamed wanted. My main priority is Horatia, and I can’t help her get better if I’m falling apart over some impossible revolution. The Guardians are the ones that want change, that can actually make it happen. I’ve already played my part in this uprising—I gave them the letter. I’m done with it now.

  I watch my twin from the corner of my eye. She’s looking at the silver lake with more emotion than I’ve seen in her since we left Forgotten London. I wonder if she’s thinking the same as me, that the free lands are everything I’ve dreamed of for so long. The paradise of it all isn’t even ruined by the tempestuous sky, or the knowledge that the solar flares burned away the top half of the island before we were born. The flares might have scorched land into ash, claiming most of the United Kingdom’s towns, and Officials might have infected the rest, but there are still places that can be rebuilt.

  For a split second Tia’s gaze meets mine, the slightest flicker of something other than grief stirring in her clear brown eyes. I smile, hoping to get one back, but she returns her attention to the scenery with a neutral expression. It’s not a frown, though, or a grimace, which replaces the tight feeling in my chest with something lighter, air instead of gutter water.

  I approach the edge of the water, following the Guardians’ cue, but instead of drinking it like they do I splash my face, washing off dried tears of self-pity as well as grime and sweat.

  I glance up as a shadow falls across the water and watch my sister drop to the soggy dirt floor, her clothes instantly caked with mud. She doesn’t seem to mind, though. Tia rests her chin on her knees and closes her eyes. The dark circles around her eyelids aren’t any better, but she’s started eating again, swallowing every tiny mouthful with grim determination, and she stopped crying long ago. I think sometimes I don’t have to hold her together, though I still do. She’s got enough steel in her will and stubbornness in her heart to keep her from succumbing. She won’t let anything beat her, not this new Tia.

  What will happen when Horatia realises she doesn’t need me at all?

  I draw an arm around her and think I can’t keep being so selfish. I have to stop thinking about how every single thing that happens will affect me.

  Yeah, things are bad for me right now. Everything has changed. I’ve lost my home—I should be glad to have lost my home. I don’t want to go back to the rations and rules but I miss the … stability, the predictability of it. I’ve lost people I love, lost my family. Thalia. Wes. John, wherever he is. It feels like the weight of the whole universe is pressing me into the mud face first, holding me down until I choke.

  Suffocation, that’s what it feels like, to be always surrounded by grieving people but not to allow yourself to grieve with them, to be wracked with guilt but to never let a single crack form in the shell you’re wearing because it might make your family even worse. It feels like all the oxygen in the air has burned away and I’m gasping and gaping wide open, like some kind of fish washed up from the Thames. But only on the inside. Never, never, on the outside.

  People have died and I feel responsible, am responsible. But none of that is even half as bad as loving a person the way Horatia loved Marrin and having to live when they are dead. If Tia can keep going, I can keep going, and I can suffer silently.

  I splash a handful of water over my face, fill a bottle I found along the trek, and help my sister stand. She tips forward but finds balance with her palms against my chest. She must be able to feel my heart beating under her fingertips, beating for her and her alone. I’m not like Tia—I can’t keep on living no matter what. I’m not strong. I don’t endure. If it weren’t for my sister I’d have lost my life in the Fall. She’s the only reason I fought, the only reason I’m still trudging on now when all I really want is to stop.

  “I love you,” I tell her. “I’m here if you need me.” I tip her face up with fingers that could be gentler and wait for her eyes find mine. She stares, glassy, right through me. “You have to tell me what to do, Tia. I’ll do whatever you need to stop this … this pain, but you have to tell me,” I plead. “You have to speak.”

  She shakes her head, stringy hair spilling around her.

  “Okay,” I sigh. Maybe what Tia needs right now is for me to leave her alone.

  Over my sister’s shoulder I see Branwell, his calves buried in the water. He’s staring at the still pool like it hides the answer to life itself. I also see Hele watching me and my sister with a sad smile. I wish people would stop feeling sorry for me—it’s not a feeling I like, being pitiful, pathetic—but I can’t really expect them to stop pitying me until I stop pitying myself.

  I try to conjure the feeling of when Tia was chosen on Victory Day, when I knew she had left me willingly and thought she was working for Officials, when everything was dark and hopeless but I was fighting anyway. I had a purpose then: I was determined to find my sister and rescue her from the military. And I think that made me strong. But what purpose do I have now?

  Horatia is missing now as much as she was then. But there are no Officials to protect her from, no military to fight or run from. I can’t save her from loss when it has become everything she is. To save my sister I’d have to fight my sister. Nothing about this is the tiniest bit possible.

  I need to just … get away from everything. Just for a minute. But what do I need? I look between Bran and Hele with indecision, torn between Hele’s gentle reassurance and Branwell’s steady friendship. Eventually, I trudge through the water to Bran.

  I’m not sure being with Branwell will make me feel any better, but it might distract me for a minute. At least his loss is separate to my own, unlike Tia’s, which only amplifies the ache in my chest. Grief is everywhere. It’s inescapable. It isn’t something I can stab or shoot at, and no matter how far we run or how deep underground we hide, it will always creep inside and find us. How can I stop it?

  And how am I supposed to stop it when it’s slowly creeping up on me too, elbowing its way into my dreams and tormenting my subconscious with images of my family whole and happy.

  The murky water has soaked into my jeans, freezing damp crawling up my legs. I’ve only been in the pool a minute and I already want out.

  “Bran?”

  He’s staring blankly, almost as vacant as my sister on a bad day, his curling brown hair wet and stuck to his cheekbones. His green eyes have shadows around them, much darker than the circles around Tia’s. How could I have missed this? He’s not sleeping, that’s obvious, but that brings a rush of questions to the front of my mind. Is he eating? Is he drinking? Is he talking? Has he become mute, too?

  “Yes?” His voice is flat, but I breathe with relief.

  “You okay?”

  “Yes.”

  I touch his arm where his sleeve has been rolled up, half expecting him to flinch. He doesn’t. His skin is a freezing shock, and I glance at his arm instinctively. At first I mistake the contrast of my brown hand against his arm as the usual difference between black and white, but I realise his skin is deadly pale. His pallor, his temperature … if he stays in the water like this he might kill himself.

  The only way I can think to get him out of the water is bodily dragging him. I eye him, wondering what the best way to grab him is, and how to pick him up without breaking my back—but then the hands that were balled into fists at Branwell’s sides uncurl, his arms hanging suddenly limp, and he seems to come back to himself. He draws in a ragged breath, still watching the water as if it’s gonna perform some kind of miracle, and says, “No. I’m not okay.”

  Taking speech as encouragement, I grip his shoulders and try to turn him. But he won’t budge. He feels as solid as a building.

  “We used to visit a place like this when we were children.” Branwell ge
stures at the other side of the pool where murky grass meets murky sky. I slip off my no-longer-white jacket and tuck it close around Bran’s shoulders. I doubt it’ll help much but it feels like the right thing to do. “It was a lake, I think,” he goes on. “Much bigger than this. I used to dive into the water and come home dripping, tracking water down all the corridors. It drove Nancy mad. My father always laughed. He said I was discovering the world by a hands-on approach, as opposed to Bennet’s observe-from-a-distance approach. Benny would scowl and haul me to my room to dry off. And to berate me for being so childish.”

  He looks at me then, finally, and his lips form a smile that cuts right through my heart. He says, “She’s dead, isn’t she? My sister?”

  “No.” I don’t know. I haven’t even thought about it. I’m so crushed by my own troubles that I forgot Bran’s were even worse. “You got to Forgotten London alright. I’m sure she’s just … somewhere else.”

  Bran looks at me steadily. “You don’t believe that. But you’re saying it to make me feel better, which I appreciate.”

  I watch him slip his arms into the coat sleeves, surprised at it fitting him. I thought it’d be much too big, since he’s so short, but for the first time I notice muscles along his arms and shoulders, straining at the Guardians jacket. I kinda assumed he was skinny all over without really looking. “Did it make you feel any better?” I ask.

  “Not a bit. But thank you for trying.”

  “No problem.” I turn back to land, hoping Bran will follow. Tension releases me when takes a step without a second’s hesitation. “Anytime you want a pointless attempt to help, you know where to find me.”

  He laughs, sloshing through the lake. Timofei is standing by the water’s edge when we emerge, giving us a sharp look.

  “Not the best time for a swim,” he says.

  “Sorry,” Bran murmurs. “It’s entirely my fault.”