by Sara Raasch
Lu had always believed the Council’s purpose was to spread equality on an island that had suffered too long under Argrid’s cruelty. But who benefited from their justice? Not the people who used the Tuncian refuge, and not, she suspected, any other immigrant group. Not the raiders who, though criminals, did not deserve to be treated as subhuman.
The system Lu had bled to put into place was not the system this island needed.
“We aren’t enough” was all Lu could think to say.
Vex lifted one hand as if to cup her shoulder. “Fatemah and Cansu don’t expect—”
She pushed around him, arms folded, and stalked off down one of the winding pathways.
Lu was a daughter of the revolution. She’d done unspeakable things to help create a country built on fairness and loyalty, hard work and justice. But she had looked at the future through fogged lenses, expecting the benefits of a new country to be so obvious that she had dismissed anyone else’s feelings. Who wouldn’t want a fresh start? Who wouldn’t want to help build something as grand and full of potential as the Council? These raiders who abused her system were wrong, so why should the Council heed them?
But no. Lu was wrong. She had been wrong all along.
She wandered until she found herself in a clearing, a bonfire keeping the shadows of night away from a circle of tents and shacks. Tuncians filled the area, and Lu noticed now the brands on several of their wrists, the R behind Argrid’s crossed V. Edda helped Teo roast food in the fire while Nayeli, seated in the shadow of a tent, sorted plants in her lap.
“Fatemah show you the magic?” Nayeli fluttered her fingers as Lu knelt beside her.
Lu nodded. Yes, the magic. And too many other things.
She scrubbed a hand down her face, not yet strong enough to talk of it. She asked an easy question. “Is Cansu angry only because you disagree about the sanctuary? Something else happened to keep you out of her syndicate.”
Nayeli grinned but didn’t give anything away.
A mystery as simple as the tortured past between Nayeli and Cansu was comforting. Lu tipped her head. “You love her still.”
Nayeli’s eyes went wide, and a warm red blush tinted her cheeks, but she shook off her surprise with a laugh.
“You’re too smart. I might not like that eventually.”
“It makes sense now, why she helped us,” Lu continued. “It was for you.”
“No,” Nayeli countered, too forcefully. “It’d be more likely for you and Vex to end up in bed together. Er, cot, as it were. The Meander doesn’t have beds. And they are very squeaky, so Gods, if you do decide to roll around with him, do us all a favor and fornicate somewhere less—”
Lu blanched. “Do you say everything that comes into your mind?”
“A lot of people have told me I should think before speaking.” Nayeli considered. A look of abject horror crossed her face. “Damn. I’d never get to say anything fun again.”
“Lu!”
The panic in the voice yanked Lu to her feet. Vex sprinted into the clearing, his head whipping back and forth until he spotted her and dove her way.
Behind him, up the path he’d come, Cansu stormed out.
“Raiders, to me!” she bellowed, just as Vex reached Lu and said, “She found Ibarra. He’s—it’s bad, Lu—”
More people and raiders hurried in from side roads, squeezing between shacks to gather around the bonfire at Cansu’s command. The violent orange of the flames thrashed as Cansu lifted a fist into the air, punching her words.
“Too long have we lived in squalor, waiting for the Council to make good on a promise they never intended to keep. Too long have we let them treat us like vermin in their sewers—now we prepare to fight back!”
Lu’s blood felt as though it would burst out of her veins. “What happened?” She whirled on Vex. “What—”
But Cansu stalked toward them. “The Council turned on us when it was only a hunch that raiders abducted the Argridian. You said so yourself—the moment they find out that raiders did abduct him, they’ll declare all-out war against us.”
Lu staggered back, lungs emptying of air. A hand was on her back. Vex?
“Lu,” he said. “I’m sorry—”
“The Mecht syndicate has him,” Cansu declared viciously. “Pilkvist’s raiders abducted the Argridian general.”
18
EVERYTHING RUSHED INTO Lu at once, her mind scrambling for sense amid the senseless.
Three days ago, she had freed the most notorious raider on Grace Loray from prison. She had defied her parents and no doubt brought turmoil to the Council. She had dragged Teo into it as well, not even half a day after his sister’s death.
Before that, a memory tugged at her.
Plants used in unusual methods. Drooping Fern, in a pot of tea . . .
She had been so certain Milo, and Argrid, had staged this. She had based every action on her gut feeling that Drooping Fern could not work in that preparation—but she had watched Fatemah boil Budwig to increase its potency, a plant Lu never would have fathomed preparing like that.
Lu lifted trembling fingers to her forehead.
She had been wrong in how she viewed immigrants and raiders. She had been wrong about the extent of Grace Loray’s botanical magic, and how it could be taken further, enhanced.
Had she been wrong about Milo’s abduction?
A hand tightened on her shoulder, and she realized the only thing keeping her from collapsing was Vex’s gentle, constant grip. He met her eyes with utter sympathy.
She must have looked wretched, to warrant such a reaction from him.
“The Council will see this as an act of war!” Cansu shouted at the gathered crowd of Tuncians, raiders and families alike. “They were already planning to use our blood to pay for peace with Argrid. We’ve let them play god over us for too long. They wouldn’t have even won the revolution if it weren’t for the help of the raider syndicates. This island belongs to us!”
Cheers sounded from every direction. Some of the fists thrown into the air showed raider brands; some had that and the Tuncian tattoo. But those distinctions didn’t matter as they cried for battle—they were Tuncian, they were Grace Lorayan, they were Argridian. Lu shook her head, desperation clawing inside her to stop this, stop the chants, stop the war—
“You can’t!” Lu implored. The fire heaved hot and bright, stoking her frenzy. “My mother is a Senior on the Council—she will hear your grievances! She was the one who brokered an alliance with the raiders during the revolution. She can make the Council see reason!”
“They’ll only care about Pilkvist breaking that treaty they were trying to sign,” Cansu shot back. “They don’t see the syndicates as separate entities. They’ll come after every raider, and I’ll be damned if we don’t strike first. We’ve let them make a mess of this island, ignoring our needs, trying to make Grace Loray into something it isn’t. This island is an island of raiders! We’ve never needed a government—we control our own lives!”
Lu wanted to protest, but she knew the truth. If the Mecht raider syndicate had abducted an Argridian diplomat, the Council would go to war to solidify their control of the island and enact justice for Milo. They had taken steps in that direction anyway, and without proof.
Lu’s plan to stop that had been to bring back evidence that Argrid had staged Milo’s abduction. But raiders had abducted Milo. Grace Loray was tearing itself apart, and even if Argrid hadn’t planned it, they could take advantage of this conflict by swooping in and retaking a weakened island.
The world throbbed and shifted, and Lu couldn’t steady herself long enough to think past her horror.
It’s happening again.
Someone moved next to her—Nayeli.
“You don’t want to fight the Council, Cansu,” she shouted. “What’s your endgame? An island ruled by warring raider syndicates? That’s the life you want?”
“We want freedom,” Cansu shot back. “We want to walk our streets without fear of a
rrest. We want opportunities and safety. Argrid sure as hell didn’t give us that; the Council hasn’t either. The only way to change this island’s fate for the better is if we guide it!”
More chanting rose from the crowd. Lu’s focus snapped from person to person, her heart in her throat—
Teo stood beside her, looking up with round, scared eyes.
A voice plowed through Lu’s mind, and she stumbled a step toward Cansu.
“You’ve done so well on missions,” her father had said. “But you need to stay safe if things get dangerous. This is war, Lulu-bean—you must be ready.”
She had managed to keep her rationale the first time she had had to kill someone, and the second—it had been self-defense, she had reasoned. Men who turned violent when they figured out that she was listening to them.
But the third time, Tom had kissed her forehead before they left the safe house, heading to a part of the jungle deep in Argrid territory.
“This one is . . . different. I wouldn’t ask it if it wasn’t necessary.”
“Can’t Mama help you?” Lu had pleaded. “I don’t want to do this—”
“Kari doesn’t know about this enemy. It will be so helpful to her, to the war. This is why you’re my Lulu-bean—because you can keep a secret so well, it’s as if you took a magic plant that sealed your lips. Now, just a quick trip. You won’t see a thing, I promise.”
“Lu?” Vex brushed her arm. “What—”
War had destroyed any chance she might’ve had for a childhood. Everything else, Lu’s worries and guilt and her shifting mind-set, splintered around a penetrating desire not to let Teo live the kind of life that war had forced on her.
Lu shoved Cansu.
The raider Head stumbled back. A gasp ripped through the crowd, and chanting paused, everyone gaping at the girl who had dared assault the Tuncian raider Head.
But Lu was beyond herself.
“You will not go to war,” she declared. “Call off your attack. You will not start a war.”
Cansu flew up and slammed her forearm into Lu’s chest. “Don’t you ever touch me.”
“Lu!” Teo’s voice pitched with fear. “Stop! Please stop!”
Reality cracked over her and Lu panted, gulping air that sliced her insides to pieces. Every face she saw showed a mix she’d seen too many times. Wariness, confusion, disgust.
“Lu?” Vex put a hand on her shoulder. “Hey, look at me—”
She shoved him away and ran away from the clearing, hands over her temples.
She didn’t stop until she came to the rough stone wall of the port. There, she fell to her knees, the chirps of the jungle rising over the barrier.
This journey had been a mistake. Freeing Vex had been not only insane, but unforgivable. She needed to get Teo back to New Deza and pick up the fragments of everything she’d broken—and end this new turmoil as well. What had she expected? Only destruction followed when she gave in to the monster she used to be, the one who fought for causes and never questioned what she was helping to achieve.
Leaves crunched as someone sat beside her.
“Not now, Vex,” Lu said. “Let me—”
“It was a damn fool thing you did” came Edda’s voice. “But I can’t say I haven’t wanted to push Cansu around a few times myself.”
Lu looked at her, squinting. “You weren’t in the clearing.”
She had been, though. Lu had seen Edda across the fire before—
Before Cansu declared that the Mecht syndicate had abducted Milo.
Edda shrugged. “Wasn’t sure how Cansu’d feel about Mechts after that news about Pilkvist, so I pulled back. She seems kind of grateful, though, don’t she?” She looked pointedly at Lu. “But I don’t think I’m the only one who left that clearing out of fear of what I am. Wanna tell me what’s going on? You’ve been at war with yourself since you set foot on our boat.”
War. The word made it impossible for Lu to respond.
Edda must’ve seen the agony on her face.
“I killed my husband,” she said, candid. It shocked Lu out of her own pain.
“What?”
Edda nodded. “It was self-defense. He was a monster. He’d come after me and others one too many times, and I . . .” She shrugged. “In the Mechtlands, they teach us as kids to embrace that kind of brutality in ourselves—they call it the Visjorn, spirit of the bear. But once you do something like that, it changes you. And I ran from it for years. I did everything I could to pretend I wasn’t someone who would’ve been that vicious. But you know what? I was. I wish I could say I regretted it, or that there’d been another way. But I don’t, and there wasn’t, and it got to a point where I realized I couldn’t live with some fantasy of goodness, not with blood on my hands.
“Point is, whatever you fear so much about yourself, it’s part of you. You can either keep fighting or change your expectations, but whatever you decide, you gotta commit. This back-and-forth is what’ll get people hurt, and it’s my job to keep this crew safe. Which means I won’t tolerate people who might jeopardize that safety.”
Edda looked at Lu with a conviction developed after years of painstaking construction.
“Didn’t you hear what Cansu said?” Lu’s heart ached. “The Council won’t care about one syndicate or another—they’ll attack all the raiders, and even if Argrid didn’t plan for this, it’ll destroy us all the same. We’ll go back to being the worst versions of ourselves. I can’t—”
“Bullshit,” Edda interrupted. “Look around, girlie. War may be lapping at our shores, but it ain’t here yet, is it? And you know the difference between syndicates now. You got the ear of the Council, so tell ’em until they listen, or until war does come, but don’t you sit here and speculate about might and maybe. It’s a waste of energy.”
Edda stood.
“It wasn’t always defense,” Lu whispered.
Edda paused. But Lu couldn’t meet her eyes.
She choked. “Have you . . .”
Murdered someone? Have you fired a pistol into the darkness and heard a body drop? Have you fallen asleep to your father’s lullabies so you didn’t hear dying gurgles in your memory?
Have you done terrible things, then realized they were pointless?
Lu regretted saying anything. She barely knew this woman and didn’t trust her captain. Yet Lu had opened a door, a crack she had never opened with anyone.
“You forgive yourself for what you’ve done,” Edda told her. “You admit your mistakes. You learn from them. And you improve.”
She stalked off, leaving Lu on the ground with advice she didn’t know what to do with.
Forgive herself. A simple idea, one she had never deserved, not after the lives she’d ended, the men she’d killed without allowing them a chance to fight.
All to build a government that understood the people on this island as little as Argrid had.
Lu looked up, watching shadows move against the buildings.
Forgiving herself might have been too big a task for this night, but there were other things she could fix. Teo, for one—where to begin apologizing to him?
But first—Edda was right. War had not yet come, and Cansu had to see reason. Her concerns were valid, but civil war must not tear Grace Loray apart. They wouldn’t recover from another bloody conflict, and Argrid must not have an opportunity to dive in again.
Lu would talk to Cansu and convince her of that. They could even meet with the Mecht raiders and discuss their concerns too, determine why they had taken Milo. Lu would listen to Cansu, and Pilkvist, and all the raiders on this island, and anyone else who needed to be heard.
She would insist on the same from the Council. She would refuse to relent until they admitted that their priorities were not what Grace Loray needed; that raiders, and immigrants, deserved better than prejudices. Kari, at least, would listen, and support her.
She had to try. She had to fight for a peaceful resolution.
Lu headed into the sanctuary. The cle
aring was empty by the time she reached it, the bonfire burned down to embers. Had everyone left to make good on Cansu’s orders? Or had they retired for the night, leaving the task of war for morning hours?
Lu roamed the pathways, looking for Vex or Nayeli or anyone who could direct her to Cansu. She ended up outside the shack where Fatemah had dissolved the Budwig Beans, light flashing along the bottom of the door. Lu lifted her fist to knock when muffled whispers filtered out.
Through one of the cracks between the shack’s weather-beaten planks, Lu caught sight of Nayeli seated on the rug next to Vex. He said something in Thuti, and Nayeli responded.
Vex bent forward, elbows on his knees. “Is that what they wanted me to do?” he asked in the Grace Loray dialect.
Nayeli shrugged. “You think it was staged?”
Vex stared at the dusty rug under him. “Pilkvist’s smart enough to know the repercussions of taking Ibarra on a whim. War is the only outcome, whether it’s started by Cansu or someone else. I always knew I couldn’t be the only raider on this island in Argrid’s pocket.” He shook his head, his voice warbling. “I got a bad feeling, Nay. A really bad feeling.”
He kept talking, but Lu didn’t hear. The blood pounded in her ears, a deafening rush.
In Argrid’s pocket.
Vex was working with the Argridians.
“I should be insulted. They’ve been using the Mechts too? Here I thought I was special.” Vex looked at Nayeli, trying for humor, but he fell flat. She was an unstoppable force of joy most of the time, but when she was serious, god—he knew anything that came out of her mouth was true.
Nayeli put her hand on his knee. He hadn’t realized he’d been bouncing it.
“I’d say anything to get us to leave Port Mesi-Teab,” she said. “But we need to go find your Argridian contacts and figure out what’s going on before Cansu gets a bunch of Tuncians killed. It’s time we stopped running from Argrid and made them answer for what they’ve done.”
