by Lani Lenore
He’d been staring at her when the commotion died down, and he hadn’t even realized that the rest of them had grown quiet. They were looking past him, Toss stepped in front of Wren, and Rifter didn’t have to turn before he knew what was going on.
He turned his head to look behind him, and saw what he’d expected. Several of the remaining natives were there, bows and spears drawn. The Pack went on the defensive as well, brandishing their own weapons behind Rifter to defend if they had to, but none of them made a move toward each other.
One among the painted Tribals began to speak to them in a loud, threatening voice, and though they couldn’t understand the words, the message was clear.
It was like Finn had said before. The Tribals did not like them as much as the pirates did not, and despite what help they might have offered, these people wanted them off their land.
Rifter understood this message. Perhaps it was rude after what he had done for them, but he would consent. He held up his empty hands and motioned for the others to put their weapons away, and then he turned to go without a word. The others gradually obeyed and followed after him, leaving down the hill and away from the camp.
The Tribals kept a careful watch on them until they were gone.
Chapter Twenty-Six
1
The Wolf Pack had retreated back into the woods, but they were still a fair distance from home. Rifter hadn’t asked them how they had caught up with him – either because he didn’t think of it or because he already knew. No one could say. The fact remained that they were too far from the hideaway to make it back tonight. They walked until they were tired and then made their camp in the woods.
The boys were still talking excitedly about what had happened, some reenacting the scene by the fire for the entertainment of the rest. Finn was narrating, playing Rifter while Mach was acting as the Scourge, and the battle was redone. When the arm was cut off, there was a roar of applause, and Mach made such a flailing display of false pain that Wren couldn’t watch anymore. She sighed in frustration and decided to wander away to be alone. She needed the quiet.
Wren went off through the trees, but not so far that she couldn’t still see the light of the fire. They had set up camp near a creek, and she trudged down the hill to it, kneeling to wash her face in the cold water. It was a frigid jolt, as if she needed another rude awakening.
She stared down at the stream trickling past her, feeling unusually low. She wasn’t sure that she could put her finger on exactly what was bothering her, but she knew it had something to do with what she had seen today – the way they all laughed at what had happened, how they congratulated Rifter on mutilating another person, how the world had reacted like that! Everyone else seemed so happy about the way it had turned out, as if the battle had swung in their favor and no bad would come with it. She wanted to feel happy too, but she couldn’t.
How could they all be so excited by violence? She’d always thought that it was best to avoid conflict. Why did they seek out monsters? And why did Rifter insist on rushing out to step into the middle of some battle that didn’t concern him? If the Scourge was so dangerous, why didn’t they all stay away? Couldn’t they have perfectly normal lives in the forest, hiding underground, away from it all?
As difficult as all that was, the thing that depressed her most was seeing Henry fall in with this way of thinking. She’d been happy with that in the beginning, but now that this had happened, she wasn’t sure how she could endorse it. She’d told herself that she could handle seeing her brothers adapt to this life, but Henry was so much like them now that he had blended with the group. She could scarcely tell him apart from the rest, as if he had been here as long as they had.
I just don’t understand them. They don’t think like I do. Not at all.
It was something that she’d just have to deal with, she supposed. She couldn’t change them. They had to go their own way.
“What are you doing off all by yourself?” Wren looked up at the sound of Rifter’s voice, just in time to see him drop out of the sky and land next to her.
He stared at her a few moments, but she tried to avoid his eyes. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to say to him, or what was going to come out of her mouth when she opened it, so she tried to keep herself quiet and let him speak first.
“I can’t help noticing that you don’t seem very happy,” he said finally. She was surprised that he had noticed. Had he figured it out on his own or had one of the others told him? Wren shook it away.
“Today was…” She tried to think of a good way to say it, but there was no good way. She decided to be blunt. “It was the most horrifying thing I’ve ever seen!”
He was quiet, unsure of how to respond. He seemed disappointed that she wasn’t as impressed with him as the rest of them were.
“Why do you say that?” he asked. Did he really not understand?
“The world was going mad! The earth was shaking! There were rocks falling from the sky! Yet you insisted on fighting him! You could have died, Rifter! We all could have died!”
“But we didn’t,” he said easily. He was actually smiling! He held up his arms so she could look at him. “See? All in one piece – which is more than I can say for him.”
“This isn’t a joke!” she scolded.
He still didn’t seem to understand why she was upset. She thought of holding it back, of clamming up in the heat of the moment, but then it was all spilling out in a flood that broke through the dam she’d built up. Her emotion was too strong to contain.
“You ran off and left us to begin with! Did you even give us any regard? What if someone had died today? Would you have cared?”
His eyes narrowed at her. “Of course I would have cared! I don’t want anyone to die.”
“But how would you know if we had? You didn’t even know we were there!”
He was silent at that, and now he had refused to look at her. He was looking out over the trees, chewing on his aggravation. She didn’t want to see him getting angry at her. She looked at the water instead, and they stood like that for a while.
“If I die, will you forget me?” she asked finally. She wouldn’t look at him, but she was sure that he was dumbfounded by her words. She didn’t know what he’d say, still half-expecting him to yell at her, but he was quiet. When he spoke again, his voice was level.
“I’ve always sworn that I will not lose my brothers. I don’t remember them, but I know that I have lost some. I guess you know by now that it’s the reason why you’re here. The others must have told you that I won’t talk about the fallen afterward, and that I forget them. Well, they’re right. Even now, the last one’s name means nothing to me, because I don’t even remember what it was.”
That wasn’t true. She knew it wasn’t, but he was not yet finished, and she didn’t interrupt him.
“It’s painful. It kills me inside. Why would I want to live with that? I forget because I don’t want to remember. I don’t want to have that burden weighing me down. What’s important is that I’m unwilling to lose the ones I have now, and I’ll fight for them as hard as I can – like I’d fight for you – but if they fall, what can I do but let go?”
He turned and began to walk away as if their conversation was over. This just made her angrier.
“You could at least say their names!” she called out. “Don’t banish them like they never existed!”
“It’s not my fault that I forget!” he said, turning on her. “It’s just something that happens!”
He was getting angry – defensive – but she wasn’t sure if she believed him.
“I saw the poem,” she blurted. She wasn’t sure what sort of reaction she would get, but she got what she wanted. He stopped.
“What?”
“On the ceiling in your room. And there were other words too. Some of them were the names of the ones that have died. You can’t tell me that you don’t remember something.”
“I don’t,” he said firmly, and the way he spok
e so harshly hammered her in place. “Those words come to me sometimes. I write them down, but I don’t remember what they mean!”
He stopped as if he’d divulged too much. Wren was quieted at that, and they stood there looking at each other until Rifter sighed out his irritation.
“I just can’t handle it,” he said, his voice broken. “I can’t stand the guilt and I won’t have that on me. The ones who are with me now are my family. I know them, I haven’t forgotten them, and I won’t lose them. I won’t lose you.”
She wished she could believe him, but she didn’t know how she could. She shook her head. “You were so consumed by your fight today that you didn’t even know we were close. You put us all in danger because of your grudge.”
He didn’t have much of a defense for that, but he tried. “You saw him. The world dies beneath him. What if I let him do whatever he pleased? What would happen to this place? I can’t allow it. Fighting back the Scourge means keeping everyone safe – keeping the world safe. It’s something I have to do until it’s done for good.”
“But what if it happens the other way?” she asked anxiously, stepping closer. “I don’t want you to get hurt, Rifter. I couldn’t bear that. I–”
I love you. I need you with me. Forever wouldn’t be the same without you. She held her tongue.
Don’t say that to him. He’ll never say it back. She knew she was right. He couldn’t even say that he was sorry. How could he say that he loved her?
“Do you trust me?” he asked, brushing her curls behind her ear. “Have you ever trusted me? I know you have, so do you still?”
She wanted to say yes. Then say it. Of course she had trusted him. She had never had such blind faith in anyone, except perhaps in her parents when she was younger, but even they had let her down.
“Tell me you care about me,” she requested instead.
He looked at her, confused.
“Why do I have to say it?” he asked, as if she should have already known.
“Because girls need to hear those things,” she said reasonably.
He smiled at her as if she was being silly – that such things weren’t important at all.
“Can’t I just kiss you?” he asked. He cupped her face in his hands and leaned in toward her mouth, but she lowered her head, avoiding him.
“How is it that you can know so much about killing and nothing about love?” she asked with a nervous laugh.
“Because I’ve done one and not the other,” he admitted. “But I’m learning.”
She was willing to look at him then, but wondered if she could believe him. He moved to kiss her again and she did not push him away. She tried to lose herself in it as she had before, but something was still bothering her.
He doesn’t care about me like I care about him. The thought was birthed abruptly in the back of her mind, and she could not keep from nurturing it.
A part of the Vow she had taken came back to her, sticking in her mind like a fly in a web. Promise never to change. If Rifter went by the Vow as they did, would it be true for him too? Could he not change? Could he not learn to love her – to really love her in the way she needed?
Maybe she was thinking about it too much. Of course he cared about her. She knew he did.
She put her head on his shoulder as he folded her in his embrace, but she hardly felt him in her arms. He was transparent as a ghost.
2
Within the darkness of that night, the land was disturbed, attempting to heal its own wounds as it tried to understand what had imposed itself upon it. It felt that the darkness had returned, and it was trying to adjust to the new balance, or else return to the old way.
The hatred had been renewed. The old wars were to be refought.
The world could not speak out against it – could not advise. It could only accept what was inflicted on it, for the beginning and the end were the same to the land. As it had begun, so would it end. For now, there was only to wait before the next blow shook the very suspension of the universe.
Days passed and all was quiet, but still, there was a dark presence looming. If the land could have predicted the way this war would play out, it might have chosen sides, but it could only feel that it served two masters until the day that it was relieved of one – or both.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
1
Below the dark deck of the Desdemona, far from the light of day, the Scourge sat silently, glowering at the wall. He was in and out of the darkness, drunk, bobbing up and down in a sea of pain.
A few days had passed since his trial with the Rifter, and though he was in agony after the boy had taken his arm, his rage and smoldering anger alone had cauterized the flesh. Perhaps he should have been thankful that he had escaped with his life, but this time, that was not at all what he felt.
His attack on the Tribals had gone differently than what he’d expected. He hadn’t wanted anything except to draw Rifter in, and though several of his men had been killed, that didn’t matter at all. His crew could be replenished, but he had lost something a little more precious than that.
He’d lost his dignity. He had allowed the Rifter to disfigure him in front of them all. He could not forgive that.
The Scourge sat in the dark, his fingers wrapped around the long neck of a bottle. Smoke and darkness were rolling off his coat as he stewed in his anger, but he gave it no mind. His ache was intense, but he drowned it out in liquor and hatred until his eyes were sufficiently red and his agony seemed distant.
What had happened? Why had his effort failed? He knew, and it was his own fault.
Periodically when his mind, throbbing with drunkenness and pain, managed to get away from him, she was the thing that kept slipping in, taking over his thoughts.
That girl…
He had seen her standing there in her white gown, looking so innocent and pure. There was something about her that had stricken him at his core – reminded him of something from the past that he could no longer remember. She had been the reason that he had faltered, and yet he couldn’t find it in himself to blame her for it.
If I could just get close to her again… He wasn’t sure what he would do with her if he did.
Was she important to the Rifter? Perhaps it would be the greatest irony if he could use her against him. There was room in his plan for that. He didn’t just want to kill the boy any longer; that wasn’t enough. The Scourge wanted to make him suffer. He wanted to see tears in the boy’s eyes and pain on his face as he ripped the ones he cared about from his life.
His body is strong but his mind is weak. I can crush his bones and his soul all at once.
He had always hated everything that the boy was, but now it was more personal than it had ever been. The Rifter was in the way of him having full reign over the world, and the Scourge never ceased trying to think of ways that he could finish their rivalry for good.
Before he could urge his mind to imagine future steps, the weight of the bottle was too much for him and his arm could no longer hold it up. It pulled his hand toward the floor and made him slump down in the skeleton chair.
He saw the girl in the white gown. She was leading him away, beckoning to him. He went after her, following until they came to a door, outlined in light, but the intimidating block was as black as the darkness. The girl stood in front of it, wanting him to follow. He stretched his hand out to her, reaching for her hair, but she darted away from him. She threw open the door and dashed inside.
Without thinking, the man followed.
2
It had taken a while, traveling on foot, before the Rifter and his Pack had gotten to the hideaway in the woods. When they had reached it safely, Wren knew that she should have felt relieved, but she wasn’t sure that she did. Did she feel the security that one could only feel when returning home? Had she come back to safety?
Almost immediately, Rifter had gone away from her again. There were no smiles or walks or midnight kisses. He and the others spent most of their time in
the council room where they had begun to make plans and predictions about what would happen next. Wren was not invited.
She tried to go about her routine chores as she had before, but she only found herself growing angrier at them – at Rifter – until finally she had given up. Wren had stopped doing everything. Old fears had returned.
What’s going to happen next? Will we have a home tomorrow? Will life ever be happy again?
She was sitting there, staring at the roots in the wall when Henry approached her.
He sat down beside her as he had once before – in the washroom at the orphanage. That seemed like such a long time ago. How had he gotten so good at knowing when she was troubled?
“Things are pretty intense right now, huh?” he said conversationally.
When she looked over at him, she had forgotten who he was for a second. She was used to seeing Henry with dirt on his face, but his hair was even dirtier and messier than usual. Only a few of the boys bothered to bathe regularly, and Henry had obviously not seen any use for that practice.
He was so different now. How could she not have paid more attention while it was happening?
“Listen,” he began, “I know you’re going to say no to this, but hear me out. I was talking to the others and we think it might be important to start teaching Max a few survival skills.”
She’d been skeptical from the first word. “Such as?”
“Well, basics at first. He should know about the land and learn his way around – how to survive if he got lost or separated from the rest of us. If that goes well, I guess I figured we might teach him how to use a knife or something.”
She gave him a horrified look that nearly melted him.
“Are you mad?” she asked, on the verge of anger. “There is no way I’m going to let that happen! A four-year-old carrying a weapon?”
