Deliverance

by Redwine,C. J.

  I duck beneath a curtain of rubbery kudzu vines, and catch a glimpse of Rowansmark to the west, illuminated by the westward moving sun that spreads across the city’s wall like golden syrup. Using the dagger, I slice off a long length of kudzu and wrap it around my waist several times. I don’t have rope, so the thick kudzu will have to do.

  My stomach growls, and I have to grab onto the trunk of an ancient walnut tree as my head spins. I need food, but I’m in no condition to hunt. The walnuts in the trees that are scattered around me won’t ripen until September. The acorns on the oak trees would require blanching, and I don’t dare try to light a fire. Clusters of mushrooms grow out of fallen tree trunks throughout the area, but I’m not sure if they’re edible or not. Dad and I never traveled south of Rowansmark, and we usually steered clear of mushrooms anyway, because one wrong choice could mean a painful death.

  Doing my best to ignore the ache in my stomach and the slight ringing in my ears, I push forward, holding on to tree trunks for balance as I wade through thick underbrush. The sun is just beginning to set when I finally find something I can eat.

  A field of wild grass is choked with thistles. A stream runs through it, and the water looks clear and tastes clean. I strip off my clothes, rinse them clean, and then rinse myself as well. Then, laying out my clothes to dry as much as possible, I go after the thistles. It will take work to get to the edible part of the plant, but it’s better than starving. I crouch beside a few plants and saw through the base of them with the dagger. Then I carefully use the dagger to strip away the outer skin and reveal the stalk inside each stem. The stalks are tough to chew, and the taste is bland, but they’re filling. I eat my way through two small plants before stopping.

  With my stomach satisfied, I pull on my damp tunic and pants and then turn my attention to finding a place to set up camp. I need to be able to see movement in the Wasteland north of Rowansmark. I don’t know how else to track Logan. I don’t have a tracking device for him. I don’t know exactly which path he’ll take through the Wasteland. All I can do is climb the highest tree around, pay attention, and hope.

  I move west until stars are pricking the sky, and Rowansmark is a silent bulk of stone and lit torches less than two hundred yards behind me. I’m far enough into the Wasteland not to worry about being seen by guards patrolling the city’s wall, but close enough to where the Wasteland meets the field of flat, damp ground that surrounds the city on three sides that if anyone approaches the city through the forest, I should hear them before they show themselves to the guards.

  I find an oak tree that stretches so far toward the sky, I can’t see the top of it from the ground. Putting my dagger back into the sheath inside my boot, I reach up toward the lowest branch and jump.

  My hands wrap around the rough bark for a split second, and pain tears through my back and explodes throughout my body. I cry out and drop to the ground, cradling my right arm against me and breathing through my teeth as something warm and wet soaks through the back of my tunic. I’ve torn open some of my wounds, and the muscle in my right arm won’t grip anything for very long. Tears gather in my eyes and spill down my face in salty trails as I slowly push myself to my feet and pull my bloody tunic away from my skin for a moment.

  Logan is coming. I have to be able to warn him. I am going up this tree no matter what it costs me.

  Careful not to tear through any more of the healing wounds on my back, I bend down and retrieve the dagger. If I can’t jump up to the lowest branch and swing my body into the tree, I’m going to have to climb it the hard way. It will leave an obvious trail, but I don’t have another choice.

  Driving the dagger into the trunk of the tree at eye level, I wrap both of my hands around its hilt, letting my left hand take the brunt of my weight, and pull myself up. Hugging the trunk with my right arm and my legs, I pull the dagger free with my left hand,climb by digging the weapon into the bark for leverage, and then shinny my way up, inch by painful inch.

  It seems to take forever to reach the first branch. My blood-soaked tunic is stuck to my back, and every move I make feels like someone is scraping sandpaper over my wounds. I crawl onto the limb, rest my face against the trunk, and clench my jaw to keep from crying.

  “I can do this,” I whisper into the gloomy twilight. “It’s just pain.”

  Just pain. Just pain. I repeat the mantra to myself as I get to my feet, stab the dagger into the tree, and start climbing again. By the time I reach the highest cradle in the tree, the one that will let me see out over the Wasteland in every direction, I’ve given up trying to keep the tears at bay. I crawl into the small nesting spot supported by two branches at my back and another two on either side and struggle just to breathe without sobbing.

  The stars are silver dust scattered across the sky, and the moon is a low-slung wedge that spills white light across the treetops like a path made of liquid diamonds. I position my back so that the bleeding wounds are between the two supporting branches, peel my tunic away from my skin as best I can, and tilt my head back to stare at the sky.

  The last time I lay out beneath the sky near Rowansmark, Dad was sitting near me, the package from Marcus in his hands. If I close my eyes, I imagine I can smell the remnants of our campfire and the gamey scent of the rabbit meat we’d wrapped in leaves and hidden in my pack to keep for morning. I can hear Dad humming quietly, the same lullaby he sang for me when I’d wake as a child from nightmares that now seem dull in comparison to the terrible things real life can bring. With my eyes closed, I can hang on, just for a second, to the absolute peace and security I always felt whenever he was near.

  My eyes open, and I raise shaky fingers to wipe tears from my cheeks. I don’t know if I’m crying because I hurt on the outside or because the ache of missing Dad feels more real in this moment than it has since the day I lay weeping on his grave.

  “I miss you,” I say softly, my voice breaking over the words because they are too small, too ordinary, to sum up everything he meant to me. “It was you and me and Oliver against the world for so long. And now it’s just me. Me and Logan.”

  My words are quiet against the chorus of crickets and the quiet shush-shush of wings as an owl passes by overhead. I sit for a moment, staring at the stars, and then say, “I want you to know that I understand why you went back for the package. Why you didn’t take it to Baalboden in the first place. And I’m proud of you for saving Quinn and Willow, even though it cost you . . . even though . . .”

  My throat closes. I let the grief rush out of the silence, split it wide open, and consume me. I let it have me, and I feel. I feel the bright shard of pain in my chest when I accept that I will never pick up my Switch and spar with Dad again. That Oliver will never call me Rachel-girl, and I will never be forced to swallow Dad’s terrible cooking, and my little yellow house in Baalboden will never be filled with laughter and fairy tales and the good, cinnamony scent of Oliver’s sticky buns.

  I cry until I have no more tears, and then I raise my face to the heavens, to the place where I know Dad and Oliver are looking down on me with the same fierce love that I will always feel for them, and I say, “Thank you for raising me to think for myself. Thank you for telling me fairy tales but also teaching me how to face the battles I’d need to win in real life.”

  I grab hold of a branch on my left and slowly reach my right hand toward the sky, imagining I can feel the whisper-soft touch of my family in return. “I love you both. I always will.”

  I swallow hard and let a painful kind of peace fill me as I say the last word I need Dad and Oliver to hear—the most complicated, powerful word I know.

  “Good-bye.”

  Then, as my last word to my family floats across the endless expanse of trees in front of me, I use the kudzu vine to anchor myself to my perch, wrap my cloak around me to try to keep predators from catching the scent of the blood drying on the back of my tunic, and pray with everything in me that I will hear Logan before he gets caught in James Rowan’s trap.
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  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF–NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  LOGAN

  “Keep moving,” I say quietly as we carefully skirt a cluster of thick, flowering bushes growing in clumps in the shadow of giant hickory trees. “If we stay in one spot for too long, the sentries will find us.”

  We spent the night up in the trees, lashing ourselves to the branches with rope and keeping as silent as possible to avoid detection by the Rowansmark sentries who make regular rounds to check the city’s perimeter. I kept the tracking device in my hand so I could check it every few minutes, even though logic would deduce that unless Rachel was moving toward us, the screen would remain blank.

  We’ve spent most of the day slowly circling the Wasteland north of the city, noting the routine of the guards at the gates, avoiding sentries, and trying to find other ways into the city.

  So far, I don’t have any workable ideas. Rowansmark is clearly expecting an army from the north. The city’s wall is bristling with soldiers and cannons. There’s a triple guard at the entrance. If we’re going to get into the city, it won’t be through the gate.

  “We need to move east through the forest and then cut south. It shouldn’t be as heavily guarded there. We’ll have a better chance of getting in.” I hope. I have no idea if there are multiple entrances to Rowansmark, but I do know wandering around north of the wall is getting us nowhere. And every second we waste trying to find a way in from the north is another second that Rachel is in danger.

  “Let’s go,” Willow says as she swings her body into the nearest hickory and starts moving. Adam follows her. Frankie walks beside me while Smithson and Nola bring up the rear.

  I check the tracking device for what feels like the fiftieth time in the last hour, but it remains stubbornly dark. No sign of Rachel’s wristmark signal. I tell myself it’s because she’s deep inside the city, too far for me to track.

  I can’t consider the other alternative. Not if I want to stay focused.

  “Anything yet?” Frankie asks.

  I shake my head, but don’t bother coming up with excuses for why I still can’t find a trace of her. Frankie’s heard them already. Multiple times. Repeating myself in a desperate bid to keep my flagging hope alive is more than I can take.

  Frankie repeats them for me. “Just means she’s in the southern edge of the city or to the east somewhere. Maybe they’re holding her deep underground where the signal can’t reach.”

  I can’t answer him. Not because I can’t imagine Rachel in a deep, dark hole, but because I can. I can see her suffering under Rowansmark’s pain atonement laws. I can see her turned over to Ian to do with as he pleases. I can see her dead.

  Shoving that thought away, I pick up the pace and check the tracking device again out of habit.

  It glows a faint blue.

  My knees give out. I have to grab the nearest hickory trunk and hang on to keep my footing as relief, bright and giddy, rushes through me, chasing away the dark specters I couldn’t bear to face.

  “We’re on the right track.” My voice shakes, but I don’t care because I’ve finally found her.

  Frankie squeezes my shoulder and says softly, “Told you she’d be okay.”

  I meet his gaze for a second and then start half walking, half running east. The light on the tracking device flickers for the first few yards but then grows steadily stronger.

  Willow drops down in front of me, and I nearly plow into her.

  “Slow down,” she says sternly, grabbing fistfuls of my cloak when I try to move past her. “It could be a trap.”

  “I know.”

  “Then slow down. Sheesh. Being in love knocks the common sense right out of you, doesn’t it?”

  I glance up at Adam and grin. “I don’t know, Willow. You tell me.”

  She rolls her eyes, but pink glows in her cheeks. “Use your head for a few more minutes. Once you find her, you can kiss her and tell her all the mushy things I know you two say to each other. Just do the rest of us a favor and make sure you’re alone when you do so. I like to keep my dinner in my stomach.”

  Now I’m the one rolling my eyes even as I slow my pace and walk past her. “So last night you weren’t kissing Adam up in a tree? Because I could swear I heard—”

  She smacks my back hard enough to make me stop talking. I raise my hands in mock surrender and keep moving east.

  The sun is drifting to the west when the tracking device glows a deep, brilliant blue. We’re at the northeastern edge of the Wasteland overlooking Rowansmark. If we climb a tree, we can still see the city, shining gold and brown in the late afternoon sun, but the forest itself is secluded.

  She’s here. I scan the trees, the clumps of bushes, and the pads of moss lying underfoot, but I don’t see anything out of place.

  “Spread out,” I say, and my people move through the trees, looking for signs.

  Five minutes pass without a single trace of her other than the steadily glowing light of the tracking device, but then I hear a faint voice say, “Logan?”

  It could be a trap. I know it could. But I can’t stop myself from rushing forward to find her. I duck behind trees and look over my shoulder, looking for a threat, but I can’t take my time. Everything inside of me yearns to see her. To touch her and assure myself that she’s real.

  “Found her!” Willow calls from my left.

  I sprint, but when I get to Willow, I don’t see Rachel. “Where is she?”

  “Near the top of the tree.” Willow points, and I follow a series of deep gouges in the trunk of a huge oak until I see a glimmer of red in the uppermost cradle.

  “Rachel!” I press my palms against the tree trunk as if I can somehow reach through it and touch her instead.

  “I’m up here.” Her voice hitches as if she’s crying.

  I want to tear the tree down, branch by branch, to reach her, but I make myself take a deep breath and say calmly, “You can come down now. It’s safe.”

  She’s quiet for a moment, and the leaves near the top of the tree rustle, but then she cries out, a sharp sound of pain that hits me like a punch to the stomach.

  “I’ll go see what’s wrong,” Willow says.

  “No, I’ll go.” I’m already wrapping my hands around the lowest branch.

  “I’m faster—”

  “I’m going.” I swing my body onto the branch and start climbing as fast as I can.

  It takes less than three minutes to get to Rachel. It takes a lifetime. I see her hair first, glowing like fire in the afternoon sun, and it’s like coming home for the first time in weeks. She’s lashed herself to two branches in the uppermost cradle using kudzu. The cloak she’s wearing isn’t hers. Grabbing the branches she tied herself to, I haul myself into the cradle beside her and just stare into her beautiful face.

  I want to find the words to tell her what it means to me to see her again—that a hollow space that opened up inside of me when she disappeared is whole again—but I’m suddenly out of words. There aren’t any for what I feel. I lean forward and press my forehead to hers, close my eyes, and just take her in one breath at a time.

  “Rachel.”

  “You came,” she whispers, and tears spill down her cheeks. “I knew you’d come, no matter what Ian said.”

  “Of course I came. I told you I’d always find you.” I raise my hand and gently wipe the tears from her face. “I expected you to be inside Rowansmark. Why are you up in a tree in the middle of the forest?”

  “I escaped because I had to find you. I had to warn you.” Her eyes find mine. “You can’t go near Rowansmark. Marcus—your dad—invented these things called summoners that can call an entire army of the tanniyn at once, and Rowan plans to unleash them on you or anyone else who threatens Rowansmark. I tried to figure out how to destroy them, but they’re buried, and Ian didn’t know how to break them, so Marcus said if
we used an inverse signal—”

  I pull back while a tight ball of heat presses against my chest from the inside out. “Wait a minute. I thought Marcus was dead. And what do you mean Ian didn’t know how to break them? Why would you even ask him?”

  Quickly she tells me about being imprisoned in the makeshift dungeon below James Rowan’s house, about my father with his broken mind but loving spirit locked for months in the cell beside hers, and about Ian breaking down when he realized everything he’d done to restore his father’s honor had been based on a lie.

  I’m not sure how to feel about the news that my father is still alive. Alive or dead, he’s a stranger to me. Ian, however, is no stranger. The fact that he’s suddenly realized he made the wrong choices doesn’t take those choices away. This information doesn’t change what we need to do—it just means we have to find a way around the summoners.

  “Are you going to say anything?” she asks.

  I shake my head. I could talk strategy or discuss the depths of crazy that inhabit my family tree, but after weeks of being apart, I’m finally with Rachel again. I’m not going to waste time talking scenarios when we could be kissing. “I’d rather kiss you.”

  Before she can say a word, I lean forward and kiss her the way I’ve dreamed of every night since we’ve been apart. When I pull back, we’re both breathless. She looks me over as if trying to memorize me in case we’re separated again, but then she frowns and grabs my left hand.

  “What happened?” She nods toward the stub that used to be my little finger.

  “A tracker cut it off.” I try not to flinch at the memory of searing pain and the surreal sight of my finger separated from my hand.