by Shannon Hale
“No harm?” said Meilin, eyes burning with rage. “This is the agent of the very being responsible for the destruction of my home and the death of my father. I count those things as great, unforgivable harm.”
Abeke closed her eyes and then opened them slowly. “And that is terrible, unjust, and not easily forgiven. But also not Shane. He’s different. He truly believes he’s on the side of right, just as I did.”
“He. Is. The. Enemy,” said Meilin, as if talking to a small child.
“I know he works for the enemy,” said Abeke. “But I believe that one day he might be able to see the Devourer for what he is.”
“So your secret hope is that Shane will abandon everything he stands for and . . . and change his entire worldview?” asked Meilin.
“It is possible. After all, I did.”
“Yes, and seeing you embrace the Devourer’s errand boy has shown me just how deep your conversion runs.”
Abeke winced.
“Enough,” said Tarik, the beginnings of a frown creasing an already stern expression. “We will not let them tear this team apart. First we will listen, and then —”
There was a sudden blunt cracking sound, as of a fresh kill being struck by a hammer. Abeke looked up quickly to see Shane on one knee, nose bleeding. Meilin stood in a fighting pose several paces away, seemingly too far away to have accomplished such a feat, but Abeke had seen how fast Meilin could move.
“Meilin, no!” Abeke shouted. For a moment Abeke was again at the battle of Dinesh’s temple, knee-deep in water, the air so humid it seemed to push into every pore and try to crawl down her throat. Conquerors swarming at them like ants over fallen bread. An enemy soldier chopping at her, his sword stopped short by Shane’s curved saber. Saved by this boy who was supposed to be her enemy.
And now he stood there, his nose bleeding from Meilin’s fist.
The rest of Shane’s group was variously standing, shouting, or drawing steel.
“Come on!” shouted Meilin. “You are due much more than a mere taste of your own blood, so I will do my best to serve up a feast.”
The ox charged Meilin, and she leaped, pushing off of its advancing skull even as the head reared up. She vaulted faster than seemed possible to Abeke’s eyes, doing a full turn in midair and landing, heel first, in the face of the man who had until recently been riding the ox.
“ENOUGH!” shouted several voices, but none was the owner of the maddened ox, so it spun, frothing at the mouth, and renewed the charge.
Meilin readied herself to dodge the oncoming beast, but Abeke saw Jhi amble into the charging animal’s path.
“Jhi!” Meilin yelled, her stance breaking.
Jhi turned her passive silver-eyed stare to Meilin. And then, the instant before impact, Jhi simply looked at the charging animal. Abeke’s jaw dropped as the ox, instead of barreling into the panda, skidded to a halt, knelt, and began to lick Jhi’s paw.
“Enough,” Pia called out again. Abeke realized the other voices calling “enough” had been Tarik and Shane. Pia had arrived in the town square, that same smile plastered to her face, despite what had just happened. Abeke began to question the sincerity of the smile.
“There is no fighting in Samis,” Pia announced.
“Pia,” said Tarik, placing a calming hand on Meilin’s shoulder. “You have more visitors, as I expected. If you speak to Shane here, I want to be present as well.”
She nodded and walked away. Tarik and Shane followed. Abeke hoped Shane would look back, so she could mouth that she was sorry or smile encouragingly or something. But his head was bowed, his hand holding a rag to his bleeding nose.
“Abeke, Conor, keep an eye on —” Tarik nodded toward Tahlia and Ana, the two brutes, and the mysterious woman. “And on Meilin,” he added.
Abeke nodded. She had every confidence her big cat could take down any of the other spirit animals. And after this business with Meilin, her own heart was thrumming, her muscles tense, all of her wishing for a fight. But fight whom? Shane’s friends? Meilin? Maybe her own self.
She put a hand on Uraza’s head and took a deep breath. She would try to keep the peace. For Shane’s sake.
ESSIX WAS GONE. EVERYONE STOOD IN THE VILLAGE SQUARE, bristling with weapons and spirit animals, and Rollan felt so bare he might as well be naked. That was why his hands were shaking, that was why his mouth was dry, and why he’d refused to look at the woman with the raven. He wouldn’t admit to himself any other reason.
When no one was looking his way, he slipped behind a house and began to circle the inner ring of the town’s fence.
“Essix,” he hissed. “Please, Essix. Come on.”
He couldn’t really blame her. Sticking around where people expected you to be led only to trouble. He’d learned the hard way on the streets of Concorba: Keep moving. You stay in one place, the bullies find you. Beat you up. Steal the scrap of blanket and heel of bread you’ve been hoarding. Almost kill you.
Rollan got it. He just wished Essix would hang around every once in a while, bolster his reputation a bit as a fierce warrior with a faithful spirit animal in tow. On the streets, if you looked harmless, you ate dirt.
“Essix,” he whispered again. His voice shook, still addled by the encounter with Shane — and who he’d brought with him. It wasn’t possible. He knew it wasn’t possible. But she’d looked so much like . . . He shook his head, angry at himself for getting rattled by a familiar-looking face.
Rollan crept behind one of the ridiculously adorable houses with its perfectly carved and painted shutters. When he heard footsteps coming from the other direction, he expected to see one of those tall, muscular, golden-haired beauties that passed as villagers around here.
But it was her.
The woman’s hair was as black as her raven’s wings, straight and thick, falling down to her waist. Her eyes were dark and large, her skin the brown of the best kinds of bread, her face broad. His breath got tangled in his chest. Something is beautiful, he’d come to understand, if you want to look at it. And her face had for many years been the most beautiful thing in the world to him. And for years after, her face was the image he couldn’t help looking for among the crowds of Concorba. Every day, all the time, for years and years, though his heart hurt at the pointlessness of it.
He’d finally given up years ago. Well and truly, given up looking for her, wondering about her, hoping for her. She was dead, he’d been so sure.
Now here — across an ocean and in a strange little village near the top of the world — to see that face again.
Not her, can’t be her . . . he told himself.
But her hands raised, and he noticed they were shaking. She seemed to reach for him before hesitating, dropping again. She looked behind her and back again. Her eyes were wide, as if she couldn’t look at him hard enough.
“Rollan,” she whispered. “Is it really you?”
He nodded. His head was giddy. His legs felt comically shaky, like sacks of sand.
“Rollan,” she said again.
Then she began to cry.
She sat on a stone, and he took the excuse to sit too, unsure if he could keep his feet. He could feel the warmth of her arm so near his own, and the realness of her shocked him. This was not some little boy’s desperate daydream. She was here.
“My name is Aidana. But . . . I think you know who I am?” she asked.
He nodded, feeling dumb.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so, so sorry. You know that, right? You know I wouldn’t have left you if I could have . . . if I wasn’t . . . if I didn’t love you enough to leave?”
She hadn’t wiped her tears, just left them to run down her cheeks, letting nothing get in the way of looking at him.
Rollan felt his heart ice. Once, back in Concorba, he’d come across a girl alone, sitting on the street, crying loudly.
Everyone else ignored her, but he’d gone closer to see if he could help. That was when the rest of her crew had jumped out, struck him in the head, and stolen the two coins he’d earned after a day of begging. When the girl had run off, her crying had changed to laughter.
Instinctively, Rollan looked around, expecting the attack.
No one jumped out.
“Can I — I know nothing will make up for all you might have suffered, but will you allow me to explain?” Aidana asked.
He nodded again, because he really couldn’t think of anything else to do.
She took a deep breath, and then the words poured out, as if she’d been holding them in for a long time.
“I didn’t mean to — I didn’t want to leave you. You believe me? I had no father, no family besides a mother who lived with a bottle in her hand. I turned eleven and never had a Nectar Ceremony. When I was fourteen, Wikerus came to me.” She nodded toward her raven, who was perched above them on the branch of a tree. “We bonded without Nectar. I felt” — she pressed her hands against her head — “like I’d been ripped apart. My head, my gut, it was so painful. I think I spent days in a fever, and when I became aware again, my mother had gone, but Wikerus stayed. He always stays.”
The raven turned his head, staring at Rollan with one round eye.
“I survived as best I could, battling the bonding sickness. I wasn’t well. And by the time I became pregnant with you . . . Rollan, I tried.” Her voice cracked. “You were so perfect! Such a perfect baby. And at times when I was holding you I felt almost normal. But other times . . .”
Her eyes went dark.
The only image Rollan carried with him from his early childhood was her face, her beautiful face, as if it’d been carved in a cameo and worn against his heart. But as she spoke, he had flashes — her face in a rage, screaming. A bottle thrown into an alley, the explosion of glass, shards flying, cutting into his cheeks. His mother flailing, punching at bricks, while he huddled on a step, frightened. Wandering down a street, alone and cold, searching and searching, and then finding her asleep on the stones. And then curling up tight beside her — to keep her warm, to keep himself warm, to assure himself she would stay close this time.
“Some days I wasn’t sure who I was — who you were,” she said. “One time you woke me, crying in the night. We were sleeping high up in the attic of an abandoned building, and in delirium I thought you were a rat attacking me. I grabbed you and I almost, I almost . . .” Her breath shuddered. “After that I knew I had to get you away from me before I did something horrible. So I took you to a big house near the center of town. I’d watched that family for some time. They had lots of children, and at night the windows were always bright, as if they had plenty of money for candles. So I figured they could afford to keep you. Maybe even love you.”
Rollan wasn’t sure what house she meant. He had no memory of the place.
Aidana swiped quickly at her tears while she talked. “First I washed your face. And your hands. And your tiny little feet. You . . . you didn’t have shoes, but I wanted you to have clean feet, so your new family would know you were a good boy. And then . . . and then I kissed your cheeks and told you to be good and stay put till the nice family came for you, and I knocked on their door and I . . . I ran.”
Rollan didn’t realize he’d been crying till he felt a line of cold pull down his cheek. He touched it, and his fingertips came back wet.
“I waited across the street till I saw someone open the door. I knew they’d take you in and take care of you. You were such a smart little boy, I felt sure they’d see that. So I fled. And . . . I don’t remember a lot of the next years. I wasn’t always in my right mind. But I survived, somehow. Wikerus could steal fruit from trees and bread cooling on windows. Even when I got really bad, Wikerus never left me. Though he bit me sometimes. Clawed at me. He had the bonding sickness too.”
She brushed her fingers unconsciously across her cheek, and Rollan noticed a series of pale scars. He thumbed a clash of old scars on his wrist and wondered if Wikerus had caused those as well.
“I think I was dead — or nearly — when Zerif found me. He gave me the Bile to drink, and slowly the darkness left my mind. The Bile cured both of us of that awful sickness. He saved us, Rollan. He saved me and Wikerus. I owe him everything. So of course, I serve him now — serve both him and the Reptile King. He isn’t the ‘Devourer’ you think he is. They’re out in the world, looking for people like me who the Greencloaks didn’t bother finding, didn’t bother helping, curse them.”
She looked Rollan over, as if noticing that he wasn’t wearing a green cloak, and she smiled approvingly. Her smile faltered.
“Rollan, I wish you’d say something,” she whispered.
Rollan licked his lips, trying to work moisture into his mouth. He said, “Ma?” His voice was a dry whisper.
She grabbed his hands, rubbing them as if to warm him up. The gesture was achingly familiar.
He was afraid to ask but did. “Once you were well, did you look for me?”
“Yes,” she said, clearly relieved to say it. “Yes, I did. I went back to that house, but it’d been sold and the new owners didn’t know where the others had moved. I hoped your new family was living in the country now — with animals, perhaps, and clean air and lots of fresh food. Did you move to the country?”
What could he tell her? She’d seen someone open that door, but she’d left before seeing them shut it again in the face of a ragged little boy. He wondered how long he must have stayed on the doorstep of the big house, waiting for a family to come for him like she’d said. He wondered how long he’d wandered the streets looking for her before giving up and finding a hole to sleep in alone. Should he describe to her the long years of starvation and fear, abandonment, loneliness, of his doing almost anything just to survive and dreaming of a mother who’d held his head to her chest and let him fall asleep against her heartbeat? Or should he tell a kind lie to put her at peace?
He hadn’t yet decided when her raven squawked — a jarring, unnaturally loud sound. Wikerus batted his wings and took to the air as Essix came swooping down.
Essix shrieked at the raven. The two birds met midair, feet forward, and clawed at each other.
“No!” said Aidana. “Leave him alone!”
“Essix!” Rollan cried.
The gyrfalcon flew past Rollan and returned again, shrieking as she tried to seize the raven with her talons. The raven fought back, croaking hideously.
“Essix, don’t hurt him!”
Essix spun, taking again to the skies, as if to get as far away from Wikerus as possible.
“Essix?” said Aidana, blinking rapidly. “Of course. You were one of the children bonded to the Four Fallen.”
“I’m sorry,” said Rollan. “I don’t know why she attacked.”
“It’s okay. Wikerus isn’t hurt.” Aidana took Rollan’s hand in both of her own, pressing it with warmth. “I don’t want anything to detract attention from our reunion.”
Rollan smiled and wanted to be okay, but he felt uneasy. Essix had warned him all those months ago to flee from Zerif. Her instincts had been right then and dozens of times since. And the memory of Zerif, and of the Conquerors killing Meilin’s father, was still as fresh as a bleeding wound.
He almost leaned in then, ducking his head under her chin as if he were still a little boy, to let her embrace him. But crammed into those few inches between them he felt the years of solitude on the streets, the Conquerors’ trail of death, and even a fight between a raven and a falcon.
“I — I should go check with my . . . uh . . . team,” he stammered and turned and left before he could change his mind. As he walked away, he felt a raw pang in his chest, as if a chunk of his heart had torn off.
Rollan walked, but his heart just beat harder. He felt jittery, his blood fast, his body anxious for action. He want
ed to find someone he could blame for all this pain and hit him. Instead, he ran. He skirted the houses, running beside the fence, working his body hard.
He came upon Pia’s house and slowed. Voices drifted from her open window. He slowed his breathing and then crept closer, stooping below the window.
“Say what you will to Pia, Shane, but don’t be a fool and expect me to believe your lies!” Tarik was shouting. Shouting. In anger, no less. He never did that. The battle of Dinesh’s temple must still be haunting Tarik too.
“Tarik, please,” said Shane, calm even in the face of Tarik’s rage. “Don’t worry about this. You know only I can keep Pia and her town safe.”
Rollan heard footsteps on the gravel walk and started away from the window. It was Pia, carrying a pitcher toward the well. Inside, Tarik and Shane continued to argue.
“Overhear anything interesting?” Pia asked, lowering the bucket into the water. She looked tired, her near-constant smile unable to hide the sadness.
“Pia, listen, I’m not a Greencloak, and I’m not a fan of meddling in others’ affairs. I think people should mostly just mind their own business. But I’ve seen what Shane and his allies do. They have no mercy. They kill anyone who gets in their way.”
“And what is their way?” Pia asked calmly, pouring water into the pitcher.
“Destruction,” he said. “Domination. No place is safe. If Shane is already here, the army of Conquerors won’t be far behind. There’s no use hiding from them. Nowhere is safe, and nothing will remain the same. Zhong has fallen. They’re all over Nilo and Eura. Please. Helping us isn’t a choice between keeping your extended life and losing it. It’s a choice between any life at all and total destruction.”
Pia nodded. This didn’t seem to surprise her, and Rollan suddenly wondered if she was old enough to remember the war with the first Devourer.
“You know how to help us find Suka,” he said. “Please. Someone’s going to find her, wake her, claim her talisman. If it’s not us, it will be the Conquerors.”
