Deception (Courier's Daughter)

by Redwine, C. J.

  More explosions sound in the distance, but the roar of the flames near me and the thick cushion of noxious smoke nearly drown out everything but the sobbing moans of pain escaping my lips as I walk.

  I find the next group of people by walking straight into a man who’s created a chain of survivors, linked by holding hands. All of them cover their faces with their cloaks. I can’t tell who they are, but it doesn’t matter. We have to get off of this field before we all die.

  “We’re going north. Any others in this area?” I ask, and tiny pinpricks of light dance at the edge of my vision.

  “Not that I could see,” the man at the head of the line says. His voice is muffled by his cloak.

  I try to turn away. Try to lead us north, but the pain is consuming me. My knees wobble and refuse to hold me as my head fills with buzzing, like a swarm of bees is trapped inside my brain.

  As I slide toward the ground, he reaches out and catches me. Pulling me close to him, he tips my head onto his shoulder.

  I can’t feel my tongue. Or my fingers. My arm, though, is one continuous shriek of agony.

  “Are you hurt?”

  My head lolls back, and the world swims around me, a confusion of smoke, white-gold flame, and a pair of familiar eyes staring into mine.

  “Logan?” I ask, though I know I’m wrong.

  “Shh.” He presses a finger against my lips so hard my teeth cut into my lip, and my mouth fills with the metallic tang of blood. His hand slides down my right arm until he comes to the burned flesh. “Pain is such a useful thing. It corrects us when we’re wrong. It shapes our character. It teaches us that we’re alive.” He grabs my wound with rough fingers and squeezes.

  I scream, an unrelenting wail of agony, and he snarls at me. “Don’t you feel alive?”

  My scream dissolves into choked gasps. He leans down to whisper next to my ear. “Judge and be judged, Rachel.”

  Someone shouts, and he lets go of me. I try to stand. To find my equilibrium. But the buzzing in my head spreads down my body, and I tumble to the ground as everything goes dark.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  LOGAN

  I don’t know how many survived the fires. It’s too dark to count heads, and I’m more concerned with getting those who are still alive as far from the burning field as possible. The path leading back up the hill is completely closed off to us. Not that I want to backtrack when we could have Carrington on our heels. With the field destroyed, our only option is to travel toward Lankenshire and hope to find another place to stop.

  I’m not leading them, though. I’ve handed that job over to Drake. I can’t concentrate on the territory we’re approaching until I know for sure if Rachel and the others in her western quadrant have joined the group. We left before they could catch up with us, and every second of not knowing stretches my nerves to the breaking point.

  Striding quickly past clumps of silent survivors, I check faces and look for that confident I’m-about-to-teach-the-world-a-lesson attitude that marks her movements as surely as her red hair marks her appearance.

  She isn’t here.

  I reach the wagons and hop on the back step of the first one. Pulling the canvas aside, I say, “Is Rachel in here?”

  “No,” a timid voice answers me.

  Eloise? It doesn’t matter. All that matters is Rachel.

  The next two wagons are full of the elderly, the injured, and those desperate to catch their breath after inhaling too much smoke. Rachel isn’t there either. But in the fourth wagon, a man answers me, his voice hoarse.

  “She saved our lives. Me and my little girl. And she got burned. It looked . . . bad.”

  A fierce pain stabs my chest, and I clench my hands around the wagon’s frame to keep from shaking the information out of him. “Where is she now?”

  “I don’t know. She told me to go north, and then kept looking for more people. It was really smoky there. Really bad. I don’t know if she—”

  I leap from the wagon before he can say something I don’t want to hear.

  Rapidly working my way through the rest of the crowd, I pray that I’ll see her. That she made it out.

  She isn’t here.

  I can’t breathe. Can’t make a plan. Can’t think.

  She isn’t dead. She can’t be. She’ll walk out of the field at any moment. She’ll race to catch up to the group. And she’ll glare at me for doubting her survival skills.

  Please.

  Please let that happen.

  I pass Frankie on his horse at the end of the group without sparing him a glance.

  “Where’re you going?” he asks.

  “To get Rachel.”

  The field is a blaze of dancing white-gold light whispering in and out of the thick white smoke that chokes off my view of the other flames—the crimson and orange ones that have spread from the phosphorous and become regular fire greedily consuming the long grass and heading steadily into the forest.

  Another reason why we can’t turn back up the hill. Who knows how fast and how far this fire will spread through the Wasteland?

  “I’ll help,” Frankie says.

  It never occurs to me to turn him down. To ask him to guard my people’s backs as they flee. I’m about to enter a blazing inferno, thick with smoke, to search for one girl. I need all the help I can get.

  Before we go more than five steps toward the field, shadows move inside the smoke at the northern edge.

  “There!” I say, and Frankie spurs his horse forward.

  In seconds, the first in a long line of people crawls out of the smoke on hands and knees.

  She did it. She gathered them all up and crawled her way across the field with them. I race to the leader of the group, throw back the hood, and frown as a man with brown hair and a short beard coughs hard enough to choke. I recognize him. Clint, I think. Usually walks in the middle of the pack as we travel.

  “Rachel?” I ask, but he’s coughing too hard to answer me.

  More people crawl out, coughing and gagging. Disoriented and faint. None of them is Rachel.

  The relief I felt at the sight of these survivors turns to bitter dregs as the last person crawls to freedom, and it isn’t her.

  “Take them north, Frankie,” I say, and cover my nose and mouth with my cloak. Dropping to my knees, I crawl onto the field.

  My world narrows down to the roar of flames, the searing heat that batters me from all sides, and the suffocating waves of smoke that want to steal my breath and leave me with nothing.

  I slide one hand over the grass, searching for obstructions, and with the other hold my cloak to my face. Finding nothing in my way, I crawl forward a yard and repeat the process. On my third attempt, my hand slaps something.

  Someone.

  I lunge forward as the person digs elbows into the ground and slowly moves toward the edge of the field. Pressing my cheek to the dirt, I look into the person’s face, lit by the flickering light of the flames that are closing in on us from three sides.

  It’s Quinn.

  Before I can react, I see that one of his hands is firmly grasping a pale arm he has looped around his neck. He struggles to move forward again, and I reach for the person lying across his back.

  Rachel.

  I know it’s her even before I see her face. The shape of her body is as familiar to me as my own thoughts. Relief gushes through me. Pushing myself up into a crouch, I take her from Quinn’s back. My hands shake as I hold her close. But on the heels of that relief, fear slides through me.

  She’s too still. Too unresponsive. And I can’t take the time to see if she’s breathing. Quinn is already crawling out of the smoke, coughing like his lungs are overflowing with soot. The flames are close enough that their heat stings my exposed skin. The newly healed brand on my neck aches in sharp, jagged pulses.

  I lower my face to the ground again, cover my nose firmly, and draw in as deep a breath as I can manage. Then I stand, cradle Rachel in my arms, and run.

  I nearly
stumble over Quinn as I clear the smoke and flames. Leaning down, I pull him to his feet, but before I can figure out how to help him back to the group and carry Rachel at the same time, Frankie arrives and reaches for Rachel.

  “I’ll carry her back on the horse and get Nola to take a look at her. You help him.”

  I gently lift Rachel onto the horse. She lies over the front of his saddle with her hair hanging down below her fingers on one side and her feet hanging down on the other. I grab her arm and press against her wrist.

  Her pulse flutters against my fingers.

  The stone in my chest eases.

  Frankie kicks his horse into a gallop, and I support Quinn with my left hand so I can carry a sword in my right. We make slow, steady progress as we listen intently for sounds of pursuit. I hope the tracker who set the fire comes for us. I can’t wait to punish him for his lengthy list of crimes.

  Best Case Scenario: I catch him tonight and teach him a thing or two about pain atonement before he dies.

  Worst Case Scenario: He goes free for a little longer, and we remain in danger until I build the tech it will take to eradicate him.

  The Commander isn’t the only person with a unique sonar signal I can manipulate. Every Rowansmark tracker has an incendiary device rigged to an anatomical trigger in his chest. Surely I can figure out how to set it off from a distance.

  No matter which scenario is true, those who’ve hurt us are dead.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  LOGAN

  We take shelter about a hundred fifty yards away from the fires. There aren’t any convenient open spaces, but I’m done with open spaces for the night. Instead, I wedge us between a stone outcropping and the steep incline that leads to the river. No one can come at us from the east or the west, and I have so many guards posted at the north and south entrances of our camp, even a tracker will have trouble getting through.

  Leaving Drake and Frankie in charge, I climb into one of the wagons Nola is using to treat the injured. Rachel lies silent and pale, and the burned skin on her right forearm makes my stomach queasy. A line of blackened skin peels away from a jagged split down the underside of her arm. The rest of her forearm is a deep, crisp pink.

  Six others, including Quinn, sit or lie about the wagon with burns eating into their skin. We need to deprive the wounds of oxygen to stop the white phosphorous from burning down to the bone, and then we can figure out how to treat them.

  I have to swallow hard before I can speak. “Their wounds will keep burning until we cover them. Come with me.”

  Nola follows me out of the wagon, and I quickly scan those around us to find others who can help. “You two”—I point to a woman with broad shoulders and a man who stands with his fists clenched like he needs something productive to do—“get to the canteen and bring back four buckets of water.”

  Pointing toward a pair of middle-aged men who look strong, I say, “Get four buckets from the highwayman supply wagon and bring them back here full of dirt.” When they frown and look at me like I’ve lost my mind, I snap, “Get moving or so help me, I’ll punish you in ways you’ve never dreamed.”

  I refuse to consider the idea that the words coming out of my mouth sound like the Commander. He punished to keep his people too scared of him to consider rebelling. I’m trying to save lives.

  That has to count for something.

  Turning to Nola, I say, “Mix the dirt into mud and pack it onto the burns. Then wrap a wet rag around it. Keep it damp. When daylight comes, we’ll flush the wounds and make sure all the phosphorus is gone, and then figure out where to go from there.”

  Seeing that everyone is doing my bidding, I jump back into the wagon. Quinn leans against the wall beside the doorway, his head tipped back as he breathes in harsh pants. Rachel lies beside him, her chest rising and falling in jerky movements. I can’t look at her arm.

  I settle on her other side and glance around the wagon’s interior. Six others lie on the floor, on the benches, or sit propped against the far wall. Most are moaning in pain. A few are still coughing in painful bursts. None of them are looking at us.

  “Thank you,” I say to Quinn, and my voice shakes as those two small words struggle to carry the weight of my gratitude.

  He coughs, then wheezes, “A man.”

  My jaw throbs as I clench my teeth. “A tracker, yes. He dropped those fire bombs in the field. Probably did it while we were organizing ourselves and cooking our dinner.”

  Bitterness eats at me like poison. I should’ve seen him. I should’ve noticed him walking the perimeter, planting destruction stone by stone. If I had, Rachel wouldn’t be lying here beside me, barely breathing, her arm a mess of still-burning flesh.

  “Not the tracker. Too . . . tall. Another man . . . had her. Baalboden cloak. Couldn’t . . . see his face.”

  I go absolutely still as his words sink in. “He had Rachel? Are you sure?”

  He nods. “Had . . . all of them. Lined up.” He coughs and presses his hands to his forehead like his head wants to come apart. “Trapping Rachel’s injured arm and hurting her. I found them . . . by following her screams.”

  Everything inside of me trembles as fury spills out of my chest, courses through my veins, and consumes me.

  I was right all along. Someone in our group has been helping Rowansmark. I have no idea why one of the Baalboden survivors would turn against his own people in favor of a Rowansmark pain atonement vendetta, and I don’t care.

  I will kill him. I will flay the skin from his bones in tiny little pieces. Hold his head underwater until he nearly drowns, and then revive him just to do it all over again. Pour white phosphorous over his body and watch while he screams the way he caused Rachel to scream.

  “Logan?” a voice asks right behind my ear.

  I whip toward the doorway, my fist rising, and stop when I see Willow. Slowly lowering my fist, I get to my feet and climb out of the wagon.

  The night sky is split in two. To my left, brilliant chips of silvery light twinkle and glow. To my right, a billowing cloud of smoke spreads across the horizon, obscuring all but the bright licks of orange flame cavorting in the depths of the hell we just left.

  Willow pokes her head into the wagon, says a few words to her brother, and then comes to stand beside me. Her eyes glow, feral and dangerous, beneath the starlight. I meet her gaze with something feral and dangerous of my own and feel connected. A well of deep, unwavering rage forges a link between us that cannot be broken until we see the killers dead at our feet.

  “Our assumption about one of us working with Rowansmark was right. Quinn said—”

  “He told me,” she says. “There’s another message. A large piece of paper lying under a regular white stone. Right in the middle of the path.”

  “Did you read it?”

  “I didn’t touch it.”

  “Good. We’re leaving it right where it is.” My voice is cold. “We’re done playing Rowansmark’s games. From this point forward, if they want my attention, they’re going to have to give me the message face-to-face.”

  “And then we kill them,” Willow says in a voice as dark as the sky above us.

  “Then we kill them.”

  Her smile is a vicious baring of teeth.

  “I’m sorry Quinn got hurt. I’m grateful he saved Rachel and the rest of those trapped in the western quadrant, but I’m sorry he’s suffering as a result.”

  She looks at me. “I warned Rachel that if she did anything to cost my brother his life, I’d make her pay for it.”

  “She didn’t do this. I sent her out there.” I sent her straight into the hands of the killer. The thought is like a splinter in my brain. I can’t leave it alone.

  “And Quinn followed her because he’s determined to protect her. I know.” Her voice sounds weary. “I tried to talk him out of it weeks ago, but he wouldn’t listen. And it doesn’t matter if you sent her or if she chose to go. If there’s danger involved, Rachel will be right in the middle of it. I wanted
her to know about Quinn’s . . . determination . . . so she’d think about the cost of her actions.”

  “This isn’t Rachel’s fault. If you want to be mad at anyone, be mad at me. Or better yet, be mad at the killer who put us in this position in the first place.”

  “Oh, I know exactly where to put the blame for all of this,” she says softly. “And I’m better suited than most at killing someone in ways that will leave him begging for death before I end it. But Quinn would’ve followed Rachel into the smoke no matter who sent her there. Haven’t you figured that out by now?”

  She moves away, and I let her go, her words ringing in my ears as the memory of Quinn holding Rachel close to him after Sylph died burns my throat like acid.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  LOGAN

  Lankenshire sits atop a steep rise of land like a glittering white crown made of stone. A long stretch of ground between the Wasteland and the city’s wall has been cultivated into evenly plowed fields with newly sprouted plants poking up from the rich soil. A path paved in dusty, white-gray rock leads between the fields and to the city’s gate.

  We’ve made it. Three weeks of staying one step ahead of the Commander, battling highwaymen and the Cursed One, and trying to protect ourselves from a Rowansmark vendetta—all to reach this city. I began the journey with a small group of experienced fighters who were desperately trying to train others on the basics of survival, but I’m walking into Lankenshire with a remnant of battle-scarred, capable people who can handle anything our enemies throw at us.

  I’m also walking into Lankenshire with a killer in our midst, but I’d like to keep that a secret until I have a plan in place to catch him.

  We arrive at Lankenshire’s ornately scrolled iron gate a few hours after dawn. The city’s wall is made of thick-cut white stone with flecks of silvery gray that glitter beneath the morning sun. Several soldiers in dark green uniforms stand at attention behind the iron bars, watching as we travel the path that bisects the fields.