Firewalker

by Josephine Angelini

  The time it took him to get undressed was just long enough for Lily to get nervous. Rowan lay down next to her, gently holding her against his bare skin, waiting for her to be ready for him.

  She met his eyes, her cheeks hot, and a fluttering laugh escaped with her words. “I could be terrible at this,” she said.

  “Impossible,” he replied.

  “I’ve never done it before.”

  “Well, I’ve never done it in a bed this small before,” he said, sharing a laugh with her. “It’s okay. I’m nervous, too.”

  He took her hand and wrapped it around his willstone with complete trust. Lily could feel what Rowan felt as he climbed on top of her. He was fighting his need so he didn’t hurt her, but he knew no matter how careful he was, he was going to hurt her a little anyway.

  Lily was present inside both of their sensations. She felt the contrast of their bodies—his drawn tighter than a bowstring, and hers softening under him. There was so much sensation she had to give it back to him. Her willstones had swung around and were lying on the pillow under her head. Lily guided one of Rowan’s arms under her back until he cupped her willstones in his hand.

  She saw his eyes widen with surprise as they shared their union completely with each other.

  They slept and woke and loved each other again, giddy and shaking and filled with a happiness that felt like crying. The cantaloupe came in handy around dawn when both of them were so thirsty and depleted Rowan couldn’t wait to find his knife, and broke one open with his hands. He scooped pieces into Lily’s mouth with his fingers and they kissed in between bites, melon juice running everywhere until both of them were a sticky-sweet mess.

  They talked, each of them laid bare and needing to share more of themselves until they’d given everything. Rowan talked mostly about his father. Everything here reminded Rowan of River, and Lily was hungry for any part of Rowan that he wanted to give her. Lily lay on her side, her head propped up on her hand, looking down on him.

  “What did you call him when you were a boy?” she asked. “Dad or Papa or something else?”

  Rowan lay on his back, one of his hands reaching up into her hair. He spread the strands between his fingers, watching the copper highlights catch the early morning sunlight. He smiled softly to himself.

  “O doe da,” he answered. His voice dropped to a whisper. “Da.”

  Lily’s eyes filled with tears. Rowan sat up against the pillows and pulled Lily down on top of him. “I’m sorry. I should stop talking about fathers,” he said. “You just lost yours.”

  “It’s not that. I know it should be that, but it isn’t,” she admitted.

  “Then what is it?”

  “You loved your father. You miss him because he meant the world to you and now he’s gone. I’ve always missed my father because he was never there. Him being dead doesn’t feel that much different.” Lily looked up at Rowan. “Your loss hurts more, but it’s so beautiful. You know that, right?”

  Rowan nodded, brushing her cheek. “I’m lucky. He made me who I am and because of that I’ll always have him with me.”

  * * *

  Carrick slipped into camp while everyone was still throwing gifts at Lily’s head. It was easy, actually. This used to be his tribe, and even though Carrick had to alter his face slightly with a glamour so no one recognized him, he still knew how to speak and act like he was one of them. He even saw some familiar faces as he made his way through the tents. That could be useful. In the turmoil of Lily’s return, Carrick walked right in.

  Carrick knew that going after Alaric was pointless. Even with a glamour he wouldn’t be able to get close to the sachem without possessing the right password, but Alaric wasn’t Carrick’s target, anyway. There was someone at this camp who Lillian wanted even more than Alaric.

  Hakan, the builder.

  Lillian had no idea where Chenoa and Keme were hidden, but she knew that Hakan had to be traveling with Alaric. The bombs were touchy contraptions, and someone who understood how they worked needed to be there to tend to them. Hakan was one of the few who were qualified, and Lillian knew he’d been traveling with Alaric for two months now. It was finding Alaric that had been the problem.

  The sachem had a lot of experience eluding Lillian, who could scour the minds of even the most loyal Outlanders for any scrap of information if she managed to claim them. To protect himself, and the personnel that came with him, Alaric had divided his tribe into thirteen factions. Each faction stayed close to a city and came equipped with a body double who looked like Alaric. No faction, except for the one he traveled with, knew where Alaric really was. But Lillian knew Rowan. She knew he would take Lily directly to Alaric, leading Carrick to his target. They intended to get a lot of information out of Hakan, and Carrick had Lillian’s permission to use his unique skill set in order to do just that.

  Carrick wanted to go after Alaric. His bitterness toward his old sachem ran deep, and it stretched back to when Carrick and his father had been thrown out of the tribe and left to wander on their own. There had never been any proof that Carrick and his father had killed that little girl, but Alaric didn’t wait for proof. He knew who’d done it. When Alaric seized power ten years ago, he’d thrown Carrick and his father out of the tribe with only a mock trial. Alaric had left them at the mercy of the Woven—and he’d left Carrick at the mercy of his father. They’d settle that score someday. But tonight, it was Hakan’s turn.

  It took Carrick a few hours of wandering around the camp to find a carriage that looked heavier than the others. Lillian had told him that the carriage with the bomb would be completely lined with lead in order to contain the poison inside. Carrick checked the wheels, looking for the ones that sank the deepest. When he found the right carriage, he blended into the shadows to wait.

  Lillian had laid eyes on Hakan herself. She’d given Carrick the memory of what Hakan looked like, and when Carrick saw him approaching the carriage just before noon the next day, he simply walked up behind him and hit him on the head.

  He’d take Hakan elsewhere to begin the questioning.

  * * *

  Lily and Rowan didn’t even try to leave their snug nest until noon, when hunger for something more substantial than fruit drove them out of bed. Rowan helped lace Lily into a soft suede-like wearhyde dress with a fringe-hemmed skirt, and then braided a swan feather into her hair while she wrapped her feet and calves in a lovely pair of beaded moccasin boots. When they finally did emerge and made their way to the inner campfire to eat, Lily couldn’t bear to be more than a step away from Rowan. She knew she was underfoot, but she couldn’t help it. He’d just have to learn how to cook with her arms around his waist.

  “You’re alive,” Caleb said, grinning at Rowan and Lily as he joined them around the fire. “We thought we were going to have to send in a rescue party.”

  Rowan smiled while he worked, his face tilted down to hide what might have been a blush, but he didn’t take Caleb’s bait. The two Tristans had come with Caleb, followed closely by Breakfast and Una, and Lily noticed that her Tristan looked sullen and withdrawn. Rowan noticed, too.

  I love having you close, Lily, but maybe for Tristan’s sake you should go sit down.

  Lily nodded and reluctantly left him to join Breakfast and Una at the table. “What’d we miss?” she asked, tearing off a piece of bread.

  “Well, three people came up to me and started talking in Iroquois like they knew me,” Breakfast said. “So that was interesting.”

  Caleb turned to Tristan. “Who was that guy who looks just like Breakfast?” Caleb asked, frustrated that he couldn’t remember.

  “I never met him,” Tristan replied.

  Caleb let it go, but Lily got the sense that he was saying something in mindspeak, and Lily hoped it had something to do with cheering up. Caleb turned to Lily and changed the subject. “The sachem wants to see you when you’re ready.”

  “Yeah,” Lily replied, suddenly frowning. “Whenever he’s free is fine, I guess.�
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  “I’ll see if he’s free now,” Caleb replied. He stood and left before Lily could come up with a reason to stop him.

  Lily had no idea what she was going to say to Alaric. She stared at the ground, desperately trying to come up with a plan. She felt Rowan brush her shoulder and looked up, startled. He was holding a bowl.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked.

  She shook her head and smiled at him. Lily took the bowl and stared at something that looked a lot like vegan chili, but her appetite was suddenly gone. She couldn’t bring herself to say anything. Rowan sat next to her and she leaned against him, not caring if Tristan was uncomfortable with it. A nameless anxiety was building in Lily, and she needed to be close to Rowan to reassure herself that he was real and that he was still with her.

  “Lily! It’s good to see you again,” Alaric said. Lily turned and saw the sachem striding toward her in his halting gait. Juliet was by his side. There was something about the way the two of them leaned toward each other, a slight but ever-present favoring of any place in which the other stood, that gave it away.

  Juliet and Alaric were a couple—a happy couple, very much in love. It only made what she had to do more painful, but Lily was past the point of tallying up future suffering. Everyone was about to get hurt.

  Lily stood. Nerves fluttered in her stomach. “Can we talk in private?” she asked. She immediately heard seven voices all asking her the same question in mindspeak.

  Why?

  She held up her hands, blocking everyone out and keeping them out. “I want to speak with the sachem alone,” she said.

  “Anything you say to me is going to get repeated,” Alaric replied, stunned. “I have no secrets from Juliet or from my trusted braves.”

  “You mean my sister and my claimed,” Lily said, a rueful smile tugging at her lips.

  The sachem smiled back in kind. “That’s the problem with us, isn’t it? Who leads this army?”

  “That’s not our only problem.” Lily stared at Alaric, her breath tight in her chest. She could feel Rowan pressing against her mind. He was confused. She couldn’t look at him. She had to shut him out or she’d never do what she needed to.

  “The other?” Alaric asked. He crossed his arms over his chest, sizing Lily up.

  There was no more hiding from this. The time had come for Lily to take a stand or step back and allow the unthinkable to happen.

  Lily faced Alaric. “Has Chenoa finished the bombs yet?”

  Alaric’s face froze. He couldn’t have looked more surprised if Lily had spat in his face.

  “Lily?” Rowan asked, taking her by the elbow. “What are you talking about?”

  “Do they even know about the bombs that you had Chenoa build at Lillian’s college?” Lily asked Alaric, making her voice loud so it was sure to carry. “The bombs that you plan to use to annihilate the Thirteen Cities?”

  “What bombs?” Juliet asked, turning to Alaric.

  Alaric ignored her, as Lily ignored Rowan, and both of them kept their eyes locked with the other. “How do you know about those?” Alaric asked Lily.

  “They don’t know, do they?” Lily asked Alaric.

  “No. So my question is, how do you?” he asked. Everyone else quieted down. “I was very careful when I selected braves for you to claim. None of them know,” Alaric said. He had her cornered and he knew it. It was too late to back out now.

  Lily looked at Rowan. He was confused and he desperately wanted her to say the right thing so he could go on trusting her and loving her as he had for one perfect night. But Lily couldn’t say what he wanted to hear. She smiled at Rowan, allowing herself to love him as deeply as she could for one final second before she destroyed him.

  “It’s okay, Rowan. I’ll be the villain so you can stay a hero,” she whispered.

  Rowan’s face blanched. “Lillian said that to me the day she arrested my father,” he said.

  Lily nodded. “I know.” She faced Alaric. “I know because Lillian and I have been in contact since I went back to my world. She showed me everything that she knows, and she knew about the bombs. Where are they?”

  Alaric shook his head. “And put myself completely at the mercy of a witch?” Alaric looked at Lily as if she were crazy. “My people are trapped between the Covens and the Woven. We can’t survive against both. One of them has to go.”

  “You’re absolutely right,” Lily said. “The Woven have to go. They’re the true enemy of your people. Lillian only became your enemy when she found out about the bombs.” Lily turned to Rowan, hoping that she could still convince him. “The shaman told Lillian about the bombs, and that’s why she went after scientists. She was just trying to stop Alaric from blowing up the entire eastern seaboard.”

  “Then why did she hang my father?” Rowan asked. “He was a doctor, not a scientist.” Rowan turned to Alaric. “Did my father know anything about the bombs? Anything at all?”

  “Not a thing,” Alaric said, meeting Rowan’s eyes to show that he wasn’t lying.

  Rowan turned to Lily, waiting for her to explain. She couldn’t. She couldn’t tell him why Lillian had killed River first.

  “Please. You don’t understand what these bombs are capable of,” she said. “You saw what happened to the tunnel women—how every cell was destroyed. That was just because they carried the material that makes the bombs. Imagine what will happen if Alaric detonates them. They won’t just destroy the cities, they’ll destroy your woods, too. We call it nuclear winter, and it will poison this entire world. Please bring the fight to the Woven, not the cities. I’ll fight with you.”

  Rowan looked down, shaking his head. Lily turned desperately to Caleb, Tristan, and Juliet. She was grasping at straws. “I’ll fuel the braves, but we need to get away from the cities. We need to go west. There’s a mystery behind the Woven, something that we don’t understand, and we can use it to stop them. The answer is west of the Missouri River—the Pekistanoui—I can feel it.”

  “West?” Alaric exclaimed. Lily had never seen fear in his eyes before, not even on the night they went into battle, but she saw fear now. “You have no idea what lies west of that river. I do.” It was Alaric’s turn to look to the bystanders for support. And he got it from Rowan.

  “The Misi-Ziibi is Pack territory, and past the Pekistanoui is the Hive,” Rowan said, his voice low. “With a witch, we could survive the Pack. But even with a witch’s army, the Hive would tear us apart. It’s impossible, Lily.”

  “Has anyone tried?” she asked, refusing to give up. “Rowan, you told me yourself that no one knows that much about the Hive. Has a witch ever fueled an army of Outlander braves to fight them?”

  Alaric shook his head. “You’re asking my people to fight to the last man, Lily. We are too few to risk that.”

  “Please try,” Lily begged, tears in her eyes. “I’ll fight and die with you if I have to, but don’t attack the cities, Alaric. Please.”

  “Lillian swore to find a way to get rid of Woven, and I waited, hoping that she would, because I don’t want to use those bombs. I’m not a madman,” he said tiredly, and Lily knew he was speaking the truth. Alaric was tormented by this decision, but it was a decision he had already made. “I just want my people to survive. We are on the brink of extinction, and the only way to avoid that now is to attack our other enemy. The cities.”

  “I won’t let you,” Lily said, swallowing her tears. She faced him, hating that she had to pit herself against this man, but like him, her decision was already made. “I’ll stop you, Alaric Windrider, no matter what I have to do.”

  “Lillian said the same thing to me once.” Alaric looked at Rowan, regret etching deep lines into his face. “I guess this is the day Lillian comes back to haunt both of us.”

  Rowan took Lily by the shoulders and pulled her away from Alaric. He looked her in the eye, pleading with her. “Remember when I told you that Lillian was a master at controlling minds? That she had years of practice and she could do things t
hat you never dreamed of? She’s using you. She’s twisting your mind so that you’ll take up her psychotic cause. But you’re just as strong as she is, Lily. You can fight her. You can stop this—”

  Lily cut him off. “She’s not controlling me, Rowan. She showed me her memories. That’s it. I know what she knows, and that’s how she convinced me that what she’s doing is to protect this world—your world.”

  “Then show me,” he said, his face lifting with hope. “Show me what she showed you and maybe it will convince me, too. We can find a solution. Lillian shut me out, but we can figure this out together. You and me, Lily. Please don’t shut me out like she did.”

  Lily almost did it. She almost opened up her mind to Rowan and let him see everything. But the sound of the boy screaming when River dragged him by his hair to the chopping block filled her ears, and she knew she wouldn’t be capable of keeping that from Rowan. No matter how hard she tried to hide it from him, he’d keep digging, searching for why his father had to die, because that’s what he really needed to understand. It wasn’t about the bombs for him. Lily could easily show Rowan the cinder world and that would explain her opposition to Alaric and his weapon, but it still wouldn’t explain why Lillian had killed his father. A half-truth wouldn’t work. It was all or nothing.

  “I have to shut you out because I love you, Rowan,” she said. “But I’m begging you—have faith in me. Trust that I’m doing this for a good reason. For the best reason.”

  His eyes unfocused and he looked through her, like he was remembering something. “And then she started hanging people,” he whispered.

  There was no warning. His face didn’t change. He didn’t even really look at her while he did it. Rowan reached out and ripped Lily’s willstones off her neck.

  * * *