“Bethan,” I bit out, experiencing a sharp release of pressure inside my chest at uttering it aloud.
“Bethan.” She rolled the name on her tongue as though she were testing it out.
“Satisfied? Now make haste,” I snapped, although she wasn’t moving all that slow.
As midlight arrived, the tension ebbed from me. Or perhaps it was because she had ceased nagging me with her uncomfortable questions.
Secure in the soft glow of light, I increased my pace, caring less for the noise of my tread. I tried not to look over my shoulder. She had fallen back a bit and was struggling to keep up. The old impulse to be kind and courteous instilled in me by my nurse was still there.
She wasn’t my responsibility. She had forced herself on me, and I was stuck with her. I should just keep walking. Follow the plan and keep moving east. She’d keep up with me. Or not. I had no doubt she could figure her way back to the tower. She had an uncanny sense of direction.
I turned to monitor her regularly. My compulsion to check on her was a weak thing inside me. It dawned on me that she couldn’t see if I looked back. The knowledge that she wouldn’t know that she had roused some kind of protective instinct freed me to glance back whenever I felt the urge.
Looking back frequently, I studied the way her head was always turning, her nostrils flaring as though she were some animal exploring her surroundings.
Her slim, pale hands looked like small doves, skimming trees and brush, memorizing with touch. She looked peaceful. The dark wisps of hair surrounding her face fluttered in the breeze as those unseeing eyes moved and flitted. As though she could see.
At one point, she stopped and looked directly at me, her dark eyes deep and penetrating, a bottomless well that seemed to hold so much. Impossible, I knew. She couldn’t see me. She couldn’t know I watched her, but then she spoke.
“I’m not going to stumble into a hole or run into a tree if that’s worrying you.”
I blinked, unnerved. Facing forward, I said nothing and increased my pace.
“I’ve never been this far from the tower,” she called after me, her voice breathless as she attempted to catch up to me. “The trees feel a little slighter here and the air less pungent.”
I didn’t reply. Not that my silence seemed to matter. She continued talking, chatting like a magpie once again.
“Sivo always worries about straying too far from the tower.” She sighed as if someone worrying about her safety too much was her greatest grief. She dropped her voice, attempting the older man’s burr.
She reminded me of Bethan in that moment, blissfully unaware of all the dangers in the world. Blissfully unaware that I was her greatest threat.
I kept going, lightly touching a fallen log and vaulting over it, biting back the reply that Sivo should worry. She should.
I didn’t call back a warning, but Luna somehow knew it was there. She lifted one leg over the log, then the next, carrying on indifferently.
I adjusted my quiver of arrows hanging on my shoulder and faced forward again. Sivo worrying was probably what kept them alive so long.
The tower was safe, virtually undiscoverable within the thick press of trees, far from any road or path. If I were a different manner of person, I could try to steal the life they’d carved for themselves. It wouldn’t be too difficult. A cut to Sivo’s throat while he slept. Perla presented no threat. The only other real threat was Luna. I’d seen her at work.
She reminded me of a flower that used to bloom in Relhok. The scarlet buds once dotted the hills outside Relhok City. They were wrapped up in my earliest recollections, tangled amid memories of sunshine on my skin. It had faded from existence a few years after the eclipse, like so many things since then.
From the moment I could walk, my nurse had taught me to avoid them when we went outdoors. I would lie in the tall grasses surrounding the castle, directly beside one such flower, and study the red petals. So beautiful and delicate in their seeming harmlessness. I would hover a fingertip over a petal, tempted to touch for myself, to delve into the deeper darkness nestled at the root of those petals. One day I did.
It was only the slightest brush of my finger, but the burn had been swift like a wasp’s sting. My hand swelled and my nurse had clucked at me, shooting me fearful glances as she applied a salve to the injury. It was not that she thought the sting would kill me . . . but that I would kill me—a boy who had to touch and see for himself what danger felt like.
Luna was like that flower: innocent on the outside, but dangerous to anyone who got too close. Even me.
She kept up, following me as we ascended a steep crest. When we reached the top it would plateau to the exact place I had spotted the nisan weed. Was that only yesterday? It felt like a good deal more time had passed since I first met this girl.
“You’re taking a long, dangerous journey based on rumors.” She didn’t know when to quit. Her words circled me like an insistent gnat. “What if you cross the continent and find it’s not even there—”
“It’s there.” My steps hit the ground harder. “You talk too much.”
“You’re angry,” she announced, her tread quickening to match my pace.
“No.” My tone and brevity didn’t seem to affect her.
Usually a scowl worked. Or a look. It was something in my eyes. When I left Relhok City, Govin, the bowman who trained me and the only person left I felt compelled to say farewell to, had told me that my eyes were dead.
I’d seen a lot of dead eyes over the years. It was impossible to understand unless you witnessed it happening—the moment life departed and slid away like a wisp of smoke. The light in one’s eyes, a light you didn’t even realize was there, fading to nothing.
She’d never have to witness that. Scowls and dead-eyed stares were useless on her.
She pressed on, blithely unaware. Or indifferent. “What if it’s not as you say though? What if dwellers are there?”
I stopped and faced her. “Then it won’t be any different from any other place, will it?”
“Except you will have gone so far. . . . What about your home—”
“And I’m trying to forget where it is I come from.”
We topped the crest. Sprawling bushes rose up before us. I stopped before the thick of hedge nisan.
“We’re here.”
Luna reached out a hand to touch the wild hedge.
“Careful,” I warned. “There are thorns.” I squatted, flipping open my satchel. She followed me down, her hand reaching out and gently touching the flowers. A soft smile lifted her lips. I couldn’t remember the last time I thought about any girl’s smile. I started to pull at the herb, stuffing it in my bag.
“Wait, stop. Don’t pull up the root.” She removed a dagger from the sheath at her waist and began to carefully snip bits of the plant’s flowers. “We want it to regrow.”
“Optimistic, aren’t you? That it will ever regrow with so little sunlight? It looks as though it’s barely hanging on as it is.”
“And yet it’s here. Seventeen years after the eclipse.” She worked intently, her forehead creasing as she carefully snipped at the nisan and tucked it into her satchel. “The eclipse can’t last forever.”
“It can’t?”
She turned to face me. “There was light before. There will be again.”
“That’s what the Oracle has been saying for years and it hasn’t come to pass.”
“It will though. She’s right.”
The Oracle was not right. Everyone could play tribute at her altar, but not me. She was a puppet for the king. As bad as he was.
She continued, “Maybe we won’t be lucky enough for it to happen in our lifetime, but it will happen again someday. This happened before. I’m certain you heard the folk tales.”
“Yes. So.”
“Well, it happened before and it ended before. We merely need to hold on until then.”
“You’re a fool to put faith in anything except what’s before you.” Rising
to my feet, I snapped, “Come. We need to head back.”
We moved swiftly, conscious of passing time.
I scanned the area. Just because it was midlight didn’t mean it was safe to relax. This was the one time of day when people could move without fear of dwellers. Everyone came out of hiding, including the good and the bad, and there were more of the bad. Desperate times brought out the worst in people. Opportunists and scavengers abounded. The good were too trusting. They had perished first, many lost in those early years of the eclipse.
As we hastened back to the tower, I peered where the branches hung the thickest. Rumors of a curse in the Black Woods didn’t keep everyone out. It hadn’t kept me out.
We were making good time when suddenly I realized it felt too quiet.
I glanced at Luna and saw that she had paused. Her head was bowed, and she had a look of concentration on her face.
“Luna? What is—”
She held up a hand, hushing me with the barest shake of her head.
I waited, my pulse throbbing in my neck in the suddenly weighted air. My hand drifted up, went for an arrow in the quiver behind my shoulder.
“There,” she murmured. “Do you hear that?”
I shook my head as if she could see me. “No. It’s quiet—”
“Under the quiet.” She turned her face in the direction we came from. The tower. “It’s there—”
I listened longer, and then shook my head again. “I don’t—”
“No! Sivo, Perla . . .” A stricken look passed over her face. She sprang into a sprint.
“Wait!” I took off after her, cursing as she flew down the steep incline we had climbed. She was remarkably quick, taking the same path that brought us to the nisan weed—almost as if her feet had somehow recorded the route and now pulled it out from memory.
I was fast, but I had to push my legs just to stay behind her.
“Luna,” I growled, acutely conscious of the fact that the forest was deathly still. It was the type of silence that happened when dwellers emerged. A quick glance up showed a sliver of sun peeking out around the moon. It couldn’t be them. We had more time.
Luna raced ahead. I finally caught up with her before the ground sloped down toward the tower. I closed the distance between us, stretching my fingers for her shoulder, catching hold of her. I dragged her down, stopping her from running full speed into whatever lay ahead. Together we toppled to the ground, rolling.
I splayed my body over her, using my larger size to pin her down. She struggled. There was no choice except to let her go and walk into whatever danger waited over that hill.
I should let her go. She wanted to go. I should get to my feet, hand her the bag of nisan weed, and leave her to it. If she wanted to race headlong into danger, then so be it.
I would have done this yesterday, but today . . . somehow I couldn’t. Today, with this girl pinned under me, my hardness aligned to her softness, I wasn’t going anywhere.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
“LET ME GO,” Luna hissed. “You don’t understand. The tower has been discovered.”
I tightened my grip on her shoulders. “Then shouldn’t we proceed with caution? If someone found your home, we should—”
I was rewarded with a swift kick of her boot directly to my shin. I grunted. She might be small, but she packed some force. That’s all it took. My grip loosened. She wiggled out from under me. I quickly pushed to my feet after her.
She was almost to the hilltop when I caught her. She released a startled cry. I covered her mouth with my hand, cutting off the noise.
I dragged her down, draping my body over her squirming one. I peeked over the hill above her head. The familiar tower loomed tall in the murky air—surrounded by an entire company of soldiers, a hundred strong garbed in the blue and black colors of Relhok. I knew the colors well. I scanned the faces. It had been two years since I last mingled with the Relhok cavalry, but I had grown up with some of those boys.
I pressed my mouth near her ear. “At least a hundred men surround the tower.”
She stilled, tensing beneath me.
Convinced she wouldn’t flee or make any sudden sound, I adjusted my weight so that I was no longer atop her. She angled her head in that way of hers, listening.
“They’re on horseback,” she whispered, her voice a raspy breath.
I looked at her, surprised. The horses were quiet. Not the slightest neigh. They’d been bred for stealth. The soldiers covered ground silently, moving almost like ghosts over the land, creating as little noise as possible so they didn’t alert nearby dwellers. They rode hard only during midlight. That must be how Luna heard them originally.
“What do they want?” she asked, as if I would know. I was her only connection to the outside world. A girl that’s spent a lifetime stuck in a tower wouldn’t have any idea what these soldiers wanted. “How did they find us?” she added, the faintest trace of accusation in her voice.
Did she think I led them here? If soldiers from Relhok were after me, they probably would have found me long before now.
Several soldiers had dismounted, including the company commander. His dark blue cavalry tunic swayed around his knees as he moved, the kingdom of Relhok’s coat of arms emblazoned on the center of his chest. The sight of it was an ugly reminder of all I left behind.
A dweller I could outrun or dispatch. My memories of Relhok were harder to shake.
The commander turned so that I had a better view of his face. I inhaled, recognizing him. Henley. He was only a few years older than me. He’d risen through the ranks quickly, but then, he had a vicious nature. Viciousness was rewarded. Especially under Cullan’s reign.
“Are they here because of you?” The words escaped her in a puff of breath.
“No.”
“Then what brought them here?”
“I don’t know. I can’t imagine why a force this size is so far east, but they’re not after me.” At least I didn’t think so.
“You know something though,” she whispered.
“I don’t know what they want,” I muttered, annoyed that she could read me so well without even seeing me. What was it that gave me away?
“You’re tense,” she whispered as though I had asked the question out loud.
I shook my head. “There’s an army below us. That might have something to do with how tense I am.”
I turned my attention back to the scene below. The tower door stood open. We had used the secret door that led to the tunnel beneath the tower. I didn’t even realize there was another door. Sivo stood in the threshold, facing the commander.
I marveled that he had opened the door to greet the soldiers, but then there was little choice. A group this size . . . if they wanted inside the tower, they would eventually find a way. Better for Sivo to open the door and behave as though he had nothing to hide. Gone were the days of armor and chain mail. The clink of steel on the air was a song dwellers responded to like a bell ringing them to supper.
“Sivo’s outside,” she announced softly, a tremor in her voice as she started to lift up.
I pushed her back down with a hand on her shoulder.
“I have to go. Let me go,” she choked out hoarsely.
“To do what? Let Sivo handle this.”
She nodded slowly, clearly uncertain, but I wasn’t letting her charge down that hill. Dark flyaway strands of hair surrounded her face. She looked even paler than usual with worry and concern for another life. Something pricked at my chest, loosening memories buried there of when I had cared that much for someone else.
I watched as Sivo and the commander spoke.
“What’s he doing?” The fear in her voice pulled at me.
“He’s talking to them. It looks . . .” I was about to say “friendly,” but she would know that for a lie.
Sivo talked, his lips moving quick
ly, his movements anxious. Henley seemed impatient. He glanced to the sky and the waning midlight. I followed his gaze, assessing that sliver of sun. The ground beneath us would wake soon.
That shard of sun peeping out around the moon robbed Henley of the last of his patience. He flicked his fingers to several of the soldiers and they moved swiftly at the unspoken command, shoving past Sivo and disappearing inside the tower.
Luna’s shoulders surged up slightly, lifting her head up higher. Her voice took on a panicked edge. “What’s happening now? Is Sivo—”
“They haven’t harmed him.” Yet.
I tugged her back down again. She strained against my touch. “Why are they here? No one has ever bothered us before.”
“A company that large, coming into these woods—” Woods that even a hired soldier wouldn’t want to brave. “They’re looking for something.” I arrived at the realization the moment the words passed my lips. They were seeking someone. Hunting. The king wouldn’t risk losing a force of cavalrymen this size without cause.
“They can’t be here,” she insisted in a small voice.
Again, the thought entered my mind: They are here for me. Then I dismissed it. Perhaps once the king would have sent men after me, but he had greater concerns now. A kingdom to oversee and an alliance with Lagonia to secure.
She tensed the instant Perla stepped from the tower. Maybe it was the soft curse that left my lips or something more innate. Maybe she felt a connection between herself and her surrogate mother and sensed she had emerged from the tower. I tightened my grip on her, predicting her surge of movement.
“It’s Perla! Let me go—”
I covered her mouth and flattened her to the ground, heedless of my roughness. If they found us, any treatment Luna suffered at their hands would be far worse. The king’s men weren’t known for their gentleness with commoners. Especially with the fairer sex.
“I can’t let you go.” I told myself it wasn’t just to protect her, but to protect me. If they discovered her, they discovered me. “Understand?”
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