The Commander’s laugh is a harsh bark of disbelief. “And you just happened to know which tree she meant?”
“I’ve been here before. With Willow.” Adam’s voice shakes with anger. “I knew how to use the tunnels beneath Lankenshire and where to bring the people who wanted to help Logan fight this war.”
I take a few more steps forward until I’m alone in the stretch of ground between the Commander and the group behind me. “It was a misunderstanding, and it won’t happen again.”
“This girl attacked me. I didn’t misunderstand that. You know what I do to women who defy me.” He pulls Jodi close, his sword pressed against her throat. His dark eyes are coldly furious as he looks at me.
I push away the memory of my mother’s last moments and say, “Jodi thought you were trying to kill me—”
“You deserve it,” he snarls.
“Maybe I do.” I meet his gaze. “But James Rowan deserves it more. And so does my brother Ian. We have to be able to work together if we want to bring Rowansmark to its knees. Trackers will be after us by now. We need to bury the dead and—”
“We?” He glares at me. “You follow orders, or you die.”
I force myself to ignore my anger and my pride. They won’t help me now. I have to give him what he wants—the belief that his power is above question—or he’ll kill us all and try to take on Rowansmark himself.
Raising my hands in surrender, I force myself to say, “We aren’t your enemies. James Rowan is. Together we can bring him down. You and I. Please. Let her go.”
He stares at me for a moment, and then shoves Jodi away from him. She stumbles over to Connor and fusses over his wound, her fingers shaking. He awkwardly pats her shoulder, leaving bloody fingerprints on her tunic.
The Commander leans toward me. “A real man doesn’t raise his hands in surrender. A real man doesn’t beg for the lives of those who aren’t his equal. You are a worthless example of a man, and we are not a team. I don’t need a team.”
“You did once.”
He jerks as if I’ve cut him with my sword.
“When the Cursed—when the tanniyn first surfaced, you led a team down to the beast’s lair to destroy it. You were the kind of man others could respect and trust. Your team followed you because they believed in you, not because they feared you.”
“You know nothing about that.”
“I know that leading people is hard. That sometimes the choices you have to make are almost too hard to live with.”
A shadow crosses his face, and he lifts the sword as if he might aim it at me.
“Listen to me,” I say quietly, so that only the two of us can hear. “I know what it’s like to hold the weight of lives in your hands and to know that your decisions will determine their fates. I know how it feels to have to quell dissension because you know unity is the only thing that will keep everyone alive.”
He looks at me, his dark eyes glittering, his fingers white around the hilt of his sword.
“And I know the terrible shame that fills you when you fail—”
“I never failed.”
“When you fail to save the ones depending on you.”
His glare pierces me. “A world in shambles. That’s what we came back to, my team and I. Cities, infrastructure, entire governments wiped off the planet like they were never there. We rounded up the survivors. We found the resources. We kept them safe. We did not fail.”
“If you’d killed the tanniyn like you were supposed to, the world wouldn’t have needed you to save it.”
His face drains of color, and he presses his lips together.
“I’m saying I understand how it feels to try so hard to do the right thing only to have everything blow up in your face. You didn’t kill the beast—”
“Because they couldn’t be killed!” His whole body vibrates as if I’ve struck him. “Don’t you think we tried? I lost half of my team in the bowels of the earth. Good people! All for a suicide mission, because there wasn’t just one creature. There were scores of them. Scores.”
I stare at him while my stomach plummets. Ian was telling the truth about there being multiple tanniyn. The device I have calls and controls one. What if Rowansmark has tech that calls and controls a host of the creatures? Swallowing hard, I say, “Why did you let us believe there was only one beast left?”
“People must be dependent on their leader for him to maintain order and control. A manageable threat creates dependence. Anything more breeds terror, and terror gives way to anarchy. You know nothing of that. You understand nothing.” Pain settles onto his face in furrows and creases.
“I understand that shame can either poison us slowly, turning us into angry, bitter men, or it can sharpen us into better leaders. You chose anger and because of that, you’ve ruled through brutality and fear. I’m asking you to make a different choice now. Please.” The word cuts me as it leaves my lips.
“I killed your mother,” he says softly. “And you cost me everything I’d been working for.”
“Yes. But this is bigger than our personal vendettas. This is about the survivors of Baalboden. And your allies in the east. And every other city-state in Rowansmark’s crosshairs. If we stand together, we can beat James Rowan. And when we beat him, you’ll finally have what you’ve worked for all these years—absolute control.”
At least until I take it from you.
His gaze locks onto mine. Gone is the harsh, predatory gleam in his eye. He looks withered, beaten, old for the first time since I’ve known him. Slowly, he straightens his shoulders.
“You can alter the beacons installed in each city-state and strengthen the device?”
“I can.”
He looks as if he’s just chewed a piece of rancid meat. “You speak to me of leadership, choices, and shame as if we’re equals, but we aren’t.” The pain in his eyes sinks slowly beneath a wall of cold disdain. “You aren’t good enough to lead anyone. You never were. You’re the outcast whose family’s dishonor brought death and destruction right to Baalboden’s door. One day soon, those who follow you will realize the truth, and they’ll turn on you like South Edge dogs.”
A sharp whistle echoes from the trees twenty yards east of us. The Commander jerks his head up, but I’m already moving.
“That’s a warning from Willow,” I say. “Get to the horses. Now!”
I race toward Drake, who is sitting on the ground, his hands pressed against the wound in his leg. Nola and Smithson get there first. Smithson wraps an arm around the older man and lifts him to his feet while Nola rapidly uncoils the chains from my hands. Frankie and Adam disappear into the trees and return seconds later with travel packs, including mine, and a piece of tech I didn’t expect to see again—Melkin’s staff.
I frown at the staff, and Frankie says in a voice only I can hear, “Willow told me this walking stick can call the Cursed One. Figured we might need it.”
“We’ve got a crowd of trackers approaching,” Willow calls as she grabs the device from its hiding place in the oak and then leaps from a branch to land lightly beside Adam.
“Give me the tech.” The Commander holds out his hand. Willow glances at me, and when I nod, she carefully places the cloth-wrapped device on the Commander’s palm.
“If you’re done worrying about things that don’t matter, maybe we could focus on the trackers who are coming for us,” Willow snaps. “Get on a horse or die.”
No one argues. In less than a minute, we sling our packs and ourselves onto the nearest horse and spur our mounts deep into the northern Wasteland.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF–NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
RACHEL
The wagon lurches to a stop, and footsteps crunch across the remains of the road. I barely have time to sit up before Heidi opens the canvas flap and pokes her head inside.
“Time to get out,” she s
ays.
The sky framing her head is already dusky with the purple-gray of twilight. Our fourth day of travel is over, and we’re still heading west. I don’t know how they expect to get to Rowansmark without going south, but I don’t care. The longer we spend in the Wasteland, the better chance I have of Quinn, Willow, and Logan catching up to me.
Heidi bends down to untie the rope that secures me to the wagon post, and I take a second to be sure that my bootlaces are loose enough to allow access to the knife. Usually Samuel is the one who fetches me from the wagon each day. I don’t trust Samuel much, but I trust Heidi even less. If Ian decided to attack me, I doubt Heidi would lift a hand in my defense.
When she looks up, the rope now held in her hands, I’m sitting with my back to the bench, my laces loose enough to let me grip the knife hilt in seconds if I feel threatened.
Not that I can do much with it when my right hand is useless, but it’s better than nothing.
“Let’s go.” She loosens the rope around my ankles so that I can walk without tripping over my feet and then tugs the rope as if I’m a reluctant sheep she has to lead to its pen. I look at the floor so that the flash of anger I feel won’t show in my eyes, and get to my feet.
The evening air clings to my skin as I climb down the wagon steps, careful to keep my right arm tucked close to my body. The skin around my burn is yellow and puffy. My fingers keep swelling up when I sleep. I’m sure the wound needs to be thoroughly cleaned, medicated, and rebandaged, but I don’t have the supplies for that, and if the trackers have a first aid box in the crates of supplies at the head of the wagon, they aren’t saying.
I take a deep breath, grateful to smell something other than the hot, dusty air inside the wagon, and taste something bitter and dank on the back of my tongue. The air is more than humid. It’s damp and carries with it the unmistakable tang of algae mixed with wet wood. We must be near a river or a lake.
“Hurry up.” Heidi’s voice is curt as she grabs my left elbow and propels me past a bank of cypress trees. The trunks are narrow at the top, grow thicker through the middle, and then expand at the bottom to stab the ground like a skirt of splayed silver-gray fingers.
“What’s the rush?” I ask.
Heidi walks faster, and I stumble over a half-buried rock as I try to keep up. Her grip tightens painfully on my elbow. “I said hurry up. You need to eat fast. We don’t have much time.”
“Why not?” I ask, but she ignores me.
The wagon rests on the side of the crumbling road. We haven’t stopped in a clearing like we usually do. Instead of a fire for the night’s meal, Samuel is ripping strips of jerky off a chunk of meat he carries in his pack while Ian sits on a tree stump, scraping the blade of his sword against a rock to sharpen it. Both of them frequently stop to study the surrounding forest.
“What’s the rush?” I ask again, and Ian jerks his gaze to mine.
“We’re waiting on the boat to arrive,” Samuel says.
A boat. That explains the dankness in the air. It also explains why we’ve been heading west. Rowansmark is built along a river. A journey by boat will cut our travel time down from weeks to a few days.
“The boat should’ve been here already.” Heidi shoves a strip of jerky into her mouth and talks around it. “I don’t like waiting for it when we know we’re being followed.”
Quinn.
My heart beats so fast, I’m convinced Samuel can hear it. If I’m right, the trackers are about to be in a world of trouble.
“Could be Logan, if he used the tunnels beneath Lankenshire to leave the city without the Carrington army seeing him,” Ian says. “Or Willow. Though if she’s tracking us, she’ll have found her brother’s body, and we’d all have arrows sticking out of our necks by now.”
The thought of Quinn, still alive despite Ian’s best efforts, sends a blaze of triumph through me.
“Could be highwaymen. A Tree Village. A courier from another city-state who isn’t happy with his leader’s new protection agreement with Rowansmark.” Heidi’s voice is clipped. “Doesn’t matter who’s out there. What matters is getting the girl somewhere safe before we’re forced into a confrontation that could jeopardize the mission.”
“We can’t wait here much longer,” Samuel says. “If the boat doesn’t show, we need to cut south and find a place suitable for setting a trap.”
They aren’t going to set a trap for Quinn while I still have breath in my body.
Heidi shoves jerky into my hands. “Get the girl into the wagon and tie her up. Ian and I will decide whether to wait for the boat or to start moving south with the wagon.”
Samuel takes hold of my arm, and I slowly turn toward the wagon.
The road we’re on climbs a gentle slope leading west. I can’t see anything beyond the rise, but if we’re stuck between Quinn and a river with no boat in sight, I’m about to be rescued, and Ian is about to wish he’d never been born.
Except I can’t be rescued. Not when Rowansmark has the ability to call an army of tanniyn to destroy Logan and my friends.
In the distance, a low bellow fills the air and then climbs rapidly in pitch. It doesn’t sound like an animal. Or like the Cursed One. It sounds smooth and mechanical and like nothing I’ve ever heard.
“The boat! Get her in the wagon, and let’s go.” Heidi brushes past Samuel and heads for the rise just as something long and pale streaks out of the forest to our left and buries itself in her thigh. She swears and stares down at the shaft of a roughly hewn spear protruding from her leg.
Even though I know I need to remain a prisoner if I want to save Logan, I smile fiercely. Quinn is here. Anyone else would’ve aimed for the heart.
“Run!” Samuel yells.
He scoops me up and races for the wagon while Heidi struggles to pull the spear from her leg. Ian drops low and runs up the slope, moving from left to right and back again in an attempt to make aiming a spear at him much more difficult.
It works. Another spear streaks through the air, missing Ian’s back by a fraction. Seconds later, Ian vaults over the top of the rise and disappears.
Samuel reaches the wagon, and I expect him to dump me inside and then move toward the driver’s bench. I’m sure Quinn expects it, too. The only reason Samuel doesn’t have a crippled leg right now is because he’s holding me, and Quinn won’t risk injuring me with his spear.
Instead of putting me into the back of the wagon, though, Samuel races for the driver’s bench. He pushes me onto the seat and leaps in behind me. Shoving me to the floor, he throws his body on top of mine. By making it impossible to hit him without also hitting me, he’s just saved his own life.
Of course, Quinn wouldn’t actually try to kill him. Still, being left behind in the Wasteland with a crippling leg injury is nearly a death sentence in and of itself. Heidi will be lucky to last the night. Wild animals will smell the blood that soaks her clothing and come to finish her off.
I pull my legs toward my chest, and struggle to raise my head above the driver’s bench so I can see what’s going on.
“Be still!” Samuel barks at me. He slaps the reins against the donkeys, and the wagon lurches into motion. I wait to feel the wheels strain to carry their load uphill, but instead, they curve to the right.
“What are you doing?” I ask. Not that I want him to hurry toward the boat and cut me off from Quinn permanently, but Samuel just wants to do his job and live to see another day. Getting me onto the water and avoiding the painful consequences for failing his leader should be his top priority.
“I don’t leave people behind,” he says, gritting his teeth with exertion while he hauls on the reins and keeps his head below the wagon bench.
I don’t either. The thought that maybe Samuel and I have more in common than I gave him credit for makes me uncomfortable.
“Heidi!” Samuel twists himself off my upper body and leans toward the ground, his arm outstretched.
Digging my left elbow into the wagon floor, I lift myself up
and strain to see the southern tree line. I start to shake as I pull against Samuel’s weight on my legs. Quinn is out there, somewhere. Close enough to throw a spear and hit his mark.
There’s a blur of movement in the cypress trees. A flash of brown leather pants. A flutter of dark hair. I smile even as tears gather in my eyes, turning the landscape into a puddle of silver and green.
Quinn came for me. I’m not alone. For this one moment, I’m not alone. It will have to be enough, because I can’t turn back now. I’m getting on that boat. I’m going into Rowansmark. And I’m going to bring them all down, because I promised myself that I wouldn’t lose anyone else.
“Scoot down,” Samuel says to me seconds before he heaves Heidi onto the floor beneath the driver’s bench beside us. Samuel lifts his weight off my legs briefly, and I tuck them toward my chest, wedging myself tightly between the bench and the front of the wagon.
My eyes are still on the southern tree line. Still watching Quinn move amid the bright-green leaves and the scarves of white moss draping the tree limbs. I’ve made my decision not to try to escape the wagon, but I still want to see his face, to feel connected to someone who cares about me before I go into Rowansmark alone
A thread of defiance blazes through me, at once familiar and strange. I’ve spent so many weeks lost in a fog of depression and inner silence that I hardly know what to do with the bold spark of rebellion that I used to take for granted.
I’m not the same girl I was when I stood at Baalboden’s gate beside Oliver, hoping my father would come home in time. I’ve seen things that will haunt me forever. I’ve done things I can’t undo. And the lessons I’ve learned are carved deep into my soul.
I’m not going into Rowansmark as a mindless, rage-fueled weapon. I’m choosing to infiltrate the enemy’s city and right a wrong because I’m a warrior, and that’s what warriors do.
The wagon shudders as it goes uphill, and the wheels slow as the donkeys labor to pull the weight. I lift my eyes to the tree line again and catch a tiny flash of movement in a huge cypress only fifteen yards from the road. The lacy strips of moss sway gently, and a shadow slips along a thick, twisted branch, barely rustling the leaves as it passes.