The Commander’s spine snaps into a rigid line, and he stares the tracker down while he spits his words at him. “I am Commander Jason Chase, leader of Baalboden. I am not in Rowansmark, nor is this city under Rowansmark’s jurisdiction.”
“Actually, we are the official protectors of Hodenswald—”
“In the event of a tanniyn attack. Yes, I’m familiar with your leader’s protection agreement.” The Commander steps forward. “I am not the tanniyn, but if you disrespect my authority, I will make you wish you were facing that creature instead of me.”
Sharpe takes a step toward the Commander.
“Lay a hand on me, and you’ll lose it.” The Commander takes another step forward and stands toe to toe with Sharpe. “Furthermore, an act of aggression toward me during a diplomatic mission is equal to an act of aggression toward Baalboden and her allies. I’m sure I don’t need to remind you of the Diplomatic Trade Agreement ratified twelve years ago by all nine leaders.” His voice becomes dangerously soft. “You are in imminent danger of violating that agreement and thus giving me cause to start a war with James Rowan.”
Silence falls, thick with tension, and then Sharpe lifts a hand as if he’s going to pat down the Commander’s chest, searching for . . . whatever it is they’re searching for.
The Commander’s sword slides free of its sheath with a metallic shriek. “Go ahead, boy. Give me a reason to start that war.”
Amarynda steps to Sharpe’s side, cold confidence pouring off her. “There will be no bloodshed on Hodenswald’s soil. We are not in violation of our protection agreement, Tracker Sharpe, and these are our diplomatic guests. We will be responsible for their actions while they are inside our city.”
A smug smile tugs at the scar on the Commander’s face until Amarynda turns to him and says, “By the same token, Tracker Sharpe and his companion are simply doing their jobs. There is no need to antagonize them further.”
Before either man can respond, she turns to her father. “Jordan is just outside the door. You take Commander Chase and his experts to the cellar, and once Jordan has the rest of the Commander’s party well in hand, I’ll be along to conclude the negotiations.”
Lyle immediately starts rolling his chair toward a door in the far left corner of the room. The Commander glances over his shoulder at me and jerks his head toward Lyle as if to tell me I’m expected to follow. I grab Connor and Willow, and we head toward the door. Sharpe slaps a hand on my shoulder and pulls me to a halt as I brush past him.
“Have we met?” he asks.
I keep my expression neutral, though my pulse is pounding. In Lankenshire, the historian who was working with Jeremiah on the map recognized me as the lost McEntire boy from Rowansmark seconds after meeting me because apparently I closely resemble my mother. Sharpe looks to be at least fifteen years older than me. Maybe he knew her before she died.
I glance at him like I’m not worried about being recognized and say, “I doubt it. This is my first trip to Hodenswald, and I’ve never been to Rowansmark.”
He frowns as if trying to figure out how he knows me. I glance impatiently between him and the door, as if wondering what his problem is. Finally, he lets go of my shoulder and steps back. I follow the Commander, Willow, and Connor through the door. The trackers stay behind.
The door opens up to a gently sloping ramp that leads us down another well-lit corridor until we reach the cellar below. Lyle gestures for the Commander to open the cellar door, but he turns and stares at Willow as if he expects her to open it instead. Willow crosses her arms over her chest and stares back.
I swallow the pithy remark I want to make about his arrogant misogyny and open the door myself.
Lyle’s cellar is stacked floor to ceiling with crates of ale along two walls. A third wall holds polished weaponry that I’ve only seen in the books Jared smuggled in from his trips outside Baalboden—rifles, pistols, bayonets. Relics from the past that were mostly destroyed in the fires that swept the major cities in the wake of the tanniyn’s arrival. A dusty table with a single oil lantern in the middle of it rests against the wall at the back of the rectangular room. Lyle wheels himself to the table, lights the lantern, and then barks, “Shut the door before those fools try to get my ale.”
As soon as the door is shut, the Commander asks, “Since when did you start letting Amarynda tell people what to do?”
“She’s my heir. Who else is going to tell people what to do? Now, I’m pretty sure those trackers believed my offended old man routine, but we’d better make this quick. You arrived two months earlier than our scheduled meeting, and you have my grandson in tow.” He nods toward Connor. “What’s going on?”
The Commander stares from Lyle to Connor and back again with narrowed eyes. “That’s your grandson?”
Lyle lifts his chin to meet the Commander’s gaze. “Something wrong with that?”
“He can barely walk through the Wasteland without tripping over his own two feet.”
Lyle’s expression doesn’t change, but a subtle tension enters the room. “He’s smarter than the two of us put together, and you’d do well to remember it.”
“I’m here as an official representative from Lankenshire.” Connor steps past the Commander. “Like you, we’ve been under Rowansmark’s control ever since we signed the protection agreement. But Logan”—he gestures toward me—“knows how to dismantle the beacons and replicate a device that controls the tanniyn like a puppet on a string. And the Commander has the combined might of Baalboden and Carrington at his disposal, plus the promise of one-fourth of Lankenshire’s army as long as you also commit troops.”
“One-fourth?” the Commander barks. “What’s this one-fourth business? We need a full commitment of troops.”
For once, I find myself in complete agreement with him. It’s an unsettling feeling.
Connor is firm. “And if you fail, who will be left to protect my city? You get one-fourth if you gain troops from Hodenswald—”
“If you’re so worried about us failing, then give us more than one-fourth!” The Commander paces around the table like a predator stalking his prey. “All of my remaining guards are committed. Carrington’s entire army is committed. For you to do less—”
“Forgive me, Commander, but neither your guards nor the army of Carrington have anywhere else to go. It’s easy to commit when that’s all you have left. We have a city to protect.”
“Committed to do what?” Lyle interrupts Connor before the Commander can respond. “Why are the soldiers of Carrington, Baalboden, and possibly Lankenshire coming together?”
Connor turns toward him. “To wage war against Rowansmark.”
Lyle slaps the arm of his chair. “It’s about time.”
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF–NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
RACHEL
I hate boats.
The deck refuses to stop swaying. The trees slide past on the shore too quickly for me to find my bearings. And the salty food the trackers keep offering me refuses to stay in my stomach.
I spent most of my first night aboard the boat with my head hanging over a bucket while I vomited until I had nothing left. When I tried to eat something for breakfast the next morning, I got to start the process all over again.
And now, at the end of our second day, I finally crawled out of the bathroom and took a few sips of water only to discover that my stomach still refuses to behave. I clutch the smooth railing along the lower deck and lean over the river as I gag and heave.
I really hate boats.
The only silver lining in the entire situation is that the trackers, convinced that I can’t escape from the boat and that my bout of seasickness renders me harmless, are ignoring me. If I could just get my stomach to calm down, I could take advantage of that. I could look for Quinn. Make sure he has food and water. I could find a weapon to replace the k
nife I lost to the river.
I could be ready for Ian if he tries to kill me before we reach port.
I drop to the deck and lean my head against the railing while I slowly breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth. We’re traveling quickly. At this pace, we should reach Rowansmark in another two days.
I need to feel better before then so I can figure out a plan for sabotaging Rowansmark that doesn’t end with me receiving a pain atonement sentence at the hands of Ian or his leader. My hands shake as I press clammy palms against my aching head. My right arm feels swollen and itchy, but I’ve been too miserable to roll up my tunic sleeve and check my wound.
“Here. Chew on this.” Samuel settles beside me and pushes a thick piece of peeled ginger root into my hand. “It’ll help.”
“I don’t want to swallow anything.” My voice sounds hoarse.
“Trust me. An empty stomach only makes it worse. Ginger will help.”
I take the ginger and bite off a tiny piece. The peppery sweetness explodes across my tongue. Swallowing carefully, I wait for my stomach to rebel, but it doesn’t. I take another bite and chew while I look at Samuel.
“Thank you.”
“You could’ve killed all of us by driving the wagon off the dock like you did.” His voice is calm and measured, but there’s steel beneath it. I remember the way he looked at me when I punched him in the face to distract him from tracking Quinn’s location. I’m long past pretending I’m helpless, but maybe I can still keep him guessing enough to convince him I’m not a threat while we’re on the boat.
If I’m going to escape my captors once we’re inside the city, I’m going to need to search this boat for a weapon. I can’t do that if Samuel is watching me too closely.
“I didn’t mean to drive it off the dock.” I lift my chin and scratch at my right arm, where the burned skin feels tight and impossibly itchy. “I meant to run over Ian. Apparently, donkeys have issues with trampling people. They jerked to the side, and we went into the water.”
He hands me another plug of ginger. “Yes, I heard that you tried to run Ian over. He’d have a thing or two to say about the matter if I wasn’t keeping him busy elsewhere on the ship.”
“Why bother? You don’t care about me. Why don’t you let him punish me one more time for how disappointed he is at the way his life turned out?” The bitterness of my words tastes like ashes in my mouth. I can see the boy with dreams who watched his entire world shatter. Who sees the blood of his father on his hands every time he looks at himself. But I can also see Thom’s gentle smile and Donny’s eager gaze following Willow’s every move.
I can see Sylph.
Samuel’s voice is cold. “No, I don’t care about you. But I do care about him.”
“Oh, right. Because he had a bright future, and losing those he loved broke him.” I swallow the ginger, and scratch harder at my arm. It simultaneously burns like fire and provides some measure of relief. “You know what? I lost my dreams, too. I lost my family. But I didn’t go out and purposefully kill innocents just so that someone could pay the price for my pain.”
“He was charged with restoring honor to his family by returning the tech and by making an example out of those who took it. He had to punish the Commander, and Logan too if Logan was involved, in a way that would make it clear that the cost of challenging Rowansmark is too bloody to be worthwhile.” Samuel leans toward me. “He was just a boy. It was too big a task—”
“Forget about the size of the task.” I stop scratching my arm and sit up straighter. “Let’s focus on the fact that it was wrong.”
“I don’t expect you to understand.”
I laugh, but it sounds more like a sob. “Why, because I value the lives of those who died when Ian decided he couldn’t be bothered to confront the Commander or Logan directly?”
“They were an unfortunate out-cost in a larger—”
“They were my friends!” My words echo across the water and die inside the vast darkness of the Wasteland that presses against both shores.
“And Ian is mine.” Samuel’s voice is rigid. “He’s done too much already. I’m keeping him away from you because the opportunity to perform more sanctioned violence might cause him irreparable harm.”
I stare at him while the mechanical chugging of the paddle wheel purrs quietly and the boat’s wake churns through the water behind us. I’m still staring as he hands me the rest of the ginger and tells me someone is watching to make sure I don’t jump overboard.
He walks away while I sift through his words until I find the ones that send a chill across my skin and cause my heartbeat to thunder in my ears.
Sanctioned violence.
He’s been saying it all along. Ian was commissioned by James Rowan to punish the Commander and Logan. To levy a sentence of pain atonement against the two by destroying everything and everyone they cared about so that no one would dare stand against Rowansmark again.
Ian might have destroyed our city and murdered our people, but he didn’t do it alone. Someone had to be watching over him. Making sure he restored his family’s honor while also making the innocents of Baalboden a bloody example of why Rowansmark’s supremacy should be left unchallenged. Someone had to be keeping supplies, like the white phosphorous that burned me in a wagon, until Ian needed them.
A wagon like the one I sent to the bottom of the river.
Slowly I get to my feet as the truth ignites a gut-deep well of anger I no longer knew I possessed. Heidi, the tracker I’d hoped someone would save from drowning. Samuel, the man I’ve been trying to make my ally.
The two trackers who were waiting in the Wasteland outside of Lankenshire. With a wagon full of supplies.
Something drips from my right hand and splashes against the deck. I look down to see blood leaking from my wound, the flesh scratched open by my nails.
Raising my hand, I let the starlight glitter against the drops of blood on my fingertips and fight against the sudden panic that steals my breath.
This isn’t a dream. The ghosts that haunt me aren’t going to come for me while the sky turns to blood and ash and horror.
This is real. And so is the fact that Heidi, Samuel, and every other tracker on this boat who understands the true cost of James Rowan’s pain atonement policy yet looks the other way have as much blood on their hands as Ian does.
It’s time they understood that there’s a price to pay for hurting innocent people.
And I’m just the girl to teach them.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF–NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
CHAPTER NINTEEN
LOGAN
Darkness presses close as Willow, Adam, Jodi, and I ease out of the rooms we share on the top floor of Lyle Hoden’s home in the center of the city. Frankie, Nola, and Smithson are staying behind to guard Connor, Drake, and the tech in case any trackers come snooping around. They’re also prepared with an excuse for our absence—something about Willow teaching us how to track—in case the Commander visits our rooms.
The plan I laid out for Lyle and the Commander was for one of Lyle’s soldiers to steal a beacon tonight so that tomorrow, under the guise of concluding our trade negotiations, I could show them how to disable it.
I have no intention of teaching the Commander how to do the one thing he believes he needs me for. I’m hoping he thinks I need someone to bring a beacon to me. I hope it never occurs to him that I’m willing to brave the rooftops in the middle of the night and find them myself.
“Ready?” I ask quietly.
“Let’s break some tech,” Willow says.
Silently, we move down the corridor to the stairwell at the far end. Unlike the lower level of Lyle’s home where the Commander and his guards are housed, the oil lanterns here aren’t lit. Faint starlight filters in through windows on either end of the hall, but for the most part, we’re shrouded in darkness.
; Lyle and Amarynda agreed that if I could render the beacons incapable of calling the tanniyn, they would commit troops to our cause against Rowansmark. Unfortunately, Lyle followed Clarissa’s example and only promised one-fourth of his army. It’s not enough, but the Commander couldn’t bully him into promising us more. When I asked how we could possibly take soldiers out of Hodenswald under the very noses of the trackers, Lyle informed me that he was too smart to have only one way in or out of his city.
I’d stared hard at the Commander then, waiting for a flicker of realization on his face that if he’d had tunnels beneath his city or secret side-exits, many of his people would’ve survived the fires that destroyed Baalboden, but the cold stoicism of his expression never changed.
Adam reaches the stairwell first and holds the door open for the rest of us. The stairs are narrow and the wood is slippery with age. We walk slowly, muffling the sound of our footsteps as best as we can.
We step onto the flat roof above Lyle’s home, and I pause for a moment to get my bearings. Amarynda drew a map of the city’s roofs, marking each place where a beacon was attached to the eaves. Willow and I committed it to memory so we wouldn’t have to worry about reading it in the dark. Now I just need to make the map in my head match the layout of the city that surrounds me.
The city is laid out on a grid, the buildings evenly spaced boxes with flat rooftops. As long as we’re careful to plan our jumps so that we don’t have to move from a shorter building to a taller one, we’ll be fine.
“Adam and I will take the east half. You and Jodi can do the west,” Willow says.
“Do you remember how to disable the infrasonic frequency?” I ask, even though I drew her a diagram and made her repeat the process back to me until she finally snapped and told me she’d disable me if I doubted her one more time.