“I don’t want you to do this.”
She turns on me. “Look at yourself. Covered in blood. Destroying our plan because you couldn’t see anything but the fact that a tracker told you Rachel is dead. You aren’t thinking clearly, and you won’t start unless we know the truth. I can get the truth.”
“So can I,” the Commander says behind us. “And it won’t take me half as long.”
Willow moves aside without argument, her face as stoic as her brother’s.
“Why would you care if a messenger told James Rowan I wasn’t coming?” I ask as the tracker’s eyes flutter open and awareness snaps back into his gaze.
“Because that messenger would also tell him about my army, and about my trip north, which could only mean that I’m trying to gather more troops. The more we know before we go into battle, the fewer risks we unknowingly take.” He crouches beside the tracker, draws a knife, and says, “I think we’ll start with the hands.”
I reach for the stub of my little finger, for the pain that grows less each day, and wince as the Commander chops off two of the tracker’s fingers in one blow. The man screams, and the Commander smiles grimly.
“You know who I am, don’t you?” he asks.
The tracker pants heavily.
“Answer me, or lose the entire hand.”
“Yes.”
“Good.” The Commander flays a piece of skin from the tracker’s cheek. Blood puddles on the ground, and the man goes white, his lips drawn tight against the pain. “Every time I have to ask a question twice, you’ll lose another piece of yourself. Understood?”
The tracker nods.
“Did a messenger leave from Lankenshire to tell James Rowan that Logan McEntire and I went to the northern city-states?”
The tracker glares, but quickly nods as the Commander’s knife hovers above his neck.
“When do you expect that messenger to arrive at Rowansmark?”
“How should I know?” the tracker asks, his voice shaky.
The Commander slices through the tendon on the man’s elbow. Nola gags and disappears into the trees. Jodi drops down from her perch and joins her as the man curses and moans.
“Once more: When do you expect the messenger to arrive?”
“I don’t know.” The man’s eyes widen as the Commander reaches for his stomach. “Wait! Ian took the boat before our messenger arrived so he had to walk. He probably won’t arrive for another week, though if he hurried, he could cut that down by a couple of days.”
The vise wrapped around my chest eases, and I take a deep, steadying breath. I still have time. I’m weeks away by land, but if Ian took a boat to Rowansmark, I can too. Chelmingford is on an island. I can convince Tara Lanning, the leader of the city, to give us a boat. I can push my people to move faster. Sleep less.
I can still get to her. I can save her.
As the Commander drives his blade into the tracker to end the man’s suffering, I grab some leaves, scrub the blood off me as best as I can, and mount my horse.
“We aren’t stopping again until we’re on a boat heading toward Rowansmark,” I say.
No one argues with me as I spur my mount forward and set a course for Chelmingford as fast as my horse can travel through the Wasteland.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF–NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
LOGAN
The rest of our group is waiting for us at the little wooden dock that usually houses the Chelmingford ferry. I’m relieved to see that Frankie, Connor, Smithson, and Adam made it safely. Less relieved to see that Orion made it as well, but he’s the least of my concerns. The ferry isn’t here, but a small boat with the name Myra painted in bold blue letters on the side is tied to the dock. The captain agrees to ferry us to the city once he realizes we’re the group Lyle Hoden’s emissary told Chelmingford to expect.
The Myra’s engine is powered by steam. On a normal day, I’d be fascinated by the way the engine propels the boat through the water like a knife slicing through butter.
Instead, I’m preoccupied with wondering what tech Rowansmark is using against Chelmingford, since the tanniyn won’t surface underwater. Wondering what Tara Lanning is like and if she’ll agree to help us.
Wondering how far away I am from Rachel now, and how fast I can get to Rowansmark so I can keep my promise.
I lean against the bow with Connor on one side of me and Frankie on the other, my hands gripping the rough, splintery railing beneath me, and watch the blue-gray water lurch away from the boat’s nose as I think of Rachel and how desperately grateful I am to know that I still have a chance to see her again. Of the way something burned in my stomach, like I’d swallowed a live coal, when I’d watch her spar. How I didn’t know where to look when she’d catch me watching. Remembering the way her body flowed from one movement to the next makes me feel like the live coal in my stomach is slowly melting into my bloodstream.
I close my eyes and imagine that the railing beneath my hands is Rachel’s hair instead. Hair that shimmers like a flame and suits the intensity with which she lives her life. The intensity in her eyes when she looks at me. The intensity in her kisses—like I’m a challenge she enjoys trying to conquer.
Thinking about kissing Rachel is doing nothing to stop the heat that is spreading through me. It pools in my stomach, spirals through my chest, and burns against my cheeks while I try not to remember the way her breath catches in between kisses. The way her fingers dig into my shoulders. The way she presses against me like she can’t stand to have a single sliver of air between us.
Frankie slaps a hand on my shoulder, and my eyes fly open.
“Feeling okay?” he asks, his thick brows furrowed.
“I’m fine.”
“If you’re going to puke, aim it over the rail. I ain’t cleaning that up.”
“I said I’m fine.”
“You sure?” He studies me. “You look flushed, and you’re out of breath all of a sudden.”
I take a deep, steadying breath to prove him wrong. “I feel fine. Really. I was just thinking. About Rachel. I mean, not just about Rachel. About a lot of things. A lot of . . . things.” I make myself stop talking before more inane nonsense can pour out of my mouth and ignore the knowing gleam in Frankie’s eyes.
“About how kissing Rachel is eminently preferable to working through mathematical equations?” Connor asks, a sly smile on his face.
I’m silent a beat too long, and Frankie laughs, a great belly laugh that I haven’t heard from him since the day Thom died. Connor joins him. It’s nice to hear Frankie sound like he did before the people he cared about started dying, so I shrug off my embarrassment and smile for his sake.
“Chelmingford on the horizon!” the boat’s captain calls out.
I turn back to the railing and see a silver mountain that seems to rise up out of the water ahead of us. As we get closer, the mountain becomes a collection of tall, narrow buildings in silvery stone with steeply slanted roofs resting on thick, algae-covered stilts. A collection of narrow bridges in the same stone connects one building to another.
“I thought Chelmingford was an island,” Frankie says, the humor completely drained from his voice.
“It used to be.” Connor shades his eyes with his hand. “But then a dam north of here from the previous civilization broke and the land Chelming built on was completely submerged.” He gestures toward one of the thick stone stilts as we sail past it. “Thankfully, he built his city on stilts because he figured the higher off the ground they were, the less chance they’d be visited by the tanniyn.”
“The Commander said that the tanniyn don’t surface underwater,” I say as the boat slows.
“Well, I suppose Aaron didn’t figure that out until later. At any rate, his city was on stilts, so when the dam broke, most of the buildings remained intact.”
“Most of them?” I l
ook around the city and find children sitting on the bridges, their legs dangling over the water while they stare at us.
“The dam broke to the north of them, and the power of the water swept away some of their northern buildings. That’s how Aaron died and left his daughter in charge.”
“This isn’t natural.” Frankie sounds shaken.
“Well, it’s not unheard of for a child to succeed her father in the leading of a—”
“I don’t care about who leads what. I’m talking about those.” Frankie points to the bridges above us. “One misstep and we’ll fall to our deaths.”
I squeeze his shoulder as the image of Thom facing down the Carrington army on an old, rickety bridge seconds before he triggered the explosion that killed him fills my mind.
“You can stay here if you’d like,” I say quietly while the boat approaches a wide ramp that disappears into the water. Thick metal rings are attached to the ramp every few yards. A woman stands on the ramp, her legs braced so that she won’t slide into the water.
“I’m not staying anywhere unless it’s by your side.” Frankie jerks his head toward the Commander, who is stalking toward the bow, his eyes on the woman. “Not with that one still breathing.”
“Toss me your rope,” the woman calls out in a husky, smoky voice that makes the heat still lingering in the pit of my stomach burn a little warmer. Her dark hair is coiled around her head like a thick, braided crown, and her warm brown skin glows in the sunlight. Laugh lines bracket her eyes, and her full lips look like they’re used to smiling. She catches the rope Frankie tosses to her with a lithe strength that suddenly makes her petite, curvy frame seem incredibly intriguing.
Connor makes a small noise at the back of his throat, and I punch him in the arm. “Stop staring,” I say.
“You first.”
I am staring. I blink and look at Frankie instead. He isn’t nearly as interesting, but at least this way I don’t feel like I’m being disloyal to Rachel for finding another woman beautiful.
Especially a woman old enough to be my mother.
Now that is an uncomfortable thought.
“Requesting permission to enter your city,” the Commander says in a tone of voice that makes it clear he doesn’t feel he should have to ask permission for anything.
“Of course, Jason,” the woman says, and I catch a hint of power—not the turn-a-boy’s-stomach-warm kind, but the I’m-in-charge-and-don’t-you-forget-it kind—in her voice. Another woman joins her and lowers a ladder for us to use in climbing up to the ramp.
“We’ll need a meeting,” the Commander says, and then climbs the ladder first.
The woman watches him, her eyes narrow, and then slowly examines the rest of us while the Commander steps past her and onto the ramp. When her brown eyes land on me, I have to work to maintain eye contact. Something about her makes me feel like she’s just taken my measure and is deciding what to do with it.
She waits, her boots braced against the ramp, until we’ve all climbed the ladder. Then she gestures for us to precede her up the ramp and onto a wide walkway that seems to soar through the middle of the city. Every few yards, a narrow bridge stretches from the walkway into a line of buildings. Below us, the river swirls past the stilts that hold up the walkway. The land that anchors the stilts in place is too far below the surface to be seen.
Frankie looks like he’s going to be sick. He clutches the ornately carved railing that brackets the walkway and refuses to look down. Connor and Orion have death grips on the railing as well. Willow, Adam, and Jodi move up the ramp as if it’s a tree branch they’re leaping, but Smithson moves carefully, one hand on the railing and the other wrapped around Nola to keep her from slipping. Even the Commander looks ill at ease, though he doesn’t hold on to anything. I give two seconds of thought to taking a page out of the Commander’s book and pretending that I’m not worried about falling into the river, and then wrap my hand around the railing too. Better to be honest about my fear than to see it come true.
“It’s been a long time since your last visit, Jason,” the woman says.
“As I said, we need a meeting with you. Quickly.”
The woman nods, but then she notices the brooch on Connor’s cloak. “You’re the representative from Lankenshire?”
“Connor Vaughn, son of Clarissa Vaughn. I’m here representing Lankenshire’s interests.” He reaches into his pocket for the letter bearing Lyle Hoden’s seal. “I’m also the grandson of Lyle Hoden and am here in his stead as well.”
“Indeed. Lyle’s messenger arrived yesterday saying to expect you and that he supported you.” She reaches for the letter and says, “Tara Lanning, daughter of Aaron Chelming and leader of Chelmingford. I’m pleased to meet you, Connor, and I admit I’m tremendously curious as to what business could bring Baalboden, Lankenshire, and Hodenswald to my door at the same time.”
“If we can meet somewhere private, we’ll explain everything,” I say. Tara assesses me, as if wondering what role I play in all of this that would give me the right to speak for everyone, but then she turns on her heel and leads us over the walkway and into the heart of the city.
We walk past shops with brightly colored banners hanging from their windows, narrow homes with boxes of pink, yellow, and purple flowers blooming in crates bolted to the walls, and even a playground that resembles a giant planter filled with dirt and grass, balanced securely on stilts. Children run and tumble over the playground, and Frankie makes a choking noise even though an iron fence wraps around the area, keeping anyone from falling into the swiftly moving river below.
“This way. We can talk at my house.” Tara turns left onto a slender bridge that arcs from the walkway to a bright-blue door nestled in the front of yet another narrow house. We follow her, most of us clinging to the rail, and enter her home.
In moments, she has us settled around a long oval table with an arrangement of dried flowers resting in a vase at its center. The flowers are brown and crumbling, a stark contrast to the cool blues, whites, and yellows throughout the rest of the home. Tara swings in from the kitchen, a tray of dried fish in one hand and a pitcher of water in the other, and follows my gaze.
“My father’s funeral bouquet,” she says, and in that moment, I feel connected to her in ways that have nothing to do with her smoky voice and smiling eyes. She understands loss, and the lengths we’ll go to keep the memories of our loved ones alive. She keeps her father’s funeral bouquet. I kept my mother’s necklace in my pocket for thirteen years until the day I realized that Rachel was my new family and gave the necklace to her instead.
The pain of missing Rachel twines around the hole that was carved in me when my mother died, and suddenly it’s hard to breathe. It’s painful to think about how much I loved my mother and to wonder if she felt the same. It’s even harder to know how much I love Rachel and to wonder if I can get to her before James Rowan receives the message that I’m not coming.
Tara sets a plate of salted, dried fish in front of me and squeezes my shoulder briefly before moving on. I realize I’m still staring at the dried flowers, and I quickly look at my plate.
When everyone has been served, Tara sits at the head of the table and says, “I apologize for the lack of fresh food, but our mainland farms have recently been destroyed. We’re busy rebuilding in another location, of course, but for now, we’re relying on the last of our winter stores.”
“Who destroyed the farms?” I ask, and Tara’s gaze pierces mine.
“Interesting. You ask who, not what.” Her voice is steady, but a spark of anger lies beneath it. “I have a question of my own. You sit here representing Baalboden, Lankenshire, and Hodenswald. Are you not allied with any other city-state as well?”
“Carrington,” the Commander says. “But what you’re really asking is if we are allies with the Rowansmark trackers who ruined your food supply.”
Tara leans forward. “So you know about Rowansmark.”
Quickly, the Commander fills her in o
n the fact that both Baalboden and Carrington have been destroyed, that Schoensville and Thorenburg have committed troops to Rowansmark in exchange for protection, and that Lankenshire and Hodenswald are infested with trackers, but that I’ve disabled the beacons that would call the tanniyn to attack them.
“I can fix any beacons in your city or your farmland as well,” I say, even though the Commander seemed sure Chelmingford wouldn’t need my services. “I can guarantee the safety of your city and your farms. And in return, we’d like to request that you join us in attacking Rowansmark and destroying the tech that gives them the ability to terrorize the rest of us.”
Tara’s smile is fierce. “There are no beacons in this city. There are no trackers either. I allow couriers and leaders from other city-states safe passage across the river, but a group of trackers can have no good purpose for coming to Chelmingford.”
“You killed them?” the Commander asks.
The fierceness in Tara’s smile reaches her eyes. “Indeed we did. They thought they could destroy our farms as a warning that they meant business. In return, my farmworkers allowed them the exclusive use of our ferry. I’m not sorry to report that the ferry never made it to Chelmingford.”
“Where did it go?” Connor asks.
“To the bottom of the river.” Tara presses her hands against the tabletop. “Anyone who believes that I haven’t put contingencies in place for any possible threat to my city is making a grave mistake.”
Even the Commander doesn’t sneer at this. I shift in my chair as I realize we may have come all the way out to Chelmingford for nothing. Tara’s city is safe. She has no incentive to help us now.
Her eyes meet mine, and I say, “I’m glad there aren’t any beacons in your city or on your farmland.”
I am. But I’m also scrambling to think of some way I could be of service to her in exchange for troops. We’re facing three enormous armies on Rowansmark territory with only a partial commitment of soldiers from Lankenshire and Hodenswald. We need all the help we can get.