The urge to argue with him was undeniable. I don’t know who’d been put in charge of deciding who had a natural ability to do what, but Maddox seemed far more like an Unskilled than she did a Barron. I could have taken down that Graplar ten times quicker than Maddox could—even if she had been armed. But there was no use in arguing with him. Trayton had grown up believing that Healers were Healers and Barrons were Barrons, and that’s just the way it is. Opening his mind would take more than a five-minute conversation in the hospital wing.
My thoughts drifted to the wall, and I wondered about possible weaknesses in it. Darius had assured me that the wall was solid, and that Graplars could not possibly get through or over it. But what if he was wrong? What other way could Graplars possibly be getting inside? “Do they have blueprints of the surrounding wall at the library?”
Trayton narrowed his eyes a bit in suspicion. “Of course.”
“Good.”
“Can I ask why?”
As we moved down the hall, I answered, “Because I want to know how Graplars are getting inside the wall, and I think that’s a good place to start. Don’t you?”
“The blueprints aren’t going to show you anything that you don’t already know or haven’t already seen. Besides, don’t you think Headmaster Quill has patrols searching every inch of that wall even now?” He held the door open for me, and as we crossed the campus I mulled over what he was saying.
“The outside of it or the inside?”
“What? Where the patrols are searching?” At my nod, he replied, “The outer perimeter, of course.”
I straightened my shoulders, certain I’d found the answer to our dilemma. No one was searching the inner perimeter, so clearly, the problem had to be there. It wouldn’t be the first time that Barrons’ arrogance had been their downfall. “Then I’ll start my own search inside.”
“Tomorrow.” Trayton smiled, as if he were trying to pacify me. “You need your rest tonight.”
As we passed the courtyard, I glanced up. Darius’s window was dark.
I couldn’t help but wonder where he’d gone.
C H A P T E R
Twenty-one
So of course the Outer Rim has been designated the most dangerous area in all of Tril, running through all three continents—that is, Kokoro, Haruko, and Kaito—in an oval shape.” Mr. Ross breathed in, his breath wet and nasally, before continuing his lecture. I was leaning my cheek on the heel of my palm, trying desperately to keep my eyes open. “It is highly suspected that this ring of danger is due to the elevation of each of those areas. Graplars, as we all know, thrive best in high elevations, and all along the naturally formed Outer Rim are the highest peaks throughout Tril. Sadly, this area is also home to many Skilled villages. Tens of thousands of lives have been lost on this front, and so the Outer Rim has become the most active part of the battleground and our fight against Darrek. If you’ll turn to page—”
The door opened abruptly and someone moved inside. Whoever it was, I was blissfully thankful that their presence had silenced Mr. Ross for the moment—even though I knew that silence would be painfully short. I could feel the breeze of their swift movement on my arms as they stepped past me to the front of the class, but didn’t bother looking to see who it was. I was too close to sleep and the blissful dreams that would take me away from Mr. Ross’s boring history lessons. Who cared about the history of the war against Darrek anyway? The point was, we were fighting him. For reasons that had yet to be explained to me. It was yawn inducing. Almost coma inflicting.
Just as I was starting to feel myself slipping away into a nice nap, a hand—warm and strong—closed over my biceps and squeezed, as if to shake me from my stupor. I opened my eyes and looked up to find Darius staring down at me. Under his breath, he said, “Come on. Let’s go.”
Confused, I blinked at Mr. Ross, who nodded and gestured to the door. So with his permission, I gathered my books into my satchel and made my way out the door. I followed Darius in wondering silence for several yards, until we were out of earshot of any of my fellow students, before I hurried to his side and whispered, “What’s going on? Where are you taking me? How did you get me out of class?”
He didn’t even look at me as he replied. “You’re welcome for that, by the way. Probably the dullest lecture I’ve ever had the misfortune of overhearing in my life.”
As we rounded the corner of his cabin, Darius said, “Wait here, but stay out of sight. If someone sees an unguarded Healer milling about, we’re fakked. We’re going on a little field trip, and we’ll need supplies. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Leaning with my back against the wall, I kept my head down and tried to act casual. Darius seemed to do nothing without express and distinct purpose—aside from irritate me, which I suspected was solely for his amusement—so I trusted that this, too, had its purpose. Several long, grueling, worry-filled moments later, Darius returned with two rucksacks, stuffed full of the supplies that he’d said we’d need. As we moved west, toward the south gate, I dared a question. “Where exactly are we going?”
He didn’t pause in his steps, didn’t change his breathing or even so much as blink when he replied, “We’re going to the Outer Rim.”
I very nearly stumbled, but managed to keep my feet moving forward. Everything that I had heard about the Outer Rim said that it was very much a place that you wanted to avoid—and if you couldn’t avoid it, you really wanted to surround yourself with many talented Barrons. It was the most dangerous area of Tril, full of more Graplars and soldiers from Darrek’s army than anyone cared to think about. Grabbing Darius by the sleeve, I tugged in a near panic. “Are you crazy? We could die out there!”
Turning his head toward me, he paused briefly, his demeanor calm and cool. “We could die in here too, or have you forgotten?”
His eyes dropped to my thigh and I released my grip. When he moved forward, I followed. He had a point. Nowhere was safe. Still, that didn’t mean I understood his apparent death wish. As we approached the gate, Darius muttered, “If Raden asks, you’re gathering moss sprigs for the Master Healer.”
The south gate was relatively quiet, but as we approached, Raden had his list of names of people who were allowed outside at the ready. He smiled at me in recognition, but furrowed his brow as he looked over the list. “Darius, I have you here, but I’m afraid Kaya’s not on the list.”
Darius looked bored and disinterested, and Raden’s eyes turned to me. Shrugging, and trying to ignore the way my heart was racing, I said, “I’m gathering moss sprigs for the Master Healer.”
Raden chuckled then and made a note on his list. “That explains it. Darius’s favorite task. Be careful out there, you two. See you tomorrow.”
Darius strode forward, still looking bored, and I followed. We were steps from the now open gate when Raden grabbed the handle of the second katana that Darius was wearing—my katana. His brow furrowed with suspicion. “What’s this then? You’re bringing a spare weapon? Expecting trouble while on a simple herb-gathering mission, Darius?”
We were caught. Raden knew that something was up, that we were headed outside the wall for nefarious reasons, and he was going to report us for sure. I tried not to look panicked, but wasn’t certain I was pulling off cool and confident, as my heart was practically jumping out of my chest.
Darius shrugged Raden’s hand away casually. “The blade’s a bit pitted. I was working on cleaning it when I got wind of this little trip, so I figured I’d bring it along. It was either this or stare at tree bark while she picks weeds.”
Raden’s laughter followed us out the gate and was only cut off by the clank of metal as it closed behind us. Once we were down the hill several yards, I hurried to Darius’s side. “We’ll be gone overnight?”
“Yes. It takes that long to get where we’re going. Fortunately for us, moss sprigs only grow in one area of Tril. So the story’s believable enough.”
“So…what exactly are we doing? Hunting Graplars?”
“No. We’re actually going to practice your stealth as we make our way to the Outer Rim. But that’s not the real reason I’m taking you there.” He stopped moving and pointed to my rucksack. “You might want to change. If we do get attacked, the training uniform is so much easier to maneuver in than the Healer uniform.”
He turned around and as I changed, a question burned its way out of me. “What’s the real reason you’re taking me there?”
He turned his head to the side just as I was tying the sash of my top into a knot. “Because you’re learning how to fight, but you have no idea why we fight. You lack reason. You lack purpose. Every time you bring that blade down, you have to mean it, and you don’t yet.”
The image of Avery’s blood on my father’s shirt flashed in my mind briefly, and I clenched my jaw defiantly, shoving my Healer uniform into the bag before slipping it over my shoulders. “I have my own reasons. I don’t need yours.”
Darius gauged me for a moment, and for a second, I was sure he was going to say something other than what he did. “Yes, you do.”
As quietly as possible, we moved through the woods and down the mountainside. Neither of us spoke, and I tried like hell to control my breathing so we wouldn’t attract any unwanted visitors to our day hike. After two hours of walking, Darius glanced at me, but I shook my head, unwilling to admit that I was exhausted already and needed a break. An hour more and I gave his sleeve a breathless tug. He nodded, turning his head, checking carefully that it was a relatively safe area to stop briefly. When he gave another nod, I let out an exhausted sigh and sat on a fallen log, opening my rucksack in search of food. There were three brown sacks inside: one containing some type of dried, seasoned meat; one containing different types of dried fruit; and one containing a small baguette and some cheese. I bit into the cheese, chasing it with a bit of bread, and my stomach gurgled its gratitude. I chewed on a few more bits of the bread before giving the dried meat a try. It was somewhat spicy, but oddly tender for jerky. Darius watched the area around us as I ate, always on alert. We didn’t speak—I knew better than to talk without him giving me the go-ahead out here. We were far away from the school now, even farther than Kessler, and well on our way to the Outer Rim. This was dangerous territory, and completely unfamiliar to me. Once I’d finished my snack, I tucked the rest of the food away, and slipped my rucksack back on, its weight feeling heavier than it had when Darius had first handed it to me. There was a long road ahead of us, and I knew that that pack was going to get heavier with every step. But I didn’t complain—mostly because I knew that complaining would do nothing but irritate Darius.
At his signal, we continued silently south for several hours, until the sun was setting just over the trees. Though I could still spy it, the forest had already become incredibly dark—something that seemed to put Darius’s nerves even more on edge than they had been. We moved swiftly through the growing night, and soon our downward trek became an upward climb. We were almost there—I could feel it in my bones. But just as I was catching my second (or, to be honest, my fifth) wind, Darius stopped in his tracks and listened. My muscles tensed, but when he removed his rucksack and dropped it on the ground, I relaxed a little. It was time to camp. “Tomorrow morning, I’ll show you Kingsland.”
“Won’t Maddox or Trayton be suspicious that I’m gone?”
“Maddox already knows. I told her this morning when I stopped by to see her and give her some salve for her bite.”
Silently, I wondered if he’d noticed that I’d used some of his medicinal mixture on Maddox already. I was betting that he had. Darius wasn’t the kind of person who didn’t notice the tiny details.
“And Trayton…” He nodded then. Not to anything I had said, but perhaps something in his thoughts. “He’ll believe me.”
I didn’t question how he knew that, just trusted the sincerity on his face. Something told me that he and Trayton had been through a lot together. They trusted each another.
I strained my memory, but couldn’t recall ever having heard of the village he’d mentioned before. “Kingsland? Should I have heard of it?”
“I would hope so.” His jaw clenched momentarily, and his eyes gave way to a haunted, sad expression—a hole in his armor that I had not been prepared to see. “It lies just north of Wood’s Cross.”
My heart froze its rhythm, and then sank. Of all the places that Darius would take me, it would have to be the place that haunted my parents still, the place that had robbed from them their dearest loves until they became a couple. Rolling out my sleeping blankets, I lay quietly as Darius circled the area, peering through the darkness to the treetops. I didn’t know if he planned on sleeping, and soon, I surprised myself that I could.
When I awoke the following morning, my back was stiff, and my hair was moist with fallen dew. Darius sat atop a large nearby boulder, ever alert. Without even glancing in my direction, he said, “Eat something. We only have about an hour before we have to head back to Shadow Academy. It’s all the time we can afford before suspicions arise that we might not actually be on an herb-gathering expedition.”
Without speaking, I rolled up my sleeping blankets and placed them inside my rucksack. I chewed a bit of jerky, but I wasn’t sure my queasy stomach could handle much more than that. We were going to Wood’s Cross today—a place I’d hoped I’d never see, a place that was now the eternal resting ground for several thousand Barrons and Healers. Many believed it to be a cursed area. Even my parents, who believed there was a rational explanation for just about everything, didn’t like to talk about Wood’s Cross, or even to speculate on some of the strange things that had happened there. No one—not even the academy scholars, as far as I had heard—could even give a logical reason why the two largest, most damaging battles in the war against Darrek had taken place in exactly the same place, just twenty years apart. It was a haunted place, and no one in their right mind dared to visit it of their own accord.
So of course we were going there.
Darius hadn’t said that. He’d said that we were going to Kingsland. But what he’d meant was that we were going through Kingsland, to Wood’s Cross. He wanted me to have a reason to fight, and no matter what I might have said to refuse, he was convinced that Wood’s Cross would give me that reason. He might have been right, but if he was, I didn’t want to find out. The truth was, it scared me. No place that had shaken under so much war or soaked up so much blood could be safe. Energies remained—especially negative energies—and all that I had heard about Wood’s Cross told me that it was a nasty, frightening place to be.
“Darius…why do you think that the two biggest battles of this war have taken place in exactly the same spot?” I was hesitant to ask him, but curious about what his response might be. He might tell me to fak off or something, but I had to ask. My curiosity couldn’t be contained.
He didn’t answer at first, and just as I was beginning to think he never would, he said, “Darrek’s looking for something. Something that only appears once every two decades.”
There was no question in his reply, and the certainty in his tone only drew me in further. “You seem so sure.”
“I am sure.”
“How?”
“I’ve seen him.”
I wanted to push for details, but something in the way that his mouth was set told me not to. Quietly, I packed up the remainder of my supplies and slipped my rucksack on before retrieving my katana from beside Darius. He stood listening quietly to the woods before leading me over the next ridge. Nestled at the bottom of the ridge, in an overgrown valley, were the remnants of a small village.
It was difficult to see from the top of the ridge, but as we descended into the valley, through overgrown vines and brush, several buildings came into view. They weren’t exactly buildings anymore, being partially burned and ravaged by war, partially reclaimed by nature. The remaining walls were crumbling, but I could still make out soot from where they’d been burned. By the time we reached what had been the mai
n street through town, I could see how Kingsland had once been laid out. The main street had been comprised of eight large buildings—likely a grocer, tailor, blacksmith, and other important establishments. Fanning out around those in a southward direction were two hundred or more small buildings. Houses. Which families had called home.
Darius moved down the street and I followed, my feet feeling unsure on the brush-covered ground. I lost my footing once, but managed to steady myself relatively quickly. Darius paused and looked at me over his shoulder. “Watch your step. The ground still holds weapons from both battles here. The greenery grew over it, but it takes metal a long time to be fully reclaimed by Tril. So the ground is a bit uneven in spots.”
“I’ll be careful.” I nodded and when he continued, I followed. All along the main street, we passed ravaged buildings, mounds of refuse that were now small hills, torches that vines had grown up and around, making them look like very small trees. When we reached the other end of town, Darius stopped and turned back with a solemnity that I had never seen before. “Six hundred and thirty-two people called Kingsland home. They were Unskilled, not a part of this war at all. Each died a horrible, terrified death, having no idea why they were dying. And the sick truth is that we could have saved them, could have saved them all. But the Zettai Council voted that it was more important to protect the secrecy of Skilled society than to save six hundred people from a horrible fate.”
My heart seized momentarily. I had witnessed the selfishness of the Zettai Council firsthand in every panicked glance that I had ever seen in my parents’ eyes, but still I had no idea the lengths to which they would go to hide the fact that Barrons and Healers existed from those they had labeled the Unskilled—as if they were unworthy of any title but one that showed their subservience. The Zettai Council had refused to view the villagers of Kingsland as people, as anything other than a threat, and so they’d sentenced them to death. The fact sank in my stomach like a sour stone.