I allow myself a thin smile. “Says the one who would walk into an enemy camp demanding answers.”
“We got them, didn’t we?”
Something tells me his cavalier attitude has carried him this far and he won’t abandon it anytime soon. I stride inside, allowing my robe to whirl around me the way my mother’s always did.
I move past Feve, settle in front of the skinny girl. “I’m Sadie. Your name?”
“Siena,” she says. “I’ll take a bundle of pointers and a tight-strung bow.”
I laugh. “How old are you?”
“Sixteen. Old enough to have a kid but I’ll skip that if it’s all the same to you.”
I almost choke on her words. Old enough for a child? Having a family of my own is the last thing on my mind. I say, “I’m nearly sixteen. And I’ll skip the kid for now too. You’ll get your bow and arrows—I promise.”
“I’m Skye,” her sister says. “I’d shake yer hand, but seein’ as how mine’s tied to a pole…”
“I’m not going to untie you,” I say. “Can you fight?”
“Like nothing you ain’t ever seen,” Siena says, answering for her.
“We’ll see about that,” I say. But inside I’m thinking, If not for the color of their skin, which is three shades too light, these two could be my sisters.
Continuing around the prisoner circle, I come to the unmarked brown-skinned guy. “And you are…” I say.
“Circ,” he says. Up close, I notice that Circ is built like a Rider, tall and cut like stone.
“You’re a warrior?” I guess.
“We say Hunter,” he says.
“Can you ride?”
“Ride what?”
“A horse. A steed. A stallion.”
“Can tugs sprout wings and fly like searin’ angels?” Siena says from around the pole.
I think that’s a no, but I look to Circ for confirmation. He flashes a smile and shakes his head. “She meant no, but rarely does Siena just come out and say something directly. That’s one of the many reasons I love her.” His calm and unquestionable declaration of love for the skinny girl on the other side of the tent pole takes me by surprise. For better or worse, my people don’t speak of love so easily.
Should love be declared as casually and easily as plucking a flower from off a stem? Or is it something to be held on to, like a gemstone, brought out only on the rarest and most special occasions, whispered like a secret to only the most deserving of ears?
Either way, I feel the truth of Circ’s words and I envy him. Siena, too. They seem so sure of themselves; whereas the only thing I’m sure of is my calling as a Rider.
I move on to the second pale-skinned person in the room, the one sitting next to Dazz. He’s shorter and softer around the edges than the other males. I open my lips to speak, but he cuts me off.
“Buff,” he says. “That’s my name. And before you ask whether I’d like to go with you to the campfire and sip on ’quiddy and nibble on bear fritters, or whatever it is you eat around here, I have to decline, with regret. You see, I’ve got a lovely lady waiting back in ice country for me. I’d hate to disappoint her, even for a pretty little thing like you.”
I’m speechless. Has the whole world gone mad and started saying every last thing on its mind? I try to collect my thoughts, my cheeks on fire. “I wasn’t…I wasn’t going to ask you any such thing,” I say.
“Weren’t you?” Buff says.
“No.”
“My mistake.” He shrugs, like it was nothing more than a misunderstanding.
“And I’m spoken for,” I add quickly.
“You are?”
“I am.” Am I? Remy’s words burn in my ears. I’ve only ever thought of you in that way.
I desperately want to divert the attention away from me. “And what about you?” I say to Dazz.
“What about me what?” he asks. His thin beard makes him look older than I suspect he is. Through the layer of facial fur, there’s a youthful face, strangely without color. Between him and Buff, they’re the first light-skinned people I’ve been this close to. I almost want to reach out and touch him to see if he breaks, shatters into a thousand pieces like glass.
“Are you spoken for?” I ask, not because I have any interest in him, but because it seems to be a popular topic of conversation amongst the group.
“Who’s askin’?” Skye says, the answer in her sharp tone.
“Oh, so you two are…I mean you’re…”
“Together,” Dazz says. “Yes, Skye and I are a thing.”
“What do you mean a thing,” Skye says, twisting her neck to shoot a glare at Dazz.
“Don’t get your pretty little lady-skivvies all twisted up,” Dazz says. “It’s just something we say in ice country when you’re exclusively with one girl.”
“That better be what yer sayin’,” Skye says. “Or I’ll knock you out, just like I did when we first met.” I have to raise a hand to hide my laugh at their banter. I can picture Skye clocking Dazz, leaving a dark bruise on his cheek and his ego.
I still can’t believe I’m talking to Heaters and Icers. It’s like the earth has been raised on an angle, and all the tribes of the earth have slid down, down, down, all the way to the ocean.
The only one who hasn’t spoken since I entered is Feve, the marked man. I stand in front of him now. “Since you’re so curious about all of our personal lives, yes, I’m spoken for. Married, with a family.” Although his words surprise me—I didn’t think a man so serious and mysterious-looking would be so…settled—it’s not what I was going to ask.
“What do your markings mean?” I ask, wishing I could see them all. No one in my tribe marks themselves, probably because our skin is already so dark we wouldn’t be able to see it.
Feve’s eyes pierce my gaze, unflinching. “Each straight marking is for someone I’ve saved,” he says, pausing to look back at his exposed forearm, which has a straight arrow sketched into it.
I admire the simple beauty of the drawing, which is so lifelike, almost as if you could pluck it from off his skin, string it, and shoot it high in the air, piercing the gray-shrouded sky. Around the arrow are numerous curved markings: a crescent moon, softly glowing; a metal chain; a coiled snake. There are other curved markings too, ones that don’t take on any particular form, like they were drawn hastily, in random designs. They disappear under his shirt and reappear on his neck, arcing behind his back. He must have hundreds of curved markings for every straight one.
“And what do the curved markings represent?” I ask, unable to wrest my eyes from the graceful shapes.
“Each curved marking is for someone I’ve killed.”
~~~
We aren’t waiting for them to come to us. For once, we’ll take the fight to the Soakers, to show them that the tribes of the earth will not allow their evil to go unpunished.
The scouts are back and have located the Soaker fleet, anchored just off the coast a few hours ride south of us. Fatefully close.
I’m thankful the six foreigners will ride with us today. Although they’re a strange mixture of jokes, ferocity, and unabashed confidence, I can tell each one of them is a fighter in their own right. Better with us then against us.
Each will sit behind a Rider, at least until the battle begins. Then they’ll be free to drop down, to run away if they choose. I suspect they’ll fight to the bloody end.
They’re untied and standing in a group under close guard. Gard has allowed them to choose their weapons, although they’ll be held by their assigned riding partner until we reach the battle. Only then will they be handed over.
Siena, as requested, has already received her bow, which she’s been flexing and playing with from the moment she grasped it. It’s clear she knows how to use it. She’ll get the arrows from me later. Skye selected a sword, almost as long as the one chosen by Circ. There’s no doubt in my mind that she can handle it every bit as well, too. Feve grunted at two medium-length curved daggers that re
mind me of the graceful but deadly strokes of the kill-counter markings on his skin. Buff chose two short straight-daggers, polished to a shine, although he didn’t seem too sure of the selection. Dazz was the only one who insisted he’d be fine without a weapon, and it wasn’t until he saw the spiked clubs wielded by some of the larger Riders that he agreed to carry something.
Before I mount Passion, I stand in front of her, touching her white butterfly. “We will see this through together,” I whisper. She whinnies softly. “Your strength will be my strength, and mine yours.” I feel her hot breath on my face, see the understanding in her eyes. She’s no ordinary steed. We were destined to be together, each one half of a storm country Rider. Apart—nothing. Together—invincible.
Although I sense the dark presence nearby, the Evil has not accosted me since the prison tent, when it urged me to kill Dazz, to take my revenge for my mother’s death. I ignore it. Will it disappear if I pretend it’s not there? Is it real or imagined? Am I going crazy with unresolved grief?
I leap atop Passion’s back, relishing the light feeling in my chest I always get before a ride. Earlier I introduced Passion to Siena, who will ride behind me. I was worried that Passion’s pride wouldn’t allow her to accept a second passenger, but she took to Siena right away, so quickly I felt a prick of jealousy after all I had to go through to win her affections.
Together, we trot over to Siena and I offer her a hand, pulling her up behind me. Clutching her bow with one hand, she clamps her other arm around my stomach, squeezing tightly, like Passion might toss her off at any moment. But Passion remains calm, occasionally stamping her feet in impatience. She’s ready to run. Like me, ready for her first battle.
“Are you ready?” I ask Siena. Gard pulls Feve onto his steed, while two other Riders take Buff and Dazz.
“I don’t know,” she says, and I appreciate her honesty.
I nod, look back.
“Fightin’ don’t come naturally to me like it does Skye,” she says.
Although she might believe it to be the truth, I don’t.
A Rider trots past us with Circ hanging onto her like he’s in the middle of a fierce storm and she’s a tree. Behind me, Siena laughs. “It’s nice to see him doing something he ain’t good at. I never thought I’d see the day.”
For some reason, her light comment slows my racing heart and evens out my breathing. Remy and his horse sidle up alongside us, Skye sitting behind him. She’s not hanging on, just cracking her knuckles and laughing. Remy appears rather uncomfortable with the whole arrangement. “Back home they’d think we were wooloo,” Skye says. “It’s like sittin’ on a sand dune that keeps shiftin’ and bouncin’ between my legs.”
“Only you could make riding a horse sound so…interesting,” Dazz says nearby. Somehow he’s managed to twist himself around, facing the wrong way. The Rider who received the unfortunate assignment of riding with him is struggling to get him turned back to the front.
Maybe bringing them along wasn’t such a great idea after all. But then I see Feve’s dark expression, full of intensity and focus, and I know we’d be fools not to accept their help.
My attention turns back to Remy when he kicks my leg. “Be safe,” he says, before urging his horse forward.
Siena whispers in my ear. “I see.”
When Gard digs his heels into Thunder, starting him into a gallop, Passion springs forward automatically, not requiring any urging from me. On either side, the Stormers cheer us on, waving black squares of cloth.
Today every single Rider will ride.
Today we stop waiting for the Soakers to come to us.
Today we go to war.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Huck
She didn’t. She couldn’t. Why would she leave me?
I don’t want to believe my father, but I have to, because I remember now. I remember everything. Whatever wall I’d constructed in my mind has been knocked down; not pulled apart brick by brick, but destroyed in one powerful moment, like a thunderous wave leveled it.
The fights, her screams as he abused her, the days and days and days of silence that followed, as if by not speaking of the past we could wipe it clean.
My mother: changing. She became less and less willing to do my father’s bidding, almost relishing the beatings like a badge of honor, as if her version of the medallions on my father’s uniform were bruises and scratches and scars.
That night. She didn’t ask me to meet her at the railing to watch the sunset…no. That’s what I wanted to believe, because that’s what we always did. The sunsets were the one time my mother looked happy, her sad eyes sparkling with hope, as if the red sun could reach out over the Deep Blue and take hold of her, carrying her away to a better place, to a better man. Maybe it could. Maybe it did.
Her last words to me were, “Huck, Mama needs to watch this sunset on her own. Just tonight. Just this one night. It’s for the best—for both of us. I love you, my son.”
But I couldn’t stay away, perhaps because deep down in my child’s heart I knew.
I knew, and I tried to save her.
Like she tried to save me from seeing it.
Suddenly it all makes sense. Why my father would seek a bride for me from abroad. Someone obedient. Someone moldable. Someone as unlike my mother as possible. He never wanted a wife—only a slave, another bilge rat to do his every bidding.
I’m proud to say my mother was no one’s slave. My mother loved me.
Tears spill down my cheeks as I watch the sunrise. I reach a trembling hand out and catch a ray of warmth on my palm, and I can’t help but to smile through the tears. Because I feel her, my mother’s touch, her hand on mine, carried by the sunshine. She found that place after all.
“I love you, Mother,” I say, standing.
Then I turn to deliver the beating of Jade’s life.
~~~
Jade doesn’t meet my gaze as I approach, pushing through the crowd that has already gathered to watch. I want to punch them, to kick them, to shout at their carnal need to witness the punishment I’m being forced to deliver. I know she doesn’t look at me for both our sakes.
If my father hadn’t appeared last night, would I really have set her free? Would we have stolen a landing boat, slipped away into the night? My heart skips and stutters, out of rhythm, because I realize the answer:
Yes.
Even before my father shucked off his coat of lies and showed me his true colors, I would have left. The realization bends me at the waist, like I’ve been punched in the gut. I don’t need him to be proud of me anymore. I don’t need him.
Does that mean I’m really a man now?
Do men whip the ones they care the most about? If my father is any example, then yes, but he’s the last person I want to emulate.
He waits for me beside Jade, cat o’ nine tails in hand—a long leather whip that splits into nine thinner endings. Each stroke nine times more brutal. Each blow yielding nine times more blood, more scars.
Can I do this?
Do I have a choice?
As my father hands me the whip his eyes bore into mine, and I consider turning it on him, cracking, cracking, cracking it against his face until the casual smile he’s wearing is red with blood. His guards, three burly men with broken-nose faces, will be on me before I can snap the whip even once.
If I refuse to do this, what then?
My father leans in, whispers in my ear. “I’ll kill her if you don’t do this.”
With one hand gripping the whip, I reach my other hand to my neck, which is still tender. I picture my father’s hands surrounding Jade’s neck, choking the life out of her and then tossing her overboard like a bucket of fish bones. He’s not bluffing. He doesn’t bluff.
I have no choice.
The crowd jeers and taunts and stomps their feet. There’s not much entertainment on the ships and this is as good as it gets.
Although I’m gripping the whip so tightly my knuckles are splotched with red an
d white, I can’t feel it, like my fingers have gone numb. I take a deep breath.
One of my father’s guards spins Jade around, pulls the ropes attached to her hands tight around the wooden pole so she won’t be able to turn away to soften the blows. Her back faces me.
Sweat trickles down my spine.
I’ll kill her if you don’t do this.
Is beating her to save her life something to be proud of?
My father speaks, his voice instantly silencing the crew. There’s no doubt who’s in charge here. “For unlawful entry into the bird’s nest by a bilge rat and endangering my son’s life, this rat—”
“Jade,” I mutter under my breath.
“Excuse me?” he says.
I go to look at him, to repeat her name, but my gaze stops on Cain, who’s just behind the admiral. No, he mouths, shaking his head.
He’s right. Though I’m trembling with anger and fear and disbelief at what my life has come to, now is not the time for boldness. Boldness could end the life of the girl standing before me. And that can’t happen, not when I’ve begun to feel so much…so much what? What is it really? Caring? Concern? Righteous anger at her plight and the plight of her people? Something more?
I shake my head, tossing aside the thoughts that don’t matter right now. My father assumes I’m answering his question. He nods. “Good.” Motions to Jade. Continues: “This rat is sentenced to eighteen lashes, to be carried out by Lieutenant Jones. Are there any objections?”
Waves lap against the side of the boat. Big-chins swoop overhead, chased by gulls, chattering to each other. No one speaks. I am silent.
(Is my silence weakness or intelligence?)
(Is anything I’ve ever done right?)
“Carry on, Lieutenant,” my father says, as if I’m about to give an order to drop anchor or man the sails or swab the decks. As if I’m not about to change my relationship with Jade forever.
I raise the whip above my head.