Darkfall

Jeatar hesitated, glancing at Onderaan. Not a good sign. “Unconfirmed rumours say the Governor-General is dead.”

“Seriously?” A surprise, but it didn’t bother me none if he was. He’d been appointed by the Duke and treated Gevegians like we were trash. “Who’s in charge now? Another Baseeri or a Gevegian?”

“I’m waiting to hear from my contacts there, but so far, nothing.”

“If Geveg’s in full rebellion,” Onderaan said, “then the Duke would certainly want to end it before it inspired anyone else to fight back.”

I nodded. “Like the mining towns.” The Duke invaded us the first time for our pynvium, and he had to need more of it. I’d destroyed his foundry, stolen some, and ruined the rest of his supply of the raw metal. When Baseer revolted, he would have needed more weapons to subdue his own people, more healing bricks for his troops, using up the little pynvium he’d had left. He had to be running low by now.

Was he also running low on Healers?

He’d been kidnapping and experimenting on them for months, but with all the fighting, he had to be using them to heal his troops.

“Do you think Tali is with him?”

Jeatar didn’t hesitate this time. “Yes.”

“Can we—”

“No, you can’t go after her. The Healers will be heavily protected, probably at the centre of the army. Most likely guarded by Undying.”

The Undying didn’t scare me all that much, but the Duke’s Healer-soldiers were deadly to everyone else. How could you stop someone who could heal their own wounds, push the pain into their pynvium armour, and keep on fighting? They cut through regular soldiers like farmers cut through wheat.

“Nya, we’ll find her,” Onderaan said softly. “I owe it to Peleven to keep his girls safe.”

Papa.

He had also been Baseeri, though I hadn’t known that until a few months ago. I didn’t like to think about what that made me. Baseer had always been the enemy, but I had Baseeri friends now, Baseeri family. Baseeri blood.

“What do we do?”

“About Tali?” Jeatar said. “Nothing until we know something solid. Same with Geveg. As for the Duke, we’ll keep watching and wait to see what his plans are.”

I’d never been good at waiting. In Geveg, doing nothing got you killed. You had to find food, find work, find shelter from the soldiers. Keep your eyes open, your wits sharp. You had to move and keep moving, or trouble found you.

But I wasn’t in Geveg any more.

“Perhaps you should stay close to the house for the next few days,” Onderaan said. “Just in case people are looking for you.”

“I can’t. I have food duty.” Besides, lots of folks knew me around here anyway. A spy wouldn’t need to see me to learn I was here.

“I’m sure Jeatar can find someone to fill in for you.” He glanced at Jeatar, who paused and looked at me as if unsure whether or not to agree to that.

I bristled. I liked helping out. At least I was doing something useful and not just waiting for news. “There is no one to fill in for me. People are spread thin enough as it is. If I’m not there, everyone else has to work harder, and that’s not fair.”

“Not everyone else is in danger.”

I folded my arms. “We’re all in danger – mine’s just more personal.”

Jeatar’s mouth twitched, but he stayed quiet.

Onderaan sighed. “Well, as long as you’re careful, I guess it’ll be OK.”

As if I needed his permission. “Jeatar, you’ll let me know if there’s any more news today?”

“Of course.”

“Thank you.” I had a picnic to get back to. I’d promised Danello we’d have fun, and I wasn’t about to let him down.

Even if having fun was the last thing I felt like doing.

I made it to the kitchen garden before Danello, but I found Aylin cuddled up with Quenji on a bench under the orange trees. Thin shafts of sunlight cut through the branches and brought out Aylin’s true red hair beneath the fake black.

I cleared my throat.

They pulled apart and she blushed, but the glint in her brown eyes said I’d get the full story later. At least one of us had got kissed today.

“Oh, hi!” She giggled and glanced at Quenji, who grinned. But then he was always grinning. He’d been the leader of a street pack I’d met in Baseer and had risked his life to help us destroy the Duke’s foundry there. I think he really liked the danger, since he’d volunteered for every mission to go back and look for Tali. He was a good person to have watching your back, so I was happy to have him along.

So was Aylin, apparently.

“Sooo, how was the picnic?” she asked.

“Short.” I told her about the sainters.

“Pfft, nobody pays attention to them,” she said, waving her hand. She smiled. “But tell me, before they interrupted – anything interesting happen?”

“Not as interesting as I’d have liked.” I glanced at Quenji. Potential kisses weren’t something I wanted to discuss in front of him. “Onderaan’s trying to tell me what to do again.”

“He means well,” Aylin said.

“He’s annoying.”

“Nya, he doesn’t know how to act around you. He was probably just as shocked to find out about you as you were about him.”

“Well, maybe.” I didn’t like this conversation any better. Weren’t best friends supposed to side with you no matter what? I changed the subject. “Jeatar says the Gov-Gen might be dead.”

“Does that mean we can go home?” Aylin turned to Quenji before I could reply. “You’ll love Geveg! It’s on the lake, and there are beaches and warm breezes and the best coffee you’ve ever had.”

“And soldiers,” I said, surprised to see how eager she was to go back. To leave before we found Tali. “Don’t forget about the Baseeri soldiers beating people up just for fun.”

She flicked a hand at me again, as if she could brush off the idea of soldiers as easily as sainters. “If the Gov-Gen is dead, then the soldiers are next. They’ll probably be gone by the time we get there.”

“We don’t know what it means yet.”

“Nya!” She gaped at me. “It means Geveg is fighting back, just like you always wanted. I bet they’re kicking the Baseeri out as we speak.” She jumped up and pantomimed kicking people one at a time. Quenji applauded.

“I’ve never been to Geveg,” he said. “I’d love to go.”

“But—”

“Go where?” Danello said, slipping up behind me.

“Home!” Aylin cried.

“Really?” He stared at me with hope in his eyes. “When did this happen?”

I held up both hands. “No one said anything about going home. I’m not even sure if the rumour is true.”

“What rumour?” Danello looked confused. “You went to see Jeatar while I was gone, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but just for a minute.” I sighed and explained the whole thing. The transport ships, the Gov-Gen, not being able to go after Tali.

Aylin plopped back on to the bench. “So we’re not going home.”

I’d never realised how much she wanted to. So did I, but not without Tali. Home was wherever my sister was, and without her, Geveg would be just another city.

“Not yet, but we will, I promise.”

“If there’s a home to go back to,” Danello mumbled.

“What?” Aylin said.

“I want to go back, too,” he said. “My da’s still there. And Halima and the twins ask about him all the time.”

Danello’s little brothers and sister stayed pretty close to the farmhouse, and I’d never seen them out past the main gate. After what they’d been through, I couldn’t blame them. Kidnapped, almost killed by Undying, running from Baseer with the rest of us. They deserved to go home and be with their father again.

“Well, listen,” Danello said, taking my hand. “We have a picnic to finish.”

“We’ll see you this afternoon, right?” Aylin said.

“At the north gate as always.”

We left through the kitchen and out the back door, but Danello didn’t head for the pond again. Instead he led me towards some trees near the front of the farmhouse.

“It’s not as secluded,” he said, “but it’s shady and mostly out of the way.”

“What did you mean when you said, ‘if there’s a home to go back to’?”

He winced. “Nothing.”

“If it was nothing, you wouldn’t have changed what you said to Aylin.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s just, well, if someone in Geveg really did kill the Gov-Gen, and there really is a strong rebellion there, and the Duke is suddenly moving troops, then he might be going after Geveg.”

“That’s what Onderaan said.”

He pulled out the blanket again and spread it under the trees. “You’re not the only one missing family, you know,” he said softly.

“I know.” Shame warmed my face. I’d been so focused on Tali, I hadn’t thought about what he and his brothers and sister were feeling. Their father was out there somewhere too. Maybe he was safe in Geveg, but maybe not, especially if the city was in revolt.

I took his hand and rested my head against his shoulder. “We’ll get them all back, I promise. We’ll get everything back.”

He nodded, but he knew as well as I did that wasn’t true. We’d never get his mother back, or my parents. The people the Duke had already killed were gone forever. All we could do was hold on to what little we had left and hope we could make something out of it.

I guessed we wouldn’t have any fun today after all.

We met Aylin and Quenji at the north gate midafternoon, standing near a dark-brown horse with the wagon loaded with food. The horse nibbled grass, tearing it out of the ground with quick twists of its head. Ellis sat on the driver’s bench in that brown uniform that all Jeatar’s guards wore. We’d met in Baseer when I’d saved her life after a pynvium raid had gone wrong. She’d been one of the Underground’s guards then, had fought with us against the Undying, and even held shifted pain for us. She’d been promoted to captain a few weeks ago, but she still liked to help out with the food, same as I did.

A second guard appeared and waved hello to Danello.

He waved back. “Afternoon, Copli.”

“Do you know all the guards?” I said.

“The ones who come to practise.” The rapier he carried wasn’t just for show. Danello drilled with the guards a few hours every day, working on his skills. “The rest I play cards with.”

“You really should socialise more, Nya,” Aylin said. “There are a lot of people on the farm.”

“Enough people know me already.”

Quenji chuckled. “You can never have too many friends.”

“Come on,” I said, climbing into the wagon beside Ellis. “We have hungry people to feed.”

Folks turned our way when we rolled through the outer camp. Families sat on small stools or on the grass, faces turned down, staring at the campfires. Not every tent had a fire, and those seemed the saddest of all.

Some of the people looked Baseeri, a few entire families with black hair and sad blue eyes, but we met a lot more folks with strong Verlattian features and clothes, and farmers with blonde hair who could have been from Geveg.

I’d seen similar faces after the Baseeri threw us out of our homes. Sad, scared, lost. My guts churned, my own memories tumbling through my head.

“Nya, where we gonna sleep?” Tali had asked, tears on her cheeks, fear in her eyes. No seven-year-old should ever be that scared.

“I don’t know, but I’ll find us someplace safe. I promise.”

No tents for us back then. Just hard ground under scratchy bushes. I’d wrapped my arms around Tali to make her feel safe, but it was years before either of us felt – well, not safe, but safer.

Ellis guided the wagon through the campsites. Folks were already moving towards us when we stopped at a large fire with a heavy cook pot hanging over it. A community pot just like the ones I’d eaten at in Geveg. People brought something in the morning, it cooked all day, and everyone shared it that evening. There’d been days when I’d eaten only because I’d sneaked a few handfuls of flour from the mill to thicken the stew. Wasn’t much, but it satisfied the rules.

Today’s stew simmered, bits of sweet potato and rosemary sticking out of the thickening broth. Cook glanced over at us, his face tough and lined from the sun. He smiled and waved.

“Just in time,” he called. “We could use some bread to go with the stew.”

“We have lots of that,” I said, a little guilty as I climbed off the wagon. None of it was as good as the bread Ouea made. No fruit or nuts, no spices. Just basic bread. But no one seemed to care. Food was food.

The children raced right for Aylin, holding out their tiny hands. She always filled one bag with treats – sugar nuts, candied fruit, even a few bricks of sweet brittle.

“News of the day?” Ellis asked while people lined up. Dinner wasn’t all you got at a community pot. Folks got to talking when they had no place to go.

“Nine new carriages rolled into Little ’Crat City,” Cook said.

Ellis chuckled. “You really shouldn’t call it that.”

“Bunch of aristocrats set up camp and keep everyone else out? What would you call it?”

“Rude.” She smiled and handed him another sack. “Want me to look into it?”

He shook his head. “Nah. No self-respecting Baseeri wants to bed down there anyway.”

Ellis glanced at me and winked. Wasn’t too long ago I thought no Baseeri had any self-respect, and she liked to remind me of that.

“Oh, you might want to send the Healers round,” Cook said.

“Is someone hurt?” I asked.

“Might not be serious, but three families came in an hour ago, and they look like they barely made it here. I told ’em to go up to the house, but they insisted they were fine. I said they didn’t have to pay, but it didn’t change their minds.”

“I’ll let Jeatar know.” We didn’t have many Healers, and most of them were apprentices or first or second cords only, but that was more than most folks had access to these days.

We finished up and headed closer to Jeatown and the nicer camps. Carriages, bigger tents, more dark-haired families. Baseeri aristocrats, even a few rich merchants. Dozens of servants still wearing their house colours hovered about, waiting on orders.

Joke or not, it really was Little ’Crat City. Just like in Baseer, they’d closed off their territory, using the carriages like a wall around the camp. They even had their own guards protecting it. Of course, the guards moved out of our way pretty quickly. Ellis had taught them the first day who gave the real orders around here.

They had their own community fire, but you’d never catch them sharing food, just gossip and opinions. We parked the wagon, and the servants lined up while the aristocrats stayed in their comfy chairs. I couldn’t imagine how they’d managed to get them out of Baseer, but I suspected more than one servant had hauled furniture out on their backs.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” a woman in red and blue silk scoffed. She sat around the fire with a few dozen others as well-dressed as she. They didn’t look at us or the food. “Was the Saints themselves. They reached down and crushed the palace with their hands. No living soul did what I saw happen there.”

My stomach twisted. They were talking about me. No good ever came of Baseeri aristocrats talking about me.

“Don’t be daft – it was an attack. Verlattian retaliation, probably.”

“I heard it was a girl,” said another man. “One of those quirkers.”

“The Shifter?”

“That’s right. Part of a Gevegian kill squad to assassinate the Duke.”

I was what? Danello slipped a hand to my shoulder and leaned close. “Easy, ignore them. It’s just gossip.”

Easy for him to say – they weren’t calling him an assassin. I glanced at Aylin and Quenji, both surrounded by children as they handed out the sweetcakes and cookies. She looked back, worry in her eyes, but Quenji had a sly smile like he approved of the story. Quenji liked to tell his own tales. On the streets, a good story told at the right tavern could get you a meal.

“She’s as bad as the Undying,” a woman said, her voice cracking. “They killed my husband. He wasn’t doing anything wrong! Just trying to bring the carriage round.” The young girl beside her started crying. She looked like the girl from Baseer. The one I couldn’t save.

“Fenda, no!”

Metal clanged against metal, then a girl screamed in pain.

“She’s just a child!” the man cried. “How could you?”

Anger chased away some of my fear. I wasn’t anything like the Undying. They’d murdered an innocent girl who’d only been trying to protect her father.

“We traded my wife’s jewellery for a gate pass.”

A man grunted. “I had a soldier ask me for my wife to get through.”

Some folks chuckled, but most looked around as if unsure if he was joking or not.

“Well,” a woman said, “we’re better off than those left behind.”

I pictured Tali and my guts twisted.

“I don’t know what that flash was, or who caused it,” she continued, “but things aren’t right in that city. They haven’t been right since Bespaar—”

Angry shouts came from behind the tents, then repeated orders to stop. Ellis jumped up on to the driver’s bench, her sword out a heartbeat later. Danello drew his rapier.

“What’s going on?” Aylin whispered. The children who had gathered around her moved closer, their blue eyes wide and scared. Quenji stepped in front and nudged them back.

“I don’t know,” he said, “but it doesn’t sound good.”

Three men burst out from behind some tents. Two were blonde, one dark haired. All wore old clothes and masks covering the bottoms of their faces. One man had a bag clutched against his chest, but it wasn’t one of ours.

“Thief!” someone cried, and the camp guards appeared, chasing down the bandits.

Ellis swore and hopped off the wagon. She went after the thieves and Danello followed right behind her. The thieves ran like chickens, darting this way and that, knocking things over, throwing them at whoever was close. Folks ran everywhere, just as wild, just as scared, no one paying any attention to where they were going.

Elbows jabbed me, jostling me further out into the crowd. A man slammed into my shoulder and spun me around. The second wagon guard, Copli, was on the driver’s bench protecting the food but looking like he wanted to chase after Ellis and Danello. Quenji had his arms around Aylin, keeping her tight against the wagon and blocking her from the panicked mob. The children ran into the crowd, between legs and stomping feet, caught in the chaos.

I struggled through the bodies and grabbed a boy by the hand, yanking him back before a panicked woman ran him down. He clung to me, trembling. I looked for another. Saw one of the thieves instead.

He pulled out a knife, then dodged back and thrust it at the guards. Several people screamed, but only one body stumbled, then fell to the ground.

“Stop right there,” a tall Baseeri said, waving something at the thieves. I almost missed the glint of blue metal.

Pynvium. He had a pynvium rod. A good one, too, the metal pure enough to shine a rich blue.

The aristocrat pointed the rod into the crowd full of scared people – and children.

“Wait, no!” I yelled.

Whoomp.

Pain flashed from the rod, the familiar prickle of blown sand stinging my skin. People all around me screamed and collapsed – guards, thieves, children. Even the horse shrieked and bolted, sending bags of food flying off the wagon and Copli toppling off the bench. Those at the edge of the flash stumbled and fell, tripping over those on the ground. The boy I’d grabbed dropped and lay by my feet.

I stood in a circle cleared by the pain, exposed and alone.

Chapter Three

“Did she just—?”

“Quirker!”

“The Shifter’s here!”

Cries raced through the crowd, then fingers pointed and hands waved, all in my direction. Saints! I should have fallen, faked being affected, but it all happened so fast. I dropped to one knee and took the hand of the unconscious boy at my feet. My hand tingled as I drew in the pain overloading his senses. He woke and looked around, whimpering.

“Go find your mother,” I said, scanning the rest of the people on the ground. Danello, where’s Danello? There! Lying near Ellis and one of thieves. People gasped when I ran towards him, backing away like I was going to hurt them.

“Get her, stop her!” the Baseeri with the pynvium weapon called.

I knelt and wrapped a hand around Danello’s wrist, the other around Ellis’s. Drew in their pain and held it in the empty space between my heart and guts. It simmered there like I’d eaten something that had disagreed with me.

Danello jerked awake, hands out. Ellis woke right after. I let go of them and looked for the guard who’d been stabbed. He’d have real pain – pain I could use if one of these aristocrats tried to—

Someone slammed into me, knocking me to the ground.

“I got her!” a man yelled, practically in my ear.

“Get off her,” Danello said. The weight vanished, and he dragged me back to my feet.

Unconscious people were still on the ground and probably would be for a while. The others surrounded us, fear and anger on their faces. Except for a woman with the boy I’d helped. They looked at me with gratitude.

Be nice if you told your friends to leave me alone.

“Everyone settle down,” Ellis said, sword out. Copli was on his feet again, a gash across his forehead. Danello stayed near me, but still close enough to the others to back them up.

“But that’s the Shifter,” a woman said.

Ellis shrugged. “So?”

“She tried to kill the Duke!”

“No, she didn’t. He almost killed her and she defended herself. So unless you want to see what happens when she feels threatened, I suggest you all calm down.”

Not exactly what I would have said to accomplish that, but they did take another step back. I moved towards the injured guard. He’d been hurt badly, and too much blood pooled beneath him. Dark blood, which meant a pierced organ.

One of the aristocrats jerked and pointed. “What’s she doing?”

“Helping him, you idiot,” Aylin said, “What do you think she’s doing?”

“If I don’t stop that bleeding, he’s going to die.” I reached the fallen guard. No one else tried to stop me, but quite a few fidgeted as if ready to jump on me if I tried anything they didn’t like.

He’d been stabbed low on the side, over his liver. I placed one hand on his wound, the other on his forehead, felt my way in. Winced. Lots of damage, like the knife had sliced sideways and not just stabbed. I focused on closing the tears, sealing the holes. I drew, and pain flowed from him to me, sharp aches that spread through my middle. He groaned and opened his eyes.

“You’re going to be OK,” I said softly. So would I once we got back to the farmhouse and found a Healer who could take the pain from me.

He stood, swaying a bit, and I steadied him. Murmurs slid through the crowd, though they shouldn’t have. Wasn’t like aristocrats had never seen someone healed before. They were the only ones who could afford it these days.

“What did she do to him?”

“Saved his life.”

“She’s a criminal,” the same man said.

Ellis smiled. “No more than you.”

“But she’s—”

“Oh for Saints’ sake,” the woman with the boy said. “She’s a child. Do you really believe everything the Duke says?”

“I believe what I just saw.”

“So do I. She saved a life while you hurt my son and other people’s sons and daughters. Over what? Petty theft?” She shook her head and pulled her son closer. “You’re more criminal than she is.”

A few muttered in what sounded like agreement.