Shaw said little about his friends on the way here. As willingly as he answered my questions about Ferusa at large, his answers about himself were always clipped and pointed. He admitted they’re his best friends, a fact I’m still trying to work my head around as Shaw doesn’t seem like the type to haveanyfriends, let alone best ones. He insisted we will need their help both to rescue Denver and find my parents and I’m sure he’s right. If I’ve learned anything, there is safety in numbers in Ferusa. But dread fills me when I imagine reuniting with the two. It doesn’t matter how warm Calloway was, the hatred that glinted in Max’s eyes was clear. A week or two apart will have done little to temper it.
“The Achijj’s territory is only a day’s ride from Nadjaa. And if everything goes according to plan, hopefully we’ll be in and out before the sun sets.”
Does anything ever go according to plan? I keep this thought to myself.
Shaw watches me across the fire. Now that darkness has fallen more fully, the shadows sharpen the planes of his face. “I’m still not sure where to start,” he admits thoughtfully, eyeing the coin that still hangs around my neck. I touch it absently. I haven’t yet told him it was the catalyst that sent me over the Boundary, but he seems to have guessed it all the same.
Panic rises in my throat, the same that has been threatening to crest over me since I left Similis.
“The world is a big place, Lemming,” Shaw says as if I’ve cast my thoughts into the open air.
“I know that,” I bite out. My voice sounds small in the expanse of the forest and my longing for the sweeping adventure of unknown places is overcome by an overwhelming sense of insignificance.
Shaw’s face is emotionless. “You’ve witnessed firsthand the kind of people that lurk outside the Boundary. Lowest of the low, just waiting for easy Lemming targets to be pushed out of the gates,” his voice trails off, but he doesn’t need to finish his thoughts. He thinks my parents are dead. It’s an easy conclusion to come to—I’dbe dead if it wasn’t for Shaw—one that has plagued the depths of my dreams and lined almost every waking moment since I discovered Dark Worlders are capable of killing if they’re determined enough.
“They aren’t dead,” I insist, cringing at the desperate edge of my voice. As if I’m pleading with fate itself. Shaw looks at me sorrowfully and I fight the urge to throw myself at him. How dare he pity me, the boy who is angry and alone, as ifIam the one in need of it.
I rarely allow myself to think of the last time I saw my father anymore. It’s not even really a memory, just a breath of time that has gotten smaller and smaller as the years carry it further away. But I remember his eyes as vividly as if I saw them yesterday. They were—no,are—the same shade of green as mine. And the last time I saw him, they twinkled with laughter. We are a muted people, but my father was not. He was vivacious and excited and most importantly, hedreamed.He whispered in the darkness of our quarterage, dreams of living and of changing. It’s where my voracious appetite for knowledge stems along with my horrendous idea that things can be different than they are. He never took living for granted, even in Similis, and he wouldn’t have given up.
“Listen to me,” I implore. Shaw straightens at my tone. “I know you don’t believe my parents made it very far into Ferusa, but I do. And I will help you save Denver whether or not we find them alive or dead. I just need you to believe that enough to help me in return.”
Shaw nods, considering me. “If your parents made it, it was probably as slaves somewhere.” His tone is matter of fact, but when he meets me gaze, his face is full of an unassailable intensity that I’m grateful to have on my side. Whatever Shaw’s faults, he never retreats. Never surrenders, even when the odds are entirely stacked against him. “But I believe in you, Mirren. And that’s enough.”
* * *
Shaw
Dinner is bland. Food on the road is rarely anything spectacular, but at least when I had my pack, I was able to break up the monotony with a few spices and stale scones. Mirren eats without complaint, as if I’ve served her a feast. I shudder to think what she eats in Similis that makes unspiced rabbit meat taste so appealing. I resolve to buy her fresh pastries as soon as we arrive in Nadjaa. The kind filled with sugared cream and drizzled in chocolate.
I’m imagining the little sighs of contentment that escape her lips whenever she eats and how much deeper they’d be if chocolate was involved, when a branch snaps to my left. Mirren licks her fingers happily, her pink tongue swirling over the juice, unaware that anything is amiss. But I know the sounds of the woods—had to know, or I never would have survived them—and that sound means one thing. Something, orsomeone,is out there.
I go still and Mirren’s eyes widen in dismay. Her fingers fall slowly from her lips as another sound snaps. She is remembering the Ditya wolf and the yamardu, creatures twisted by the Nemoran wood, but we are far enough from that forest a different danger is more likely—one of the human variety.
She moves slowly as to not alert our interloper, but soon enough, her dagger is in her hand. We’ve trained a little in the few hours we’ve had along the road, and while it’s not nearly enough for her to be competent, it’s enough to soothe my raw edge of fear that she will be completely unprotected. After watching her in Cullen’s camp, I’m confident she can at least defend herself long enough for me to get to her.
I motion for her to stay still and disappear into the woods, heading in the opposite direction of the commotion. Let whoever it is think I’ve gone, that Mirren is alone and an easy target, while I circle back and get a good look at who we’re dealing with. I was meticulous in covering our tracks, but the Praeceptor’s men are resourceful. It’s only a matter of time before they hunt us down.
I move silently through the trees, careful of my footfalls against the crunchy leaves, something I do without conscious thought. It was ingrained in me since birth that noise is costly. Deadly. And then reiterated over and over again through blood and fear and pain until I was as silent as a ghost. And as invisible as one.
Another twig snaps. Whoever the intruder, they are either an amateur or confident enough in their skills that the element of surprise isn’t needed.
I circle around quickly and peer through the trees. Mirren sits next to the fire, her chestnut mane bathed in flickering gold. All is still. I take a deep breath, allowing the Darkness of the void to flame up inside me until it licks at my fingertips and settles over my mind; hot, pure focus. I slowly withdraw two daggers.
It happens fast. Two of them dart from the trees. Mirren’s eyes widen. She stands slowly, slipping her dagger nimbly into the pocket of that gods-awful jumpsuit before her attackers can see. Pride swells in my chest at her fast mind.
“Down on the ground,” one of them barks. A man. He holds a standard, low caliber hunting rifle. Not a typical weapon of highwaymen or armed warfare. He shoves Mirren with it and the urge to tear him limb from limb shreds through me. The man is larger than his accomplice, which isn’t saying much. Bones protrude from both their bodies in the stark relief only routine hunger brings.
“Please don’t hurt me,” Mirren whimpers. I almost do a double take at how easily she slips into that helpless voice. I haven’t heard it since before she set the yarmardu on me, this voice that rings with weakness. A character, I now realize, and one she wields with deadly accuracy against those who would underestimate her.
“On the ground,” the man says again. It takes me a moment to decipher what’s off about his tone. It isn’t the voice of a man at all. It’s the voice of a frightened boy.
The heat in my veins cools slightly, but I remain wary. I know better than anyone how dangerous a desperate child can be. Mirren lowers herself to the ground with her hands above her head. Her eyes never flick to the trees, never give any indication that I’m somewhere close by.
The boy motions to his accomplice and the smaller one begins to collect our meager supply of belongings. If they’re here to rob us, the irony is almost comical; they couldn’t have picked worse targets. I’m debating whether or not to simply let them abscond with our meager collection of herbs and bandages when the boy speaks to Mirren once more. “Now your necklace. Give it here.”
Her body goes rigid. He means the small strip of fabric tied around her neck, the one that holds a coin worth practically nothing. But in the short time I’ve known her, Mirren has never taken it off, not even when she was nursing a bruised windpipe. I’ve watched her fingers drift to it countless times as her mind wandered somewhere far away, as if the touch of its cool metal grounds her. As far as I know, Similians don’t make a habit of keeping jewelry—of keeping anything, really. Nothing belongs to them, but the necklace belongs to Mirren. She won’t give it up easily.
“Please.” Sharpness edges her voice now. Her character is slipping. If the darkness wasn’t obstructing my view, I’d see that wild heat flickering in her eyes. “Take anything you want. Just not my necklace.”
