“That’s even worse,girl.Of your own admission and your own volition, you’ve given up all rights to what you want out of life on the slim promise of hope. You let him parade you out with your sword and your cutting words and fight his fight for him. You kneel.”
“Weobey,there’s a difference,” Urtzi replied before Ula got a chance—more measured than Ula expected, but also unable to stop himself.
“The difference is semantic!” the man shouted. “Obeyinguntil you rot for someone else.If you put your life on the line for someone above you, your freedom is gone.”
“Not if youbelievein them,” Ula answered, teeth bared and sharp. “I believe in the Otsakumea, and I am pledged to him of my own free will because I believe in him so much.”
The man scoffed. “What is bending the knee but paying penance?”
“They’re different,” Urtzi insisted yet again, the muscles in his lanky arms coiling until the tops of his shoulders twitched.
“They fill coffers, just the same,” snarled the woman and her wolf.
“No, no.” Tala held up a hand. “The Warlord acceptedpeopleas penance, not goods and gold in the name of Torrence as a whole. You cannot lump a tax collected for the greater good of rebuilding Torrence with the trafficking and murder of human beings.”
It was a good argument, yet still the injured man kept coming, flinging assumptions. “Can’t I? What happens if I don’t pay? Will I rot in the sun, or in the dungeons of Ardenia?”
“You will not rot in either,” Tala answered firmly.
“Then I will not pay. And I will not obey.”
“And for your insolence, you won’t suffer. You’re a free man. This is your home. He won’t storm these walls, yank you from your abode, and toss you in the compost. The Otsakumea isnotthe Warlord.” It was Ula’s anger that answered this man. “He has never given me an order I couldn’t turn down. He has never asked me to kneel. But Iwould. I’ll do anything he asks of me. I owe it to my parents and his to follow him. He is our king.”
“Says who?” There were people nodding behind the injured man. He challenged her, but he was not alone. “Some ink on his chest? Some blood in his veins? How is his blood any different from our own?”
“It’s not and that’s the point,” Ula spit back. “Luca is one of us. Come with us or don’t. Kneel or don’t. The Otsakumea will repair Torrence with you or for you. Either way you will benefit.”
With that, Ula had no more to say.
DESPITEthe tension, the resistance group spent the night within the walls of the inn, camping with the Tilden caravan in the great open yard, and leaving the squatters of the inn to their shut doors and low conversations.
Ula didn’t apologize. She didn’t retreat either. And so, Ula sat next to Urtzi and stared into the fire. Or at least she seemed to. Her eyes were actually on Tala, who’d moved to the edges of their camp, taking the long way around to his tent. Nothing about it felt right, which is exactly why she was watching.
And Urtzi was, too. He leaned in close to her ear and whispered, “Is that a bird?”
Ula nodded once, slight yet unmistakably affirmative.
Indeed, there was a black bird with enough white markings to make it visible in the dark. Tala crouched to it, shielding it from the firelight. It almost looked as if he were inspecting the scrubby brush for something interesting.
Ula stood, brushed red dirt from her trousers, and approached, Urtzi following as her massive, broad-backed shadow. Most everyone in camp was asleep or appeared to be so. Moving quietly, she placed a gentle hand upon Tala’s bony shoulder as not to startle him and wake the others. “Do we have word from Luca?”
In his crouch, Tala shook his head, an answer already prepared. “Word from the watchers. They have not seen Geneva.”
“That’s a pity,” Ula whispered, and to her relief, Urtzi played along by nodding even if he didn’t know exactly what she was up to. “Have they learned anything else of note?”
Tala stood, creaking body taking a little while to unspool from the crouch to his full height. “No.”
Ula was about to ask to take a look, but rather than pocketing the note as she’d hoped, Tala crumpled it into a ball and tossed it into the fire. He was far enough away, and the parchment was light enough, that the breeze grabbed hold and the letter dropped to the edge of the embers instead of in the dead center.
“Perhaps better news will come tomorrow,” the old man said before extracting himself with a weary nod. “Good night.”
Then, Tala nearly ran to his tent. That kept him from more questions—but also benefited their cause. As soon as he was hidden away, Ula withdrew the sword from her back and stabbed the tip into the flames—pretending to stoke the fire but really kicking out what was left of the quickly burning ball. She rolled it along the sandy dirt with her blade, trying to stamp out the flame. Then she crouched down, pretending to return to resting by the fire, and whispered to Urtzi, “Your daggers. Hurry.”
He did as he was told, handing them over. Ula used the metal blades to tease the charred ball open, hoping that at least a few words of the message would be clear enough to read. “I thought all the resistance caracaras were straight black?” Urtzi asked in a whisper as she worked, yet again proving that he was more observant than anyone gave him credit for.
“They are.”
“So, who’s that from?”
