“Good luck with that,” Abe says.
“I’ll go on my own if I have to,” Buff says and I see him cross his arms across his chest. “Is anyone else with me?”
Silence. There are quick glances between the people of the Tri-Tribes.
Wilde says, “We’ve talked it over…”
Skye scrapes a foot on the floor, looking down the whole time. I notice she’s shaking her head slightly, as if she doesn’t necessarily agree with the decision that’s been made.
“…and we think it best to return to fire country, to gather as many able-bodied men and women as we can, and to come back in force.”
“Nay,” I croak. I intend it as a shout, a cry of defiance, but it comes out all garbled and raspy. When everyone turns to look at me, I say it again, even softer. “Nay.”
Buff strides over. “I’m going with you,” he says. “We’re going to get Jolie. We’ll break down the gates and kill every one of Goff’s men, and then the king himself.”
I smile, my lips dry and chapped. “Yah. We will,” I say, clasping his outstretched palm. “Raising chill and kicking arse. Like always.”
“Like always,” he says.
“No,” says a voice from behind him. Buff moves aside to reveal Skye, who’s moved within a few steps of my bed. In my mind flashes memories: we strain through the bars, touching each other’s arms, desperately trying to lock lips; she brushes past me in the dungeons, so close I could touch her, if I’d only reached out; her warmth against me, her arm around me, providing an alternative to my grief. “You need to come with us,” she says, and the memories come crashing down like a fallen star.
“We’re going after my sister,” I say, my voice strengthening. I sit up, swing my feet over the side, plant them firmly on the floor. “With or without you.”
Our eyes lock and we’re both fighting it. The need we felt in the dungeon. Amidst everything—all the turmoil, the strife, the death—still there, pulling, pulling, banging, crashing through everything we say, everything we do, everything we want, like an avalanche, an unstoppable force of nature. But I fight it and I can see in her fathomless brown eyes, she’s doing the same. Me with thoughts of saving my sister and avenging my brother’s death, and her with doing right by her people, both of her sisters, one who’s alive and one who might be.
“Don’t,” she says.
I want to give her the option to come with us, but I can’t. I can’t ask that of her when it’s suicide, when it’s crazy. When it’s what I have to do.
“I can’t,” I say.
She turns and walks back to her people.
~~~
Buff and I know as well as anyone that we need to let things cool down a little before we go back to the palace.
So that leaves us to escort the others to the border, where we’ll bid them farewell. Each of them—save for Feve—has already promised me multiple times that they’ll return with many warriors. Wilde even offered her own promise, and I almost believe it coming from her. I thank them and smile, when in my heart I know that by then it’ll probably be too late.
Abe and Hightower have the worst injuries and will stay at Maddy’s for a while longer. Before we leave, I stand between their beds. “Thank you,” I say to both of them, my head bouncing back and forth. “For doing what you did.”
Abe sighs, opens his mouth, says something I’d never expect him to say in a million years. “I hate that bastard, King Goff.”
“But you’re his—”
“Slave?” Not what I was going to say. “Look, kid,” Abe says, “I know you think we’re the king’s evil little helpers and all that, but that’s not really us. We do what we’re told because the king’s had leverage over us from the start. He had my wife, Dazz.”
I can’t help raising my eyebrows, both because Abe called me by my real name and because he’s not who I thought he was. Not even close. Then I realize: He had my wife.
“What happened to her?” I ask, dread creeping into my cracking voice.
He just shakes his head. “Kid, you must think I’m a monster. Taking all those kids, giving them to the king.” I did think him monster-like, but not anymore. “Was my wife’s life more important than theirs? I could only hope the king wasn’t hurting them, was treating them okay, was using them as servants. He said he’d kill my wife if I didn’t help him.” There’s sadness in his voice, laced with shreds of remorse. But he still didn’t answer my question. I don’t ask again.
Abe continues anyway. “I always said I’d make up for the many wrongs I’d caused, but I never really believed I would. It’s just what I told myself so I could sleep at night. But then…” His eyes cloud and his voice turns whisper soft. “Then, last night, when I showed up for my weekly visitation, part of my agreement with the king, she was gone, my Liza, her chains left in a pile in her cell, which was in one of the towers. The guard passed along the king’s regrets, how they’d tried to save her, but that her self-inflicted wounds were too serious to reverse. I grabbed Tower and Brock and marched straight to the dungeons.”
I tilt my head to the side, bite my lip. Abe could’ve fallen into a dark pit of sorrow, left us to rot in the dungeons. But he didn’t. He didn’t. He came for us.
I grasp his hand. “I’m so sorry,” I say. “You have more than made up for the sins of your past.”
He squeezes back. “Kill that bastard king,” he says. “If it’s the last thing you do.”
“I will,” I say. “I’ll do it for Liza, for Wes, for the kids. For my sister.”
He nods and lets go.
Hightower grunts and holds out a big hand, which I take, squeezing it firmly.
“To Brock,” I say, raising a fist. They each raise a fist of their own and I knock mine against them, each in turn.
“To Brock,” Abe mumbles, “the no-good scoundrel.”
~~~
I stop in front of Maddy on the way out. She’s pretending to busy herself in the cabinet, rearranging the supplies.
“Thank you,” I say.
She doesn’t turn around. “Abe paid me good silver—”
“Thank you for trying,” I say.
She returns to fiddling with the supplies and I walk on, but when I look back she’s watching me go, her face streaked and glistening with tears.
Outside, I push Wes outta my mind so I don’t breakdown or break someone’s face. I focus on Jolie. I’m coming for you, girl, I think.
We take backstreets—nay, streets that are behind the backstreets, streets that no respecting king or his guardsmen would ever find themselves walking down. Beggars and those in a drug coma rest against the walls, enjoying a bit of summer sun that breaks through the dense cloud cover. There’s still snow on the ground, but it’s not cold snow.
The Red District disappears and we enter the forest. A snowbird speaks to us in whistles and light tones. If it wasn’t for my icin’ memories, I could almost be happy on a day like this.
A forced silence sets in on all of us, as if we believe the songbirds and the trees are the king’s ears, and if we speak they’ll fly or march to the palace to tell him what we said. It gives me plenny of time to watch the people I’m with, the people I wish were coming with us.
Feve’s well ahead of the group, steady and calm. Everything about him seems so self-assured, so confident. I can’t read him though, and every time I look at him I feel like he’s struggling to read me too.
Siena’s walking along next to Circ, who’s limping a little but seems to have recovered well. His leg is heavily wrapped but it must be a flesh wound, not a bone or muscle injury. We all got pretty lucky, considering. All of us except for…
I shake my head around, tell my brain to freezin’ leave me the freeze alone or I’ll freezin’ slam you against the next freezin’ tree I see! That shuts him up for a few minutes and then he says, Wes. I bite my lip, hard enough to draw blood, and go back to watching.
Siena’s shivering pretty badly, although her skins are thick. Funny though, I never really noticed any of them being cold until now. I take off my coat and give it to her. She doesn’t say anything because her teeth are chattering so much, just takes it and wraps it around herself like a blanket.