“I know, Father.”
I reached out and stroked his arm, truly proud of him for the first time since Mother died.
Autumn came, and I prepared for our dangerous departure. I said nothing to Mariah. I knew she would fight me. She was going on fourteen, and for her, this place meant food and stability.
Finally, the day arrived when our men were paid, and I knew Father and Marcus were going to unveil their plan to the other men. I wasn’t entirely certain why Father had waited so long, but I think he feared that the younger men—Mikolai, Payton, and Orlando—would feel the same as Mariah and would not want to go back on the road. Perhaps he felt that if he sprang it on them when they all had money, they would be more likely to take a chance.
After the hour when their work had ended that day, I waited for them all to come home . . . and I waited. No one came.
Katlyn, Mariah, Marcus, and I grew worried.
Then one of the miners’ wives came to tell us that on payday, once a year, the men were excused at noon, so they could make the walk—several hours—to a large village somewhere between Ryazan and Enêmûsk, where they would use their money to have a mug of ale and buy supplies they could not get here. They would stay the night and come back in the morning, and then they would see Captain Garrett and sign new contracts.
I didn’t believe my father would do this, and that if he had gone with our men, it was only to explain his plan.
But the next day, just past noon, he walked slowly up to our wagon, and I could see the defeat in his face. Marcus ran up to him, and I had never seen Marcus desperate before. He hated this place, and he’d believed we were leaving.
“What’s happened?” he asked.
“They wouldn’t agree,” my father answered hoarsely, “not even your father. They said stealing horses from the soldiers was madness, and we would be caught and hanged. They spent their money, and they all signed a new contract.”
Marcus stumbled backward. “And you?”
“I . . . signed as well. I cannot leave the family.”
Marcus’s features twisted in bitter disappointment. Turning, he ran into the forest. But by now, I knew he’d be back. He wouldn’t leave the family either.
And so we began our second year in Ryazan.
Somewhere along the way, I began to stop caring about many things. Like a number of the older miners, Uncle Landrien began having problems with his joints, until he could barely close his hands without pain. I knew I should have pitied him, but I was beginning to have trouble just making it through the days with my washing and mending and cooking, each day blending into the next.
I never thought I would miss traveling, miss the road, but I did. In my entire life, I had never been in one place for so long. Our men stopped laughing. They stopped singing and playing their violins.
Captain Garrett was replaced by another man named Captain Asher, along with a new crop of soldiers who served under him. Asher didn’t have much to do with us so long as the silver in the mines kept flowing—and it did.
In that second year, a small part of me began to worry more about Mariah. She rarely spoke, and she seemed to spend much of her time off by herself. She resented helping me with the washing or the cooking, and it was easier for me to do it myself than to try to force her. She was growing up wild, but I couldn’t seem to bring myself to care.
I watched my father fading before my eyes.
The following autumn, most of our men signed their third contract, but Uncle Landrien could not. His joints had grown so painful from the cold and the damp and the relentless work in the mines that he could barely walk.
Orlando and Payton both married girls from the miners’ camp, thus grounding themselves forever.
Marcus continued to hunt for us, but he seemed to speak less and less.
The following winter, Mariah turned sixteen. She was hauntingly beautiful.
Not long after, my father caught a fever, and he died.
All of these things began to feel as if they were happening in someone else’s life, that I was just an observer. One day blended into the next.
Then, in the spring of our third year in Ryazan, Captain Asher died, and his replacement was not long in arriving. His name was Captain Keegan, and I felt a wave of fear the first time he visited the miners’ encampment. He looked at my family and me as if we were filth. I could see the disgust in his eyes, but his eyes stopped for much too long on Mariah, moving up and down her slight body and exquisite face.
He didn’t say a word. He just turned and walked away.
He had a handsome lieutenant named Sullian serving with him, along with a corporal named Quinn, who both struck me as fair men, and I hoped perhaps we would end up dealing with them more than with their captain.
But a week later, Keegan came back . . . to see me.
“I’ve done some checking,” he said, “and you and your sister have no man working in the mines. The rules are clear, and they were written for good reason. Women who have no men working in the mines need to clear out and make space.”
“We’re not taking up any space,” I argued. “This wagon belongs to us. And we do have men working in the mines, my cousin Mikolai and my second cousin Micah.”
“Those men aren’t part of your household, and your father’s dead. You’ll need to clear out. Take your wagon if you can buy a horse somewhere.”
He walked away. I couldn’t believe it. He was ordering Mariah and me to leave.
When I told Mikolai and Marcus, of course they came to our defense, and Mikolai went to speak with the captain, to tell him that Mariah and I were part of his family. He came back grim faced and said that the captain had told him that since he was not a husband or father to us, he didn’t count, and we would have to leave.
We had no horses, and we could not take our wagon. With the possible exception of Marcus, I didn’t think any of our men would go with us—and even he might not leave his father. What would become of us?
I spent the next two days in fear, thinking that soldiers might come at any moment to drive Mariah and me out of camp, but they didn’t.
Instead, Mariah came in late, opening the door to the wagon and slipping inside long after dark.
“We don’t have to leave,” she said.
“What?” I asked in confusion. “I don’t think that captain will change his mind.”
“I’m not going anywhere!” she spat at me, and then I could see that she was upset, her small hands trembling. “I’ve made a bargain with the captain. You and I can stay, and in exchange, Marcus will give him wild game for his table, and I will give him . . .” She trailed off.
I went cold. “You’ll give him what?”
She turned away, and reality hit me. This was what he’d been after all along. This was why he’d threatened to banish us: to place her under his power.
I should have been outraged. I should have taken a knife and gone after him. But I didn’t.
“We can stay?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I wasn’t even relieved. I didn’t feel anything.
That day blended into the next.
Chapter Ten
Somehow, Amelie drew her hand away. She couldn’t watch any more of the events that led up to the state of Mercedes and Mariah’s current life. While doing readings, her targets were not normally actively involved, but this one had been different. She’d felt Mercedes with her, almost speaking to her, all along.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I couldn’t watch anymore.”
Mercedes just sat there with bleak eyes, and Amelie realized what it must have cost her to relive all that.