Bluewing (6 page)

“You’ll have to do better than that,” I answered. “I need specifics, promises. We will need places for refugees from across the river to stay. Those of us who are Frost natives must have their property returned.”

“It will be done,” the man said.

I couldn’t trust them. Not yet. “I’ll have to speak with my superiors,” I said. “We will contact you with our answer.”

The Blackcoat nodded. He retreated into the forest, followed by his companions. Everiss and I rejoined Arla and Gabe, and we headed for Echlos.

~

Jonn gazed placidly at me across the table as I paced. He held a long, slender tool in his hand, and he was using it to try to open the box I’d found in the ruins of Borde’s lab.

“I don’t know if we should do this,” I said for the tenth time.

“It’s a smart move for us to make,” he said, twisting his wrist gently to the left and lowering his ear to the lock. “They’re right, you know. We can’t keep living this way. We need a better location. The Farthers are starving the town, and we are hanging on by our fingernails out here. If we can work together to drive them away, we should.”

I faced him and took a deep breath. “I want the farm back, Jonn.”

His eyelashes flickered, and I knew he did, too. He straightened and set down the tool.

“We’ll get it,” he promised me.

I didn’t share his hope.

~

I crouched at the edge of the wall of forest that separated the Frost from civilization. With shaking fingers, I moved a snow-covered branch and peered through the hole in the foliage that I’d made. Across a yard blanketed with snow, I saw it.

My family’s farm.

Footprints crisscrossed the yard, trampling a muddy path from the front door to the barn. The paddock held three horses with shaggy coats and droopy heads. Faintly, I heard the sound of laughter drift on the wind.

Something hot and furious brewed in my stomach.

“What is this place?” Arla whispered from where she knelt beside me. “I thought we were supposed to be checking traps.”

“It’s my family’s farm,” I said. “My home.”

“Oh.” She breathed the word reverently, because the idea of home ignited a worshipful feeling in all of us these days. “I remember it now. I came here before the gate.”

“Stay here.” I shoved back the branches and stepped through the perimeter of trees into the yard. My heart pounded a sick rhythm against my ribs, making me dizzy, but I didn’t stop until I’d reached the whitewashed walls of the farmhouse. I inched along the side until I reached a window. Moving so slowly that my muscles screamed in protest, I lifted my head and peered through the glass.

The curtains were only half-drawn, so I could see into the main room. The furniture was all in disarray—my ma’s chair was shoved against the wall, and the other chairs drawn close to the fire. Pairs of muddy boots lay around the hearth, and someone’s socks were strewn across the floor.

My throat squeezed.

As I watched, a man stepped into view. He rubbed a hand through his tangled hair and scratched beneath one arm. He wore an unbuttoned gray coat with brass buttons.

Farther soldiers were living in my family’s farmhouse.

I shivered with rage. My pulse throbbed in my ears, and my hands were clenched so tightly into fists that my fingernails dug into my palms through my gloves. I dropped back into a crouch and crept back along the wall.

“What is it?” Arla asked when I reached her again. “Is something wrong?”

I shook my head, unable to articulate the storm building inside me. “Let’s just keep going. We have to check the traps.”

We pushed through the web of branches obscuring the path, moving gingerly around jutting rocks and fallen limbs. Flashes of blue filled my vision as we passed banks of snow blossoms growing wild. Their scent perfumed the air and tickled my nose. Beside me, Arla sneezed.

I paused. The birds had fallen silent. Was it our passage that frightened them, or something else? The skin on the back of my neck crawled.

Arla craned her neck to see around us. “Did you hear—?”

A gunshot rang out, and Arla cried aloud. “Lia!”

Soldiers
.

I swung around, scanning the trees, but I saw nothing except the wet black of branches and the blinding white of snow. No flutters of gray. No glint of weapons.

“Lia,” Arla said again.

“Run,” I gritted out.

I grabbed her arm and pushed her forward, following behind her, scrambling into the cover of the trees and up a snow-crusted bank. It had to be a patrol like I’d seen before, the one looking for Gabe. We must have stumbled across one of their circuits by mistake. We had to double back, disguise our tracks, take the long way to Echlos. We couldn’t lead them to the others.

“This way,” I hissed. “We’ll head west and circle back around.”

Arla staggered, and I caught her with both hands. My palms came away slick with blood. Red bloomed across the side of her cloak.

“It hurts.” Her eyes were wild as they met mine. Dread struck me to the bone, but I shoved it deep down where it couldn’t paralyze me. I didn’t have to time to do anything but act.

“Come on. We have to keep moving.”

She nodded. Her skin was draining of color and her eyes were dulling. I took her by both shoulders and shook her. “Stay with me,” I commanded. “Arla!”

“Keep moving,” she repeated in a painful whisper.

I slipped one arm beneath her shoulder and wrapped it carefully around her wounded side. She sucked in a breath, the only sound she made as I touched the wound accidentally.

Together, we hobbled west, stopping frequently to duck into the bushes and wait for the sounds of pursuit. Every time we stopped, Arla sagged to the ground and wheezed as if unable to breathe. I bent over her, frantic as I scanned her expression. Had the bullet punctured a lung?

“You’re going to be fine,” I said again and again. “We’ll get you back. The others will know what to do.”

“Yes,” she murmured. “I’ll be fine, Lia. I crawled my way into the Frost with a broken leg before your parents found me.”

I tried to help her up again, but she couldn’t rise. Her eyes fluttered closed, and her breathing slacked.

“Arla,” I whispered, frantic. “Arla!”

She didn’t respond. Her lips began to turn gray, and her skin waxy. Her hand dropped from mine into the snow. I cradled her in my arms as a burning pressure built in my throat and behind my eyes.

She was dead.

I made a single, strangled sound as her body cooled against me and my thoughts spun with rage and grief and shock.

~

“She died bravely.”

I stood before the shallow grave we’d dug. A mound of snow, covered with snow blossoms, made a stark hill in the middle of the white plain before Echlos’ entrance. Grief sat like a stone on my heart. She’d been in my care. And she’d died.

“She didn’t give up. She kept going until she couldn’t go any more...”

My words faltered. I drew in a shuddering breath. It was a pitiful eulogy. I was no good at speeches.

“She shouldn’t be dead,” I finished.

“It isn’t your fault,” Gabe said. He stood beside me, holding a shovel. A few of the other fugitives clustered around us, looking down at the grave. No one else spoke.

“No. Not mine. It’s their fault. The soldiers. Raine. This whole occupation.”

I ground my teeth together and turned back toward Echlos. I would give the Blackcoats their answer.

THE ROOFS OF the village gleamed silver in the moonlight, like a ragged mountain range topped with ice. I held my breath as I waited for the Farther soldier on the wall to pass, and then Gabe and I ran together to the place where we could squeeze through the wall and into the village. My lungs hurt and my whole body sparked with apprehension, but I shoved away every feeling and focused on the world around me—the dull rasp of my boots against the cobblestones, the hiss of my breath joining the wind that whipped around us, the thud of my knuckles knocking against the door below the sign of the Blacksmith.

Hinges creaked, a swath of light split the night, and then we were drawn inside a bright room by reaching hands. The door shut behind us, and light momentarily blinded my eyes.

I blinked as my vision adjusted. We stood in the back room of the blacksmith shop. Shuttered windows lined the walls, and a ladder led to an upstairs room in the far corner. Tables and benches were shoved back to make space to stand.

Four figures dressed in black shirts and trousers stood before us. I recognized them all, but only vaguely—one was a Fisher, and one was an older man who worked as a Tanner. The third, a woman, was the sister of Leon Blacksmith, the former Blackcoats leader who had been shot by Korr as he tried to steal the PLD from me. Unlike us, their faces were uncovered except for one final figure. Based on his height and the shape of his shoulders, I guessed he was the leader from last time we’d met. He wore a black scarf around his nose and mouth just as Gabe and I did, and I couldn’t see his face. A pair of tired eyes peered at me over the cloth. He didn’t blink.

“Show us the sign,” Laina demanded. She was a brown-haired, slender woman with chapped hands and a freckled nose.

I pulled out the silver brooch that had belonged to my parents before me. The Blackcoats relaxed visibly.

“You aren’t going to show your faces?” Laina asked.

“No,” I said, speaking again in a low, gruff voice so they wouldn’t recognize mine, even though I doubted they would. “We wish to keep our faces to ourselves.” I nodded at their masked leader. “And him?”

“The same,” the figure said, and his voice was equally muffled.

“This is Sam Fisher and Yoel Tanner, and I am Laina Blacksmith,” she said, pointing to each in turn as she named them. “And your names?”

I hesitated. I had not prepared an alias.

“Garrett,” Gabe said quickly, using the name he’d gone by in the past. They all nodded in greeting.

I followed his lead. “Lila,” I said. “Lila...Bluewing.”

A few eyes widened, and they smiled.

The bluewing, that tiny, plucky bird that dared to live within the poisonous embrace of the stingweed, had always been an inspiration to those who lived in the Frost. They recognized the reference, and clearly appreciated it.

The masked leader stepped forward. “Thank you for agreeing to meet. I know we all take a great risk in doing so. Raine grows increasingly suspicious every day. He is receiving pressure from Aeralis, although we don’t know why or to what end. The nobleman Korr continues to ask questions, too. He’s up to something and cannot be trusted.”

Gabe and Laina both stiffened at the mention of Korr. Laina, I supposed, was thinking of her brother. And Gabe was thinking of his.

“And what do you want us to do?” I asked.

“We want to take back Iceliss,” Laina said. Her eyes glittered as she spoke, and her fingers curled into fists. “And we need your people’s help.”

“But you live in the village,” I pointed out. “We live outside it. Why do you need our help?”

Laina crossed her arms. “Your people are skilled in gathering information. You know the Frost, the forests. You are brave and strong and cunning. We need you if we want to have any hope of defeating the Farthers.”

“Some of us—most of us—
are
Farthers,” I said. “The old Blackcoats wanted nothing to do with Aeralians or sympathizers. Are you still willing to work with us, knowing who we are?”

The masked figure spoke. “The enemies of our enemies are our friends.”

“My brother felt differently,” Laina said. “He’s dead now. I do not want to follow in his ways.”

I looked at Gabe and he looked at me. All I could see was the glimmer of his eyes shining in the lamplight. He nodded slightly, giving his support, and I turned back to the Blackcoats. I reached out my gloved hand, and Laina took it.

“We—” I began.

A pounding sound filled the air, and a harsh voice called for someone to open the door. I froze. Laina’s mouth fell open, and she jerked back as the oak panels behind us shuddered.

“Soldiers,” she hissed.

A piece of the door splintered away. I saw a flash of hardened faces and gray uniforms, and a wave of dizziness shot through me along with a single, penetrating realization.

We were going to be caught.

Laina screamed for us to run. Gabe grabbed me by both shoulders and pushed me forward as Farther soldiers streamed inside the room.

We scattered. Laina and Sam fled for the back. Yoel threw open a window and wriggled out. The masked Blackcoat had already vanished.

“This way,” I called to Gabe as I ran for the ladder that led to the second story. He was right behind me. The soldiers yelled for us to halt, but we climbed without stopping.

I reached the top and scrambled onto the wooden floor with Gabe right behind me. We ran for the window, and I threw it open. Beyond, shingles glimmered with ice, but we had no other choice. My fingers dug into the frame as I hoisted myself through the hole. My feet slipped, and Gabe grabbed my hands.

“Careful.”

I felt around with my heels until I found purchase against the roof. Behind me, the shutters splintered, and Gabe tumbled out as something whistled past my ear. Bullets.

The soldiers were shooting at us.

“Come on.” He pushed me forward, and we slid down the incline of the roof toward the ground. I slipped from the edge and landed in a bank of snow. Gabe’s hands found mine again, and we ran.

We had to get out before the soldiers found us.

Wind whipped through my hair and snagged my cloak. I ran down a narrow alley and turned a tight corner with Gabe at my side. We were a few streets away from the break in the wall. Shouts and footsteps rang out behind us. I ran faster, turning another corner. Almost there—

Hands grabbed my cloak and yanked me into a dark room. I fought, kicking and clawing, and someone yelped and cursed. I was shoved against a wall.

“It’s us, it’s us, stop fighting!”

I recognized that voice. Laina. I paused, and the person holding me took the opportunity to pin my wrists firmly in place against the wall. Someone behind her lit a match, and it flared in the blackness with a hiss.