Of Dreams and Rust (25 page)

Bo stares at Sinan's body. “He knew he could help,” he says weakly. “He knew what to do.”

“He was a child!” Melik roars, striding forward, his fists clenching. “He was my only brother. You had no right to interfere!”

“He was his own person,” Bo says, taking a step back, putting his arms up. The spiders on his shoulders twitch restlessly, as if they respond to Bo's heartbeat, his internal distress. “I couldn't have stopped him.” He glances around us to see the Noor staring at him, shock and anger in their gazes.

I push myself to my feet. “Melik, stop.”

Melik raises his hand and catches a rifle tossed by Bajram, who is glaring at Bo as if he is a monster. My rust-haired Noor swings it up smoothly, like it is part of him, like he has become a machine too. “You have taken too much, Ghost,” he says, the promise of death in every word. “Your disregard for my life is understandable, even forgivable. Your disregard for Sinan's . . .”

“If not for Sinan and me, these machines would be out of your reach and on their way to your village,” Bo says softly. If he is afraid, he is not showing it. “And you and the others ignored me. You did not listen to the knowledge I offered. Only Sinan did. Without us—”

“Shall I thank you by making yours a quick death?” Melik asks, his voice shaking with rage.

When his finger slides to the trigger, I step between him and Bo. “It wouldn't make up for what you have lost.” My voice is the steadiest here, though I am trembling in my bones. The barrel of his weapon is pointed at my forehead. “Melik, we have to get the wounded back to Dagchocuk. Many can be saved. There is much to be done.”

Pain flashes in his jade eyes as he holds the weapon steady. A tear slips from his cheek and slides along the stock of his rifle. “My brother is dead, Wen,” he whispers, his gaze boring into mine.

I step to the side and push the barrel down, and Melik does not resist. “I know, Melik,” I say, my throat closing over the horrible sorrow of it. “I know.” I reach up to smooth his hair from his face, but he steps back and points at Bo.

“Go. Now. I do not want to see your face ever again. I do not want to think of you and what you have done.” His voice is quiet, but it is impossible to mistake this for weakness. The fire in his eyes is bright and hot. “Leave or I will find a way to kill you.”

I tense, expecting Bo to fire back, to snarl, to challenge him. But my Ghost is silent. He doesn't even breathe. I watch Melik's face, trying to figure out what he needs, what he wants. Does he wish I would leave too?

He gives no signal either way. He does not reach for me, nor does he look at me. “I have to take Sinan's body to my mother,” he says, hollow now. Sagging. He looks down at his rifle and his face crumples with disgust as he tosses it to the ground. He kneels at his brother's side and scoops Sinan into his arms. The boy's head lolls in the crook of Melik's neck, and Melik murmurs words of love as he edges to the side of the machine and slides off its back. The Noor gather around them, some of them wailing, others sobbing, all of their feelings on the outside, filling the air with grief. In the Ring, when Tercan died, they did not show their despair to us, but here they are not afraid to cry. I turn away and see Bo walking along the floor of the canyon, toward the eastern end of the bowl.

I scramble after him, breaking into a run to catch up. “Bo,” I call out.

He stops. “Do not try to follow me.”

I pivot around his metal body and face him. “Melik is heartbroken. He will for—”

“No, he won't,” Bo says, his voice thick with pain. “And he should not . . . should not ever forgive me.”

“Did you tell Sinan to follow the group?”

He winces. “We made the plan together because he said he would come either way. He was so bright and so capable. He knew what he was doing. He may have been young, but . . .”

“You saw yourself in him.” The boy who lived and lived and lived even when he should have died. If only Sinan had been more like Bo. “You wanted him by your side. It didn't matter that he was Noor. You understood him, and he understood you.”

Bo bares his teeth and lets out a sound of total agony, ragged and halting. “Stop.”

“You could not help but love him.”

Bo's hands swing up to ward me off, and his spiders raise their fangs. “I destroyed him. Like I destroy everything. Like I ruin everything.” The spiders rattle and shift as he steps away from me. “Like I ruin you, just by being close to you.”

“You have never done that.”

“Haven't I? All the hours you and Guiren spent with me—you could have been with real people. Living people. You could have been with each other, even. Both of you should have left me to myself a year ago, but you kept coming back.”

“You have a right to live, and to feel, and to love. You are not really a ghost, Bo.” I reach for him, but his metal circuits hum as he jumps back.

“I am,” he snaps. “And ghosts must let the living be.” His expression splits with a harsh smile. “Your father used to read me a story from
Kulchan and His Warriors
, about a princess and a bandit. I thought the story was idiotic when he first read it to me, but after I met you, I gained a new appreciation for it.”

I put my hand on my stomach. I vaguely remember the story. The bandit, a carefree and fearless soul, rescues a princess from certain death. She wears an enchanted necklace, and after the bandit claims a kiss as his reward, he loses his free will and is bound to her. “What are you saying?”

He laughs, but it is wracked with regret. “Even after he dies, the bandit cannot leave her. His spirit guards her for the rest of her life. She marries. She has children. And still he haunts her. He is a very stupid ghost. I will not make his mistake.”

“Stop this,” I say, scared of the hopelessness drenching his words. “Melik will realize what you have done for his village and his people. He cannot do that now because he is hurting so much. But he will. You can follow behind the group. You can—”

“Leave me alone, Wen,” he says.

“Bo, please. Stay. Camp on the ridge. I will bring you whatever you need.”

“I release you from your promise.” He makes an easy leap onto the side of the canyon wall, his long metal fingers slipping into cracks and anchoring him. “Send word to your father when you can.”

There is an odd, sad, certain note in his voice that makes my heart speed. He is not returning to the Ring, and he is not coming to Dagchocuk. “Where are you going?”

He shakes his head. “Where I belong.”

Now panic is rising in me. My Ghost, the boy who could not relinquish his grip on life, sounds as if he is letting go. “Sinan would not want this. He would have wanted you to stay and help the people he loved. You owe that to him.”

“I owe him nothing!” Bo shouts. “He was a silly Noor boy who did not see me for what I am. And you are a stupid girl who thinks I feel more than I do, who thinks I am worth more than I am, and who is the reason I have betrayed my own people.” He sweeps his arm across the scene of carnage, the smoking machines, the bodies, the grieving survivors. His eye swivels back to glare at me. “Maybe it is you who have ruined me.”

“Blame me if you need to, but don't leave. We still need you,” I plead. And he needs us. Somehow I know it is the only thing keeping him human. “There might be more machines coming.”

“I am done. With you and everyone else. I am done. Nothing is worth . . . this.” He sounds as hollow as Melik did, like something inside him is broken forever. He crawls up the rock wall and heaves himself onto the trail above. For a moment he looks down at me, and I stare at him, silently begging him to come back. He opens his mouth, and my blood sings with hope.

“Tell Guiren I tried,” he says. “And tell him I am sorry.”

With spindly metal fingers he closes his faceplate, hiding any trace of his soft, human self. His steel muscles hum as he crouches, and his armor clanks as he lunges upward. In a few seconds he has disappeared into the narrow canyon. I listen, clinging to the sound of him, until the only noise that reaches me is the cries of the Noor as they prepare to carry their dead back to Dagchocuk.

Chapter

THE CRESCENT MOON hangs over the plains of Yilat like a sickle poised to cut us all down. I hike at the rear of the procession of Noor, tending to my patients as best I can. Some of them can walk, but they are slower than the rest, and whenever we stop, I pour jie cao and san qi tea down their throats and smear honey on wounds to keep them from festering. Some of the wounded are carried in makeshift stretchers made from sleeping blankets, and I apply fresh bandages and check for bleeding, fevers, breathing difficulties, and faltering heartbeats. I grit my teeth in frustration when I cannot do more for them. But we must keep moving.

The dead are at the front. The Itanyai prisoners are in the middle, surrounded by Noor rebels. Everyone is grim. We have twelve dead, but Sinan's death was the one that destroyed the triumph.

We left about half the fighters at the bowl, preparing to fight a second wave. The rest of us are returning to Dagchocuk for supplies, and to bury the dead and allow families to care for the wounded. I sometimes hear Melik's voice at the front of the procession, worn with grief but still sure and quick. I have no idea what he's saying, but whenever we stop for a break, we leave fighters behind, possibly to keep watch for more machines.

I have no doubt Melik will return to the bowl, but not until after he buries Sinan. My stomach churns every time I catch glimpses of him, a tall form far ahead of me. He cradles his brother's shoulders and head against his side while Baris and Bajram walk close behind and support the rest of the boy's body. Like the rest of the dead, Sinan has been wrapped in a blanket, but Melik has not allowed his brother's face to be covered. He walks with his fingers in Sinan's rust-colored hair. He must be thinking that this is the last chance he has to touch his brother, to look at his face. He is hoarding every moment.

Like I always do, I remain busy as a way of holding off despair, though my thoughts wrap tightly around two of the men I love. Bo has torn himself free of whatever web he thinks I cast around him, and I am afraid that what he has really released is himself, his humanity. He will stave off his grief by hardening his heart, by nestling within his machine self and pretending that is all he is. I am not enough to save him, not fast enough, strong enough, smart enough. The same might be true with Melik. But he is surrounded by people who treasure him. Unlike Bo, Melik is loved by people who understand who he is, where he came from, how he thinks and feels.

And by some who don't.

We descend into Dagchocuk, a tired, sad procession. The wailing begins before my feet touch level ground. The villagers see the blanket-wrapped bodies and light torches in the square. The survivors lay the dead down in a row and make sure their faces are uncovered so their families can find them. Knots of people surround each one, weeping and wailing, while several men trek to the southern side of the village with shovels in hand. I stay with the wounded who are too injured to walk to their families. They are brought to the wedding tent, where I set up a hospital of sorts. I stitch wounds with my straight needle and coarse thread. I make herb poultices with supplies brought by Aysun the healer, who joins me in the tent and sings to her patients while she slathers oily mixtures of her own over their wounds. Some of them smell quite suspicious, but the Noor seem reassured by her presence.

Once I have managed the most dire of their injuries, I squat on the floor and make each patient as comfortable as I can, using strokes of my hands and gentle smiles when no medicine can help. At least one of them, the woman with the throat wound, will probably die. Her color is not good and her breathing is faltering and labored. I catch Aysun's eye and nod down at the woman, and Aysun seems to see the same truth I do. She looks at me and says,
“Anni,”
before slipping from the tent. It takes me a moment to realize she is not getting my
anni
—Melik's mother—she is fetching the young woman's mother.