On the Meldon Plain (The Fourline Trilogy Book 2) (32 page)

“I’ll go with her. I can get her to the membrane.” Annin stepped next to Nat.

“So can I. Stay out of this, Annin,” Soris snapped.

“But I can get through the membrane if something goes wrong. You can’t. Do you honestly think she’ll go through that membrane and desert you if you’re fighting Nala for her? You know as well as I do how stubborn she is. She’s a Sister, Soris.” Annin’s voice grew louder. “She will stand next to you and fight. Do you want to risk that?” His expression wavered. “Think with your head, Soris, and you may see her again, alive. Think with your heart and you both may die. Is that what you want?”

Soris’ face contorted with different emotions. “I’m depending on you, Annin,” he said finally. He pulled Nat to his chest and buried his face in her hair.

“I made you a promise that I’ll come back and I will,” Nat said fiercely as she felt his heart pounding against his chest. “Let me go knowing you’ll be safe. Stay at the Healing House.” Her voice faltered. He brushed his hand across her cheek, wiping away her tears. He kissed her gently as the tears streamed down her face.

“Go, Natalie.” He broke off the embrace and stepped away. “Go.”

“Rory, get the two best horses you can find,” Estos said as he watched Soris pull away from Nat. Rory turned on her heel and hurried toward the merchants’ carts. “Annin, go through the membrane if there’s any risk to you. Find me in my dreams if you can.”

Annin nodded.

Estos looked at Nat. “I brought this on you, Natalie. I’m sorry.”

“I made my own choices, Estos,” she said as she looked at Soris one last time.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

After a day’s hard ride and the thundering sound of horse hooves, Nat found the quiet of the forest unsettling. She glanced over her shoulder at the disappearing meadow by the crooked tree where she and Annin had set the horses free.
So close to the membrane,
she thought as she scanned the trees above her before sprinting over the faint path to catch up with Annin.

They ran silently over the path through the forest until Annin stopped abruptly. She placed a hand on Nat’s shoulder, easing her behind a grove of aspens clustered among the thick pines. In the distance, the red boulder glowed in a shaft of sunlight penetrating the forest. A blue Nala, poised on the rock, stared into the woods. It blinked its faceted eyes before springing to the nearest tree and scrambling up to the top. The trees bent and swayed as it jumped from tip to tip, finally landing on the cliff face.

“Now,” Annin whispered, pushing Nat toward the old path. They ran, skipping over the gnarled roots of dead trees upended by storms and decay. The red boulder grew in size as they drew near. Nat felt a tugging on her cloak and glanced over her shoulder.

Annin stood motionless, looking above her to the treetops. Three sets of shining concave eyes stared down at them. A chorus of hissing filled the air and little droplets of blue venom fell onto the muddy leaves on the forest floor. Nat glanced wide-eyed at Annin.

“The Nalaide, our queen, awaits you, Sister.” The Nala’s voice was a whisper above her, like a poisonous breeze.

Nat brought her sword close to her chest. She felt Annin’s back press against hers, and the women stood locked in place next to each other. “How many do you see?” Nat asked through slightly parted lips.

“Three, maybe four.”

Nat heard the string on Annin’s crossbow tighten. The leaves rustled above them.

“What does the Nalaide want with me?” Nat asked, trying to buy some time. The membrane was several minutes’ hard run from where they were, but she had no intention of leading them on a chase anywhere near the entrance even if Nala couldn’t pass through. A barklike hiss echoed through the trees.

“Is that thing laughing?” Nat lifted onto the balls of her feet and dug into her cloak pocket, freeing her orb. The brilliant sphere rose into the air and cast sharp rays of light into the trees. A low hissing filled the air.

“Not anymore,” Annin replied, her voice taut like her bow.

One of the creatures crawled headfirst, limb over limb, down the tree. It flicked away sodden leaves as it crept onto the forest floor and shifted into an upright position. Its emotionless eyes fixed on Nat’s.

“You have taken what the queen treasures, Sister. You have taken our duozi from us. She wants them back, and she wants you.” Its black mouth moved as if it were a separate creature.

“You’ll never see those duozi children again.” Nat tightened her grasp on her sword hilt. The orb pulsated above Nat, sending beams of light reflecting off her sword.

“We will find them and make more in time,” the creature promised. “But she now has plans for you, Sister. She will make you her own.”

Branches creaked as more Nala crawled from the trees to the forest floor and surrounded them.

“Two in front of me. Two more in the trees,” Annin whispered.

“As I see it, Nala, you have two choices.” Nat glared at the creature. “Die here, or leave with a message for your queen.”

The creature cocked its head to the side. “What message is that, Sister?”

Nat took a deep breath. A tense silence filled the air. Her orb spun slowly above her, then rocketed into the Nala’s face like a lightning bolt and smashed into its skull. She took two steps and severed the creature’s head with one swipe of her blade.

“It’s time for
all
of you to die.”

“Behind you!” Annin called out as she shot an arrow into a springing Nala. A white Nala dropped into a bush next to Nat and leapt off its powerful legs toward her. She thrust her sword, but it jumped to a low limb above Annin. The branch broke, cracking under the creature’s weight. It leapt from the toppling branch and the limb fell on Annin, pinning her to the ground. She cried out in pain, and her crossbow dropped from her hands onto the forest floor.

Nat hurtled over a dead Nala to reach Annin, but a creature landed between them, cutting her off. She slashed at it with her sword, connecting with its thigh. It screamed and toppled to its side. Annin struggled to push the limb off her arm while she kicked the injured Nala away from her. An arrow pierced the flailing Nala’s chest, and it let out a wheezing breath. Startled by the arrow, Nat looked up to find two more Nala and Cassandra running down the path toward them.

Cassandra’s screams scattered the Nala. The wild Warrior Sister cut the creatures down as they clambered up a tree, and their lower limbs fell onto the ground like dead branches. A wide smile broke over her face, and she hissed mockingly at another creature before impaling it with her sword.

Nat pivoted and stabbed a Nala that fell from a tree. She brought her sword over its neck, and the creature’s mouth opened like a gaping pit as it let out a final sibilant breath. Dropping to her knees, she lifted the broken tree limb holding Annin in place. Annin cursed and clutched her arm. A splinter of bone stuck out from her ripped sleeve. Cassandra twirled around them, scanning the treetops as Nat examined the bone.

“The break’s bad. I think you’re coming with me,” Nat said to her friend as she lifted her to her feet. Nat’s heart was still pounding from the fight. She looked around at the dead Nala strewn over the forest floor.

“I’ll dispose of them,” Cassandra said as if reading her mind. “Estos said to return with the duozi if I could but you’d know where to take her to be safe.” She nodded at Annin.

“I’m taking her, Sister. Thank you.”

“So polite. It’ll kill you if you’re not careful. Now go!”

Nat stumbled back with Annin’s arm draped around her shoulder. She pulled her friend down the path toward the rocks and the cliff looming above the forest. Annin let out a groan.

“Hang in there, Annin. Give me a second to find the opening.” Nat searched the cliff wall looking for the way to the membrane.

“I have bone poking out of my arm,” Annin said in a raspy voice. “I’m not waiting for your weak eyes to spot it.” She stumbled in front of Nat and disappeared behind the rock.

Nat followed her and passed through a narrow split at the base of the cliff. She heard Annin groaning again as daylight disappeared in the dark crevice. Nat’s orb spun next to her and filled the tight space with light.

Annin’s head and one hand were through the membrane, but her legs strained against the ground. Nat shoved her knees against the rocks and pushed Annin’s legs with her back, forcing her through the membrane an inch at a time. When Annin’s heels disappeared, Nat pressed her hands against the vibrating membrane and slipped into her world.

She looked up and found Annin gasping for breath next to her. An orb not her own bobbed above her head then sped away from them.

“Barba!” Nat screamed, and her voice reverberated down the tunnel. She grasped Annin around the waist. Together they stumbled through the tunnel into Ethet’s darkened laboratory. Nat’s orb shot to the ceiling and filled the room with light. A red spotlight blinked on and off above the doors. Nat placed Annin on the exam table and grabbed the door handles, shaking them violently.

“They’re barred.” Annin’s voice sounded like gravel. She shifted her legs off the table and tried to sit up. Nat turned, retraced her steps, and eased her back onto the table. Annin’s face was ashen under the light. “The code box by the door.” Annin pointed toward a small pad set into the wall. “Type in ‘Sister’.”

Nat fumbled with the keypad until she finally hit the correct buttons. Light flooded the room. Annin collapsed against the table. Nat grabbed a cloth from a neatly folded stack off the long counter and ran it under the faucet. She wiped Annin’s brow.

“Seven, eight Nala, and what happens? A branch breaks my arm,” Annin laughed as Nat wiped the sweat and dirt from her face before examining the splinter of bone. “I suppose it could have been worse.”

Nat leaned over her and let out a hysterical giggle. “Could have been worse?”

Annin joined in, even as her face contorted in pain. Laughter spilled uncontrollably from both women. The two were still laughing when Barba burst through the door.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Five Weeks Later

An August thunderstorm rolled across the sky. The bay horse trotted inside the corral, snorting. Nat secured the gate and led her horse into a small covered enclosure next to the barn. Bits of hay, spiraling upward in the wind, stuck in her hair. She blinked, trying to get the grit and dirt out of her eyes. Lightning crackled in the distance.

“You’re as nervous as if a Nala were around, Ob,” Nat spoke soothingly to her horse. He nickered and shoved his nose gently against her shoulder. She patted his brown neck and let him go. He paced nervously in the enclosure. Nat wrapped the chain around the gate and slid it into the mouth of the lock. The high-pitched ring of the links banging against the gate followed her up the worn path to the weathered house. Rain droplets splattered against her hair.

The screen door leading to the mudroom slammed against the side of the house.
Need to fix that spring,
Nat thought as she pulled it shut and secured the latch and the inner door behind her. With her dad and Cal gone delivering and installing sets of custom carved doors to cabins in the northern part of the state, the list of to-do items to help her mom was lengthy.
From Warrior Sister to fixing toilets.
At least we have an extra set of hands,
she thought.
Well
,
one extra hand.
Nat kicked off her dirty boots. A boom of thunder rattled the house.

“White milkwort.” Marie Claire sounded unsure.

“Correct. Good or bad?” Annin asked.

“Good, for the cows at least.”

Nat walked into the kitchen. Annin sat on a bench that ran the length of the kitchen table. Her broken arm, wrapped in a cast, was surrounded by an array of dried flowers. Marie Claire gently placed the dried white milkwort back on a piece of wax paper.

“Still at it?” she asked. Annin was helping MC identify wildflowers for her summer-camp project.

“Nonstop.” Nat’s mom gave Annin a grateful smile, and Nat felt relieved. Her mom had not been thrilled when she’d shown up at the house two weeks ago with her friend with a broken arm, eye patch, and hard-to-explain blue tattoo. Annin played the foreign-exchange-student-with-no-place-to-go card, and her mom seemed to buy it. But Nat knew Annin made her mom feel on edge—very on edge.

She’d caught her mom staring at her own markings since she and Annin had come home. Nat knew she was disappointed. She could read her expression so easily.
If you only knew what these markings meant, Mom. I think you’d be proud of me, after the heart attack,
she thought as she smiled at her.

“Horses secure?” she asked Nat.

“Boston’s in the barn and Ob is in the enclosure.”

“Good. MC, time to go. I want to get to town before this storm hits.” Nat’s mom lifted the box of repaired library books onto the table. The wax paper fluttered upward, shifting the flowers. Annin’s good hand shot out, catching a small yellow flower floating toward the floor. Nat coughed, hoping to distract her mom from noticing Annin’s extraordinarily fast reflexes.

“Just one more, Mom, and then we’ll go,” MC said.

“This one.” Annin twisted the short stem between her fingers, and the bright-yellow flower with small petals spun slowly.

MC sucked on her bottom lip, a sure sign she was stumped, then her eyes lit up. “Tinker’s penny!” she exclaimed. “I am so gooood,” she bragged.

“Habitat, use, and alternative name?” Annin demanded, her voice serious.

MC stopped wiggling in her chair. “I don’t remember.” Her chin dropped to her chest.

“Grows selectively in wet places at the coast and high elevations. Unless you’re in Four—”

“Annin,” Nat said sharply.

The room grew quiet. Nat’s mom cleared her throat and glanced at the young women.

Annin gave Nat a crooked smile. “Use?”

“I think you told me something weird.” MC tapped her short fingernails against the table, then looked up at Annin. “Like it wards off evil?”

“Exactly.” She leaned against the wall and winked at Nat.

“MC, we really need to go, now.” Her mom hefted the box onto her hip and reached for MC’s hand, all the while keeping her eyes glued on Annin.

Nat rubbed her forehead.
So much for getting over the weird hump with my mom,
she thought.

“I remember the alternative name,” MC said as she grasped her mom’s hand. “Meldon. You called it the meldon flower.”

“Very good,” Annin said slowly. “You might make a decent apprentice. Maybe even a Sis—”

“So, Mom, you and MC are going to town?” Nat asked quickly. “Annin and I can fix that leak in the basement bathroom sink. Anything else that you need from us?”

“No,” her mom said, giving Annin one more quick, wary look.

“Watch out for the spiders in that downstairs bathroom. I found a big one down there last week.” MC shivered and her ponytail shook.

Nat burst out laughing and Annin’s smile grew wider.

“What’s so funny?” MC asked, pulling on her green rain jacket. “They’re nasty.”

Nat wiped her hands on the rag and dropped the crescent wrench into the battered toolbox. Annin sat on the lip of the bathtub.

“I spoke with Barba.”

“She called? Here?”

“Since when have I needed a phone?” Annin grabbed the toolbox with her good hand and stepped out of the narrow bathroom.
“Ethet’s lab is ready for us, and Cairn made arrangements for you to have extra privileges in the biology department this semester so we can work. He’s telling everyone you’re experimenting with a new latex for his theater creations.”

Nat followed her up the worn carpeted stairs, thinking what effective liars Cairn and Barba were—and what an effective one she had become, for that matter. Annin dropped the toolbox on the floor and leaned against the pantry door. She extracted a small vial from the green work shirt Nat had lent her and downed its yellow contents.

“Are you sure you’re up for this?” Nat asked. Using Annin as the test subject for what she had in mind was not risk-free. “Once that cast comes off, you can go back to Fourline. I know being here is hurting you. That’s the second vial of meldon juice I’ve seen you take. You don’t have to hang around here and keep me company. I’ll figure something out without you.”

Annin wiped her lip and rubbed her hands together. “Really? What are you going to do? Sneak into Fourline and find another duozi or ask a Nala if it will let you use it as a test subject? Maybe you can knock on the Nalaide’s den door and get a blood sample. I heard she’s looking for you.”

“You should try being a little more sarcastic, Annin. I just meant that you don’t have to do this. You don’t have to help me with my experiments.”

“Let’s just say I have more to gain than just a boyfriend if we find something to counteract the venom.”

Nat brushed past Annin and yanked the faucet handle at the kitchen sink. Warm water poured over her soiled hands as she scrubbed the grime away. She blinked, willing the tears away as she thought of Soris. She slammed the faucet shut and leaned over the sink.

“Do you know what I dream about each night, Annin?” Lightning flashed on the hill above the house, and the lights flickered in the kitchen. “I dream about all those duozi children dead in that Nala cavern. And I dream about Soris—but not some flowery-field reunion. I dream he’s dead, too, crumpled at the base of a rock bed, in some Nala nest or in Mudug’s mines with me standing over him, helpless to do anything.” She turned. Annin’s eye patch hung around her neck. The lights flickered again, then went out. The humming of the refrigerator ceased, and the kitchen was utterly silent as the two women stared at each other.

“I wondered,” Annin said quietly.

“Wondered what?” Nat tossed the hand towel onto the counter.

“You do love him.”

“Yes,” Nat said haltingly, admitting it to herself for the first time. “I do.”

“I’ll help you willingly—not just for myself, and not just for Soris, but for you, Sister.” She placed a small leather-bound book in Nat’s hand, and Nat recognized it immediately as the book Ethet had given her before they’d left the Healing House. She looked up in surprise.

“I’ve been looking through it and working on a key to transcribe the script.” Annin stood next to Nat and gingerly turned the pages to one that contained a series of pictures that looked familiar. A moment passed before she recognized the images from the tapestry in Gennes’ camp.

“Notice anything interesting?” Annin pointed to the panel that depicted the bitten girl, her arm tinted blue, drinking from a dark yellow vial. Nat followed Annin’s finger as she traced over the vivid drawing to the final scene, where the same girl, now a Warrior Sister, held a dagger to a Nala’s throat.

“Her arm isn’t blue,” Nat whispered.

Annin nodded. The two looked up from the book and watched the lightning flash outside the kitchen window.