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Authors: Caragh M. O'Brien

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BOOK: Prized
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“That's my whole life.”
The strangest, most amazing thing was, she kind of knew what he meant. He certainly spoke as if he believed it, and she'd had very little of such sweetness. Instinctively, she knew what could happen if she tilted her face up, but she couldn't guess yet how it would feel, how it would be different from with Leon. She wanted to find out. It would help. She lifted her gaze to see his sturdy chin first, and then his little scar again, and then his eyes,
expectant and beaming. Peter audibly caught a breath between his lips, so she could almost see it hovering there in the gap.
Spider whinnied.
Peter's arms reflexively tightened. Gaia glanced over, across the meadow, to where Chardo Will was standing at the back of the barn, a beam of lumber over his shoulder, his attention fixed in their direction.
chicken
P
ETER RELEASED HER. Embarrassed confusion erased her happiness, and then, when she realized the trouble Peter could face, fear set in.
Will rested one end of the wooden beam on the ground, still looking at them. She kept hoping he'd leave, just go back into the barn, but he didn't.
“Will he tell?” Gaia asked.
“I don't think so. I don't know.”
“I'd never accuse you.”
“It wouldn't matter.” Peter tossed her cloak to her and drew Spider through the gate. “A witness is just as damning as a mlass's accusation. I should have been more careful. I'll talk to him.”
“Wait, I'm coming, too,” she said, starting forward.
“It would be better for you to go down to the marsh. I'll join you as soon as I can.”
“No. I'm not leaving you.”
“Mlass, please.”
She shook her head stubbornly and began marching across
the pasture toward Will. If Will wanted a confrontation, he was going to get it.
“It wasn't your fault,” Gaia said. “Besides, nothing happened.”
“Nothing did?” Peter said, striding beside her.
“I mean. You know what I mean.”
“I'm not sure I do,” he said.
Will leaned the beam of wood against the barn wall as they reached him.
“Hello, Mlass Gaia,” Will said cordially. “Why don't you put Spider in the barn, Peter?”
“Nothing happened, Will,” Peter said. “I have it on the best authority.”
She met Peter's shooting gaze, and could only conclude he was hurt.
What? What did I do? We didn't even kiss.
“If you don't mind, I'd like a word with Mlass Gaia,” Will said.
“I'm still going with you out to the island,” Peter said to her.
“Give us a minute, then,” she said.
Peter took Spider around the corner of the barn at a rapid clip, but even after they were alone, Will said nothing. He merely looked at her, skeptical. Disappointed.
A sort of frantic desperation rose inside her. “What?” she protested. “I couldn't help it.”
“You'd better,” Will said. “It's no joke here. I don't want to see him hurt. Or you.” He put a hand in his back pocket, lounging his weight on one leg. “It's a lot for you. I get that. Especially with your old boyfriend in the game now, too.”
“Why does no one believe he wasn't my boyfriend?” she insisted.
Will's lips turned in a sardonic half-smile. “If you have to touch someone, just make sure you don't do it in public. The rules are very clear. It can only lead to disaster.”
He made it sound like she had to touch all sorts of people. “Duly noted,” she said, annoyed. “Will that be all?”
Will glanced over his shoulder, then dropped his voice. “I've done three more autopsies.”
It was the last thing she'd expected. “I thought the Matrarc told you not to.”
“She wouldn't let me quit being morteur,” Will said, “but I can't not be curious now that I've started. Two more expools had uteruses, so Benny wasn't just a freak anomaly. There could be a lot of others who do, too.”
Gaia peered at him closely. “It's systemic. Why? What could be causing it?”
“That's what I've wanted to ask you. Could it be genetic?”
She wished she knew. Leon might. “It could be. It could also be some response to something in the environment.”
“Something left over from the fish farm?” he asked. “I can't think of anything else that used chemicals on a large scale here. But that water is long gone by now.”
“Without a lab here, there's no way to really find out,” she said.
“I'd take any reasonable theory. It's been driving me crazy.”
Gaia frowned at the new planks of wood in the barn wall behind him. “I could ask Leon what he thinks. He knows more than I do about genes and epigenetics and such.”
He shook his head. “Please don't. I can't have word get out.”
She was about to say Leon was trustworthy, but then she realized she didn't know that anymore. “Aren't you going to tell the Matrarc?”
“No.”
Gaia turned and glanced uneasily across the meadow. “I know people trust you and we can't undermine that, but we can tell
her
.”
“She told me point blank not to do any more,” Will said. “I'm flagrantly disobeying her. The punishment for treason is exile.”
“Then stop,” she said. Will was doing exactly what Leon had said Gaia should have done to get him out of prison: lie, and then secretly disobey. “Why did you tell me?”
“Because you're the only one I
can
tell,” he said. “We need answers.”
“I don't have any!”
“Without a solution, we'll die here. It might take a couple more generations, but that's it.”
“I think that's the point,” she said. “I think that's the Matrarc's plan. Acceptance.”
Will stared at her. “What did she do to you?”
She lashed out a hand. “Not you, too. I'm fine, all right? I'm just following the Matrarc's orders, like everybody else. And right now, I'm going out to the island for my sister. Let me just be grateful for that.”
“I'm beginning to think gratitude is the opposite of curiosity,” Will said.
His disapproval was obvious, and she didn't like it.
“That's supposed to be an insult, isn't it?” she said.
His frown softened somewhat. He reached a hand around the back of his neck, and her gaze went to the small mole at the base of his throat. “I didn't mean it to be,” he said. “I apologize.”
“All right then.” She started away.
“Wait,” he said. His brown eyes were troubled, and tension
was obvious in every line of his body. “Don't leave mad at me. The truth is, I've wanted to tell you something else, too, but I never see you alone.”
She wrapped her arms around herself and waited grudgingly.
Will cleared his throat. “I'm here for you, Mlass Gaia. That's all,” he said. “Anything you need. Anytime.”
When he said no more, the silence stretched, filling with bigger implications.
“Will,” she said uncertainly.
“I just thought you should know. You're it for me.”
It was not a small thing he was telling her. And his timing was horrible. Then his mouth curved in a slow, honest smile, and his warm eyes told her all that his words couldn't.
Leon made her so miserable she wanted to die. In Peter's arms, she nearly liquefied. Will just had to smile, without even touching her, and she was purely confused. He certainly didn't seem too old for her anymore, if she'd ever consciously thought he was. She took a big, gawky step backward. She'd heard of love triangles before, but a love square?
“I can't believe I told you,” he said.
She let out a laugh. “Well, you did, and I really have to go.”
“I know. Go. Run.”
She hurried toward the road and broke into a sprint.
Will!
she thought.
Peter.
And even worse:
Leon.
She let out a little squeak and then banished them all to think only of her sister.
Sunlight splashed around her in bright buckets of light as she ran in and out of the shade of the big trees, gripping her cloak around her arm. The familiar road curved past the lodge, then the willow and the pump, then past the smaller cabins. Soon the shore spread out before her, with morning light bright on the marsh, and the dark bulk of the prison in its yard on the right.
As the breeze turned, she caught a whiff of sour ash, and
saw the charred black remains of a bonfire with part of a burned stump still faintly smoking. A dozen men and women were grouped loosely beside a row of canoes that lay with their bottoms up, like giant, sleeping fish. Leon was among them, and a gust of wind blew to ripple his brown shirt and hair.
“Ready to go?” he asked.
“Aren't we expecting a note from the Matrarc?” she asked.
“I gave it to Vlatir already,” Dinah said. “We think someone went out last night to tell Mlady Adele's family to be ready,” she said. “But officially, they haven't heard yet.”
“What if Mlady Adele doesn't want to come?” Gaia asked.
“She'll still have to give up the baby,” Dinah said. “That's why we were discussing more canoes. The Matrarc said she would rather keep the security here in the village if you don't really need them.” She nodded to another group of men farther along the beach, and Gaia realized they were guards.
If it came to taking Maya forcibly, Gaia didn't want to be part of it. She had memories of taking babies to give to the authorities in the Enclave, and didn't ever want to do anything like that again, not even to get her sister.
“I don't think I can do this,” Gaia said.
“You're coming,” Leon said flatly. “You do what the Matrarc tells you, remember?”
It was true. She looked back up the road for Peter and was relieved to see him coming down the slope. “Peter offered to go with us,” she said.
“At least one person in the canoe will know how to paddle, then,” Dinah said, amused.
Gaia hadn't thought of that.
“I can see I'll have to get involved,” Dinah added. “Vlatir, I'll go with you. Mlass Gaia and Peter can take a second canoe. I may be able to help with Mlady Adele and the baby anyway.”
“Fine,” Leon said. Without another look at Gaia, he took an end of the nearest canoe to carry it into the water, and Dinah reached for the other.
“Need a hand?” Peter called as he neared.
“You're bringing Mlass Gaia,” Dinah said. “We'll meet you out there.”
Dinah knotted her red shawl across her chest so it couldn't slip free. With one quick, deft step into the water, she pushed off the canoe and settled in the stern. The wind caught the locks of her loose hair as she reached for her paddle, and with Leon in the bow, they pulled away from shore.
It took only a few minutes for Gaia and Peter to get arranged in another canoe, with Gaia in the bow, and she held tight while he pushed off.
“What do I do if we tip?” she asked.
“Hold on to the canoe and we'll swim it to one of the hillocks.”
“I don't swim,” she said.
“What?”
“I grew up by an unlake,” she said. “In a wasteland. Nobody swims there.” Gaia wedged her knees against the gunwales of the canoe to keep steady, and tentatively picked up her paddle.
“I won't let you tip.” His smile was audible in his voice. “Most places it's so shallow you can stand anyway. Here. Watch what you're doing.”
Her paddle banged against the side of the canoe. “What am I doing wrong?” she asked, pivoting on her seat to see him behind her. His light brown hair was almost blond in the sunlight. “Shouldn't you be wearing a hat in this sun?” she asked.
“Where's yours?”
“I forgot it. I had my cloak when I left the lodge this morning.”
“I forgot mine, too.” He jerked his chin up. “The clouds will help a little. You want to go, don't you?”
She did.
“Then put your right hand down here, by the blade,” he explained, demonstrating with his own paddle. “And you keep your upper arm pretty much straight. Kind of roll with it. Use the power in your back and try to keep your strokes long and smooth.”
“Like this?” she asked, trying. It felt different. Awkward.
“Not so stiff. And if you keep the blade flat, parallel to the water to feather it forward again, it cuts through the wind.”
“There isn't that much wind.”
“You like to argue, don't you?”
“I'm just saying,” she said, trying another stroke. The water felt like black syrup.
“Air resistance instead of wind, then,” Peter said. “When we go faster, it matters more.”
On her next stroke, the water seemed thinner, and she was surprised by how easily her paddle moved until she realized Peter was propelling the canoe from the stern. She had to pull harder to feel like she was making any contribution to their momentum, and soon the canoe was winding through the labyrinthine water trails of the marsh. Peter could steer them within centimeters of a muddy hillock of reeds and bushes without grazing it, and then turn the other way a few meters later.
BOOK: Prized
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