The Silver Siren (19 page)

“
Kael, please. We have to
go after them,” I reached out and tugged on his arm. Fear shot
through my whole body and I couldn’t control my voice from
quivering. “W—we can’t let what happened to us happen to them,” I
implored.

“
I won’t,” Kael looked at
me his eyes pleading with me to understand. “But you have to stay
here.”

“
No, I’m coming with you
Kael. I can fight them,” I argued and tried to stand. But my body
disagreed and I flopped back down to the ground.

“
Thalia, I won’t go after
them unless you promise to stay here, take care of the others, and
get them somewhere safe,” Kael raised his voice. “It’s too
dangerous.”

“
Then I’ll go without you.
You can’t leave me behind. I deserve justice for what was done to
me,” I cried out. Finally, I was able to get my legs to stand firm
beneath me. I raised my chin and dared him to argue. “I’m going
too.”

“
Thalia, it’s not too
dangerous for you. It’s too dangerous for me,” his voice dropped to
barely above a whisper. He leaned in close to me, his eyes zeroed
in on my lips and I held my breath expecting him to kiss me. He saw
my inhaled breath and he hesitated. Instead he tucked a stray wisp
of hair behind my ear. “You leave me…vulnerable.”

I could see the sweat from the heat of
battle along his brow, the smear of blood across his arm. None of
that took away from how handsome he looked. Kael was the best
fighter in all of Calandry, and I was his weakness.

Kael’s eyes dropped from my mouth and
he turned to survey the dead bodies of both the Septori and our own
guards. His body stiffened and his voice became stern. “I failed
today, because as soon as I knew something was wrong, I came to
protect you instead of the students. I failed the Adept Council. I
failed in my duty because I was distracted...by you.”

The bitter taste of guilt began to
consume me. I was a liability. He was right. As long as I stayed
alive, he would be fine. But if I did something reckless he would
pay the price. If I went with him, he would always be looking over
his shoulder.

“
Fine, I’ll stay here and
help get the others somewhere safe.” By now my imagination had
started playing horrible tricks on me. I imagined Joss on the table
and the Raven doing experiments on him. I could see Joss cry out in
pain as the iron bands wrapped around his body and pierced his
skin. I squeezed my eyes shut and turned my head, trying to stop
the terror that threatened to consume me.

He nodded his head in agreement. I
could tell he didn’t want to go, but would…for me. “I’ll be faster
if I go alone.”

“
I know,” I
said.

Kael stood up and walked over to a
lone horse that belonged to one of the kidnappers. He hastily
opened the pack, looked inside, and apparently approved of the
rations and tack he saw. He mounted the horse and, before he rode
off, he turned back to look at me. His expression was grim and
determined.

My emotions ran amok within me. I was
sick to my stomach at the thought of Joss at the hands of the
Septori. But knowing I was sending Kael into the pit of vipers
after him terrified me to my very core, and gave me the wakeup call
long coming. I needed Kael, not just in that moment, but forever.
Neither one of us knew what perils he would walk into, but I knew
he would come back. He always came back. He had too.

“
Wait!” I yelled and ran
after him on foot. Kael abruptly halted the horse and turned in his
saddle to look at me, his brows furrowed in confusion. I had to
state what was warring in my heart. I had to hear myself say the
words out loud. “I choose you,” I called out to him. “I would have
chosen you contest or no contest.”

“
I know,” Kael said
confidently.

“
So hurry back to
me.”

“
No matter where you go,
I’ll always find you,” he promised.

“
You better,” I called out
to him, watching as his face drank in mine. It was if he was
memorizing every part of me. He finally dragged himself away and
started off down the road, following barely discernable
tracks.

I watched him until he disappeared and
then turned to my attention back to our destroyed camp.

Chapter 17

A
wagon, tipped over in the fight, marked the far side of camp.
Bodies lay strewn throughout the area. Some dead, others drugged. I
counted our numbers. Over half of our camp was dead or missing. I
walked among the fallen, frustrated at our inability to stop them.
How could they have drugged the whole camp? I walked over to my
comrade Hemi, who was still out. He had rolled over onto his back,
snoring, his arms flailed wide. I could see Karni, her little arms
wrapped over her head as she still slept under my
blanket.

“
Hemi!” I growled, nudging
him with the toe of my dirty boot. The snoring stopped for a second
and his large head wobbled back and forth before settling again.
The snoring continued even louder.

“
Here, try this,” a soft
voice said from my side. I turned and saw Syrani, holding a tin cup
filled with water. A hint of mischief glinted in her eye. Her blue
dress was ripped, her hands were covered in dirt, and her hair had
fallen out of its pins. But she still had a smile on her face as if
the battle, and the dead, and everything that happened had
invigorated her.

I took the cup filled with water and
took a quick sip to quench my parched throat before I
unceremoniously dumped the rest onto Hemi’s face. He roared to life
as streams of water dripped off of his red beard, and his hand
reached for his battle-axe.

“
I’ll kill him. I’ll kill
the dirty rat that tried to drown me in my sleep,” he roared,
glaring at us accusingly.

Syrani snorted and looked from the cup
in my hand to my face. She raised one eyebrow. “So I’m not the only
one who calls you a rat.”

Hemi wiped the water from his face and
stared at us. Syrani shrugged, picked up her skirt, and turned back
to the rest of the camp. A few of the guards had started to wake
up, along with two maids. Syrani began directing the cleanup and
taking inventory of what was lost, who was taken, how many horses.
She also directed the guards to plan a protection detail to get
them on the road and moving as fast as they could.

I was completely taken aback by her
change in demeanor. The guards that were left didn’t disobey. It
was obvious they were still shocked from learning of the betrayal
from within their own ranks, including even their captain. They
were understandably shaken.

As Syrani organized our departure, I
decided to take a look at our dead and to try and piece together
what had happened last night. What had happened that allowed
everyone to be drugged? Why weren’t Syrani and I drugged? Why were
we the only ones not affected?

What could I do now? Should I take the
few remaining Denai students to their homes? Take them back to the
Citadel? Or could we go somewhere closer for safety?

As I walked, I passed the perimeter to
the outer side of the wagons and gazed down the road. The same road
that Kael and Joss had gone down. I relived the last moments in my
head again. The attack by the lumbering Septori, the driver who
stood up and tried to suffocate me. I felt a tear of frustration
run down my cheek and brushed it away with the back of my hand. I
turned to look for the Septori I’d killed and spotted him. Over by
the wagon wheel, crumpled to the ground in a lifeless
heap.

I had to pause and collect my courage
as I reached for the red hood. Every part of me revolted at the
soft red wool. It could have been shards of glass for the way I
flung it as quickly as soon as I picked it up.

My heart sank as the betrayal ran
deeper than I had imagined. Donn. I hadn’t seen him among the
sleeping or dead, and this was why. His large face was slack, his
eyes closed, and I pulled up his long sleeves to search for the
mark. It wasn’t on his arms. I looked down and could see the faint
brand upon his upper leg after I pulled up the leg of his pants.
Here was the answer to how we were drugged.

I sat down on the ground next to
Donn’s dead body and I cried. The raw emotions of betrayal by Garit
and Donn broke my already fragile heart. Two of my friends had
never really been my friends. They were my enemies.

And my one enemy, Syrani, turned out
to be a friend.

The soft nudging against my shoulder
brought me out of my sorrowful reverie. Faraway forcefully bumped
me and I almost fell forward. He kept on with his onslaught until I
was on my feet again and moving away from Donn. A few seconds
later, two of our guards had come to carry his body
away.

I walked back into the camp and
searched for Garit. He was wrapped in brown burlap and already tied
up with twine. But I had to know. What if he carried some clue
about the Septori—something we’d missed? I had lost my knife last
night in the battle, so I borrowed Hemi’s to saw away at the
twine.

It took every ounce of my strength to
not look into his face as I searched inside his pockets, boots, and
socks. Looking for instructions, plans, a name. I found nothing. I
started to pull up his shirt and Hemi put a warning hand on my
shoulder.

“
What are you doing, li’l
Thalia? You should let the dead rest.”

“
I need to know if he
bears the mark. The brand of the Septori. It looks like this.” I
picked up a stick and quickly drew a circle in the ground with two
slashes through it. “I need to know if he was telling the
truth.”

“
Searching the body of a
dead man is not for our clan leader’s daughter. I’ll do it.” Hemi
leaned forward and very carefully began to search Garit’s body for
a brand.

It was a rash idea, but I needed to
know how long Garit had been betraying me. He couldn’t have hidden
the brand on his back, otherwise his soldier friends would have
seen it. Hemi searched carefully, shielding Garit from me. I could
tell when Hemi found the brand because he let out a long sigh. He
re-wrapped the body and came to stand beside me.

“
Where was it?” I
asked.

“
Upper thigh,” he answered
and turned to walk away.

“
Was it an old mark or
new?” I called out loudly after him.

“
Li’l Wolf, you don’t need
to know. He’s your enemy.”

I spun on Hemi and raised my voice.
“Old or new?”

Hemi looked at me, his voice filled
with sadness. “It’s newer, a few months old, I’d say.”

My hands trembled and I grounded
myself with hate—with fury toward Garit and Donn. Both men had
gotten under my defenses so easily, with a joke, with a gift, with
friendship. Donn’s mark had been old, Garit’s betrayal recent. Both
deaths had been hard, but I couldn’t let them be my
weakness.

“
Call everyone that is
left to gather. We will check everyone for the brand.
Now!”

Hemi gave me a long look before he
nodded his head to obey. Minutes later everyone had been gathered.
Hemi helped check the men, while Syrani and I checked the females.
We had hung up makeshift clotheslines with blankets over them to
keep some privacy. After the two little girls were checked, Syrani
stepped into the changing area and started to unbutton her
dress.

“
What are you doing?” I
asked.

“
I may not trust you. But
I want to give you no reason not to trust me.” She pulled her long
hair up over her shoulders and subjected herself to the same
humiliation that we had put the others through. I could see her
swallow in nervousness, but she was clean. No mark upon
her.

Not to be outdone by Syrani’s bravery,
I let her check me. Satisfied, we started to get
dressed.

“
You match now.” Syrani’s
back was to me as she ran her fingers through her hair and began to
braid her long blonde hair. I had no idea to what she was
referring. “You know, your eyes. They’re not so freaky now. They’re
actually quite pretty.”

I hadn’t known that my other eye had
changed. Inwardly I groaned, but I was able to be nice. “Thanks, I
guess.”

“
Do you know why they do
that?” she asked causally. Her hands deftly wound the braid into a
bun on top of her hair, and with only a few hairpins she was able
to keep it secure. The style, though simple, made her look less
like a spoiled girl and more like a meek young woman.

“
No, it started happening
when I lost control of my power.”

“
What’s the chance of it
happening to me? I think I would look nice with silver eyes. It
takes some getting used to, but they are quite fetching.” She
turned to look at me, her head cocked sideways as she studied
me.

“
Pretty slim,” I
sighed.

“
Oh well. I would hate to
be too beautiful.”

I snorted in reply. Syrani didn’t
notice. Loud voices greeted us as we headed back to the
group.

“
What’s going on?” I
yelled over the din.

One of the soldiers had a male kitchen
servant on his knees, a sword pointed at his neck. “Narn. He’s
burned the mark off.”

“
I did no such thing. I
burned my arm this morning when I was moving the hot coals from one
fire to make another…away from them,” Narn wouldn’t look in the
direction of the few dead bodies of the Septori or of our own, laid
out very close to the central cooking fire.