The Healing Wars: Book III: Darkfall Page 2

  “What in Saea’s name was that all about?” I kept my voice low until we passed through the gate and into the safety of the open courtyard. If we needed them, three guards were within shouting distance.

  “I’m not sure it was in Saea’s name at all. They sounded like those sainters who hassle people in the park by the Sanctuary.”

  “The ones who think the stars are going to go out?” I’d seen them too, shouting to all who’d listen that the stars would go black and the dark would fall, but one light would shine bright enough to, oh, I don’t know, chase away the shadows or something. I never listened for long. Their rants always brought soldiers, and soldiers brought trouble.

  “Yeah. Maybe Baseer has its own sainters,” Danello said.

  “Who are ranting about me.” It was worse than the gossip and the whispers. What I’d done wasn’t a sign from the Saints. It had been an accident. I’d only been trying to stop the Duke’s weapon and keep it from killing half of Baseer.

  “It’s not you personally. They’re just trying to fit their crazy beliefs onto what happened. They did the same thing with that lightning storm last summer, remember? The one that set all those villas on fire?”

  “True. Fingers of the Saints or something.” No one had listened to them, and some had even laughed. It was a pretty silly name.

  We reached the farmhouse and pushed open the kitchen door. Ouea, Jeatar’s housemistress, sat at the table, peeling mangoes. Two girls sat on either side of her, smaller baskets of gold peppers in front of them. They twisted off the stems one by one.

  Ouea looked up. “Nya, what happened? You’re white as salt.”

  “A bunch of refugees think I’m the eighth saint.”

  “They think what?”

  Danello smiled. “Nya’s exaggerating, but there are some sainters out there talking about the flash in Baseer like it’s a sign from the Saints.”

  Ouea tucked a graying strand of hair behind an ear. “People turn to faith when they’re frightened. I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.”

  “Probably not.” Especially when there was enough in my worry bowl already. “Maybe Jeatar knows where they came from.”

  “Could be.” Ouea nodded.

  “Can you ask him tomorrow?” Danello said. “I was hoping we could spend the day together. Fun, remember? You’ve been working so hard lately.”

  With nothing to show for it. Three times we’d sneaked out to Baseer—or as close as we could get—to search for Tali. But the rumors had been false, and the leads had led nowhere.

  Ouea cleared her throat. “Danello? Where’s my picnic basket?”

  “Um.” He winced. “In the garden.”

  “You weren’t going to leave it there, were you?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Then go get it.”

  Danello looked at me, then at the door. Ouea kept staring at him over the basket of mangoes. Her two young helpers kept their eyes on the peppers, but both girls were trying hard not to giggle.

  “Wait for me in the kitchen garden?” he asked. “We still have a picnic to finish.”

  I smiled. “Definitely.”

  Danello dashed out, and Ouea went back to peeling mangoes. “He’s a good boy, that one is. Even if he is a bit forgetful at times.”

  “Yeah, he’s great.” I glanced toward the door to the rest of the farmhouse. It would take Danello a while to run all the way out to the pond and back. Surely I had time to see if there was any news about Tali or those sainters. I’d be in the kitchen garden before him. “Jeatar in the library?”

  “Last I checked.”

  Hope and dread tugged at my heart. Maybe today I’d find out where Tali was. Or maybe I’d learn there was no reason to look for her anymore.

  And Saints help me, I wasn’t sure which would be worse.

  TWO

  The library door was open but I knocked anyway. Onderaan and Jeatar looked up in unison. One smiled, one didn’t.

  I frowned. “What happened?”

  “Forget about going to Baseer,” Jeatar said, stone-faced as always.

  “Why not?” Please don’t say Tali’s dead. Please don’t.

  “There’s massive troop movement along the river, and transport ships are being moved into the harbor. Looks like the Duke is mobilizing his army.”

  “Do you know where?”

  “Not yet, but from the number of ships, it looks like an invasion.”

  My chest tightened. “Geveg?”

  “Or Verlatta, the mining towns, any of the river provinces.”

  “If not all of them.” Onderaan shook his head and sighed deeply, for a moment looking so much like Papa I had to look away. It was still hard to believe he was my uncle. That I even had an uncle, let alone a Baseeri one. “This could be the start of a major campaign.”

  I’d seen one of those before, five years ago when the Duke invaded Geveg and killed my parents. My Grannyma. When he burned the city of Sorille to the ground to kill his brothers—rivals for the throne.

  “Any news from Geveg?” Last we’d heard, there were still riots, though it hadn’t turned into a full uprising yet. Information was sparse, since Jeatar had sent most of his spies and scouts to Baseer, but he had a few Gevegian contacts left.

  Jeatar hesitated, glancing at Onderaan. Not a good sign. “Unconfirmed rumors say the Governor-General is dead.”

  “Seriously?” A surprise, but it didn’t bother me none if he was. He’d been appointed by the Duke and treated Gevegians like we were trash. “Who’s in charge now? Another Baseeri or a Gevegian?”

  “I’m waiting to hear from my contacts there, but so far, nothing.”

  “If Geveg’s in full rebellion,” Onderaan said, “then the Duke would certainly want to end it before it inspired anyone else to fight back.”

  I nodded. “Like the mining towns.” The Duke invaded us the first time for our pynvium, and he had to need more of it. I’d destroyed his foundry, stolen some, and ruined the rest of his supply of the raw metal. When Baseer revolted, he would have needed more weapons to subdue his own people, more healing bricks for his troops, using up the little pynvium he’d had left. He had to be running low by now.

  Was he also running low on Healers?

  He’d been kidnapping and experimenting on them for months, but with all the fighting, he had to be using them to heal his troops.

  “Do you think Tali is with him?”

  Jeatar didn’t hesitate this time. “Yes.”

  “Can we—”

  “No, you can’t go after her. The Healers will be heavily protected, probably at the center of the army. Most likely guarded by Undying.”

  The Undying didn’t scare me all that much, but the Duke’s Healer-soldiers were deadly to everyone else. How could you stop someone who could heal their own wounds, push the pain into their pynvium armor, and keep on fighting? They cut through regular soldiers like farmers cut through wheat.

  “Nya, we’ll find her,” Onderaan said softly. “I owe it to Peleven to keep his girls safe.”

  Papa.

  He had also been Baseeri, though I hadn’t known that until a few months ago. I didn’t like to think about what that made me. Baseer had always been the enemy, but I had Baseeri friends now, Baseeri family. Baseeri blood.

  “What do we do?”

  “About Tali?” Jeatar said. “Nothing until we know something solid. Same with Geveg. As for the Duke, we’ll keep watching and wait to see what his plans are.”

  I’d never been good at waiting. In Geveg, doing nothing got you killed. You had to find food, find work, find shelter from the soldiers. Keep your eyes open, your wits sharp. You had to move and keep moving, or trouble found you.

  But I wasn’t in Geveg anymore.

  “Perhaps you should stay close to the house for the next few days,” Onderaan said. “Just in case people are looking for you.”

  “I can’t. I have food duty.” Besides, lots of folks knew me around here anyway. A spy wouldn’t
need to see me to learn I was here.

  “I’m sure Jeatar can find someone to fill in for you.” He glanced at Jeatar, who paused and looked at me as if unsure whether or not to agree to that.

  I bristled. I liked helping out. At least I was doing something useful and not just waiting for news. “There is no one to fill in for me. People are spread thin enough as it is. If I’m not there, everyone else has to work harder, and that’s not fair.”

  “Not everyone else is in danger.”

  I folded my arms. “We’re all in danger—mine’s just more personal.”

  Jeatar’s mouth twitched, but he stayed quiet.

  Onderaan sighed. “Well, as long as you’re careful, I guess it’ll be okay.”

  As if I needed his permission. “Jeatar, you’ll let me know if there’s any more news today?”

  “Of course.”

  “Thank you.” I had a picnic to get back to. I’d promised Danello we’d have fun, and I wasn’t about to let him down.

  Even if having fun was the last thing I felt like doing.

  I made it to the kitchen garden before Danello, but I found Aylin cuddled up with Quenji on a bench under the orange trees. Thin shafts of sunlight cut through the branches and brought out Aylin’s true red hair beneath the fake black.

  I cleared my throat.

  They pulled apart and she blushed, but the glint in her brown eyes said I’d get the full story later. At least one of us had gotten kissed today.

  “Oh, hi!” She giggled and glanced at Quenji, who grinned. But then he was always grinning. He’d been the leader of a street pack I’d met in Baseer and had risked his life to help us destroy the Duke’s foundry there. I think he really liked the danger, since he’d volunteered for every mission to go back and look for Tali. He was a good person to have watching your back, so I was happy to have him along.

  So was Aylin, apparently.

  “Sooo, how was the picnic?” she asked.

  “Short.” I told her about the sainters.

  “Pfft, nobody pays attention to them,” she said, waving her hand. She smiled. “But tell me, before they interrupted—anything interesting happen?”

  “Not as interesting as I’d have liked.” I glanced at Quenji. Potential kisses weren’t something I wanted to discuss in front of him. “Onderaan’s trying to tell me what to do again.”

  “He means well,” Aylin said.

  “He’s annoying.”

  “Nya, he doesn’t know how to act around you. He was probably just as shocked to find out about you as you were about him.”

  “Well, maybe.” I didn’t like this conversation any better. Weren’t best friends supposed to side with you no matter what? I changed the subject. “Jeatar says the Gov-Gen might be dead.”

  “Does that mean we can go home?” Aylin turned to Quenji before I could reply. “You’ll love Geveg! It’s on the lake, and there are beaches and warm breezes and the best coffee you’ve ever had.”

  “And soldiers,” I said, surprised to see how eager she was to go back. To leave before we found Tali. “Don’t forget about the Baseeri soldiers beating people up just for fun.”

  She flicked a hand at me again, as if she could brush off the idea of soldiers as easily as sainters. “If the Gov-Gen is dead, then the soldiers are next. They’ll probably be gone by the time we get there.”

  “We don’t know what it means yet.”

  “Nya!” She gaped at me. “It means Geveg is fighting back, just like you always wanted. I bet they’re kicking the Baseeri out as we speak.” She jumped up and pantomimed kicking people one at a time. Quenji applauded.

  “I’ve never been to Geveg,” he said. “I’d love to go.”

  “But—”

  “Go where?” Danello said, slipping up behind me.

  “Home!” Aylin cried.

  “Really?” He stared at me with hope in his eyes. “When did this happen?”

  I held up both hands. “No one said anything about going home. I’m not even sure if the rumor is true.”

  “What rumor?” Danello looked confused. “You went to see Jeatar while I was gone, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, but just for a minute.” I sighed and explained the whole thing. The transport ships, the Gov-Gen, not being able to go after Tali.

  Aylin plopped back onto the bench. “So we’re not going home.”

  I’d never realized how much she wanted to. So did I, but not without Tali. Home was wherever my sister was, and without her, Geveg would be just another city.

  “Not yet, but we will, I promise.”

  “If there’s a home to go back to,” Danello mumbled.

  “What?” Aylin said.

  “I want to go back, too,” he said. “My da’s still there. And Halima and the twins ask about him all the time.”

  Danello’s little brothers and sister stayed pretty close to the farmhouse, and I’d never seen them out past the main gate. After what they’d been through, I couldn’t blame them. Kidnapped, almost killed by Undying, running from Baseer with the rest of us. They deserved to go home and be with their father again.

  “Well, listen,” Danello said, taking my hand. “We have a picnic to finish.”

  “We’ll see you this afternoon, right?” Aylin said.

  “At the north gate as always.”

  We left through the kitchen and out the back door, but Danello didn’t head for the pond again. Instead he led me toward some trees near the front of the farmhouse.

  “It’s not as secluded,” he said, “but it’s shady and mostly out of the way.”

  “What did you mean when you said, ‘if there’s a home to go back to’?”

  He winced. “Nothing.”

  “If it was nothing, you wouldn’t have changed what you said to Aylin.”

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s just, well, if someone in Geveg really did kill the Gov-Gen, and there really is a strong rebellion there, and the Duke is suddenly moving troops, then he might be going after Geveg.”

  “That’s what Onderaan said.”

  He pulled out the blanket again and spread it under the trees. “You’re not the only one missing family, you know,” he said softly.

  “I know.” Shame warmed my face. I’d been so focused on Tali, I hadn’t thought about what he and his brothers and sister were feeling. Their father was out there somewhere too. Maybe he was safe in Geveg, but maybe not, especially if the city was in revolt.

  I took his hand and rested my head against his shoulder. “We’ll get them all back, I promise. We’ll get everything back.”

  He nodded, but he knew as well as I did that wasn’t true. We’d never get his mother back, or my parents. The people the Duke had already killed were gone forever. All we could do was hold on to what little we had left and hope we could make something out of it.

  I guessed we wouldn’t have any fun today after all.

  We met Aylin and Quenji at the north gate midafternoon, standing near a dark-brown horse with the wagon loaded with food. The horse nibbled grass, tearing it out of the ground with quick twists of its head. Ellis sat on the driver’s bench in that brown uniform that all Jeatar’s guards wore. We’d met in Baseer when I’d saved her life after a pynvium raid had gone wrong. She’d been one of the Underground’s guards then, had fought with us against the Undying, and even held shifted pain for us. She’d been promoted to captain a few weeks ago, but she still liked to help out with the food, same as I did.

  A second guard appeared and waved hello to Danello.

  He waved back. “Afternoon, Copli.”

  “Do you know all the guards?” I said.

  “The ones who come to practice.” The rapier he carried wasn’t just for show. Danello drilled with the guards a few hours every day, working on his skills. “The rest I play cards with.”

  “You really should socialize more, Nya,” Aylin said. “There are a lot of people on the farm.”

  “Enough people know me already.”

  Q
uenji chuckled. “You can never have too many friends.”

  “Come on,” I said, climbing into the wagon beside Ellis. “We have hungry people to feed.”

  Folks turned our way when we rolled through the outer camp. Families sat on small stools or on the grass, faces turned down, staring at the campfires. Not every tent had a fire, and those seemed the saddest of all.

  Some of the people looked Baseeri, a few entire families with black hair and sad blue eyes, but we met a lot more folks with strong Verlattian features and clothes, and farmers with blond hair who could have been from Geveg.

  I’d seen similar faces after the Baseeri threw us out of our homes. Sad, scared, lost. My guts churned, my own memories tumbling through my head.

  “Nya, where we gonna sleep?” Tali had asked, tears on her cheeks, fear in her eyes. No seven-year-old should ever be that scared.

  “I don’t know, but I’ll find us someplace safe. I promise.”

  No tents for us back then. Just hard ground under scratchy bushes. I’d wrapped my arms around Tali to make her feel safe, but it was years before either of us felt—well, not safe, but safer.

  Ellis guided the wagon through the campsites. Folks were already moving toward us when we stopped at a large fire with a heavy cook pot hanging over it. A community pot just like the ones I’d eaten at in Geveg. People brought something in the morning, it cooked all day, and everyone shared it that evening. There’d been days when I’d eaten only because I’d sneaked a few handfuls of flour from the mill to thicken the stew. Wasn’t much, but it satisfied the rules.

  Today’s stew simmered, bits of sweet potato and rosemary sticking out of the thickening broth. Cook glanced over at us, his face tough and lined from the sun. He smiled and waved.

  “Just in time,” he called. “We could use some bread to go with the stew.”

  “We have lots of that,” I said, a little guilty as I climbed off the wagon. None of it was as good as the bread Ouea made. No fruit or nuts, no spices. Just basic bread. But no one seemed to care. Food was food.

  The children raced right for Aylin, holding out their tiny hands. She always filled one bag with treats—sugar nuts, candied fruit, even a few bricks of sweet brittle.