Fugitive (3 page)

“Which is what?”

“Political advancement, obviously.” I ran both hands through my hair. “Recognition, perhaps? Goodness knows he cannot get either of those things from us, not anymore. But as the brother-in-law to the ruler of the land, every door would be open to him. Perhaps he just resents the fact that he lost any hope of those things, and he’ll do whatever he has to now to obtain them.”

“He wouldn’t have gotten political advancement anyway, since he isn’t a blood relative of the ruling family,” she said. “He cannot feel cheated.”

“Korr has always felt cheated.” My rage was hardening, calcifying into resolve. I would not let him sacrifice my sister on the altar of his own ambition. “This time, he’s gone too far.”

“Gabe—”

But I was already yanking open the door.

NOW

THE SOLDIERS MADE us lie down in the grass while they built fires. They smoked, and their cigs glowed in the dark like stars half-fallen from the heavens. I shut my eyes again and tried to sleep.

A hand touched my shoulder. I looked up. A soldier, a female one, stood over me. She bent and scratched a symbol in the dirt.

A Y shape.

I didn’t know what it meant.

“I’m with the Thorns,” she whispered when she saw my confusion. “I’m here to help you escape.” She blotted out the mark with the heel of her boot, then bent and pressed a bit of cold metal into my palm. She jerked her head at the trees. “Head through the forest. There’s a gate. You must find the people who will take you to it. I don’t know their names—our contact was lost. But you have to go now if you want to get away. I’ll create a distraction, but you have to hurry.”

With that, she turned and strode back toward the fire.

I stared down at my palm.

A key to my chains.

I looked toward the dark line of trees in the distance. I’d heard tales of this mysterious Frost. Dark tales.

It didn’t matter now what waited in those woods. I had to escape.

I shifted my body to hide my actions from the soldiers by the fire. I inserted the key into the lock on my chains and twisted it. A faint
click
and they were off. I dropped the key into the dirt and glanced over my shoulder.

The soldier was in the face of another man, yelling. She shoved him, and he pushed back. The other soldiers crowded around them, their faces gleaming with delight at the prospect of a brawl.

Unnoticed, I slipped across the road and into the trees.

THEN

KORR DID NOT return home that night, though I waited for him while the clock in the hall ticked loudly, and the lights from the passing steamcoaches ran along the walls and made strange shadows among the furniture of the foyer. I sat, simmering in my anger like a lobster in a pot left to boil. I had all night to think. All night to let my resolve harden into a thing of stone.

When morning came, I rose and went to the writing desk in the library. I withdrew a letter and addressed it to Beregrin.

Beregrin
,

I wish to discuss the poets, particularly Simalades’s sonnets about fury and justice. Meet me at the Plaza of Horses tomorrow at noon.

—Gabriel

I signed it, folded the letter, and dropped it into an envelope. I dropped wax onto the envelope to seal it, and the thing was done. I put the letter in the box to be delivered by a servant, and then I went to the conservatory to wait.

My sister found me hours later. “Are you all right? You look dreadful.”

I sighed. “We can’t live like this. Like rats in a golden cage. This house, this conservatory, the grounds—it was all given to us by the Dictator after he seized power. A consolation prize for losing the palace and the crown.”

“It could be worse,” she whispered. “We could be dead.”

“He’s only kept us alive for his own purposes. He wants to pretend he is merciful, so the people do not rise up against him in revolt at our slaughter. But he’ll marry you and befriend Korr, and then he’ll find some reason to do away with me and Mother and Father...eventually all of us.”

She looked horrified. “Do away with?”

I gazed at her and didn’t reply. She swallowed hard.

“You think he’ll have us killed?”

“Eventually, when we are no longer useful. Perhaps you will die in a tragic steamcoach accident. Perhaps Korr will lose his balance while out riding. As for the rest of us...surely he can find some trumped-up charge to put us away, if all else fails.”

She stared at me. “What are you going to do, Gabe?”

I thought of Beregrin and his offer. I thought of the revolution he spoke of. I thought of the letter, waiting to be delivered to his hands.

“I’m going to fight back.”

NOW

A GUNSHOT RANG out through the trees, and pain exploded in my shoulder. I dropped into the snow face-first and lay still.

I had to be still.

The soldiers shouted to each other, but they were far away, their voices distorted as if coming from underwater. Or my mind was slipping, spiraling away under the weight of fatigue and cold and fever and pain.

I didn’t move. I lay like a fallen limb from a tree, stiff and bent in an unnatural contortion. Snow fell and gathered on my fingertips. Blood seeped into the snow.

I heard no sound of footsteps. No more shouts.

They had not pursued me.

I struggled up, grabbing a rock for balance. My hands slipped on ice, and I fell. My face slapped stone. My vision spun. My shoulder burned as if on fire.

I was dying.

THEN

I MET BEREGRIN in the plaza as a clock somewhere in the city struck noon. The dying notes faded away as his footsteps echoed louder and louder on the pavement at his approach. I pushed off the wall and faced him, grim.

“You’ve made a decision?”

“I have. I’ll join your revolution, and I’ll do anything necessary to see an end to this dog who calls himself a ruler and to take back what was stolen from my family.”

Beregrin looked me over. “You seem to have had a change of heart. Or a shot of courage.”

“Outrage is more like it,” I muttered. “Now, what must I do?”

NOW

A FACE FLOATED above mine, sharp with anger and fear, bright with beauty...an angel?

“Please,” I whispered. It hurt. It hurt so badly. I just wanted the hurt to stop.

Darkness closed over my head, and everything was mercifully silent.

Bright light.

Pain.

I stirred, and everything was agony. My eyes shot open. A girl stood before me, and I grabbed her arm.

“Where am I? Who are you?”

There were two of them, two scrawny girls, one older and one younger, surrounded by darkness split by lances of sunlight that caught their hair and made the edges gleam. They stared at me.

Everything went black again.

THEN

I SAT IN the dark in the library, watching the rain fall outside. My sister was out somewhere in the night, in a carriage with the Dictator. He was taking her to a play, she’d said.

My blood burned to think of that man shooting leering glances at her, taking her hand, making advances that she dared not refuse. My fingers knotted. My throat squeezed so tight I could barely draw breath.

Footsteps echoed in the hall. I glanced up as a dark shape filled the doorway.

Korr. His face was half in shadow. He wore a fine coat, and the buttons gleamed in the gaslight. His eyes were dark and unreadable.

My words, when I managed to speak them, came out choked.

“How dare you show your face in this house after selling our family to the devil? You two were always close. I thought you loved her, at least.”

That seemed to strike a nerve. He almost winced. “I will do what I must, brother. You know that.”

“I know you’re nothing but a snake. A traitor.”

“You’ve never let me forget it.” His voice was soft. “As I said, I will do what I must. Even if that means wearing that particular cloak of shame.”

“What you must? Does that include trading our sister’s life for your own greed?”

“She’s hardly dead,” Korr said. His words were quiet, but each one stung me. “No harm will come to her, I promise you.”

My laugh was ugly to my own ears. “Your promises mean nothing to me.”

His eyelashes flickered. “Say what you will. You don’t understand.”

“And I never will,” I snarled. “I’ll never understand how you could do this to us. We’re your flesh and blood. I’m your brother.”

“Half-brother,” he said. “As you’re so fond of reminding me.”

I stood. “Get out of this house. You aren’t wanted here. Get out, before I throw you out.”

Korr regarded me. He didn’t smile. “You are so certain you could do that, eh?”

Anger was hot in my veins. I felt as if I could lift a steamcoach. “I can certainly try.”

“Save your strength. I leave of my own volition tonight.”

“May you never return!”

He gazed at me for a long moment. “We shall see what transpires.”

I stepped toward the door, and he turned and vanished toward the stairs. Trembling with rage, I watched him go out into the night, and then the fight slipped from my bones, and I wanted to weep at the pain in my chest.

NOW

PAIN. EVERYTHING WAS pain. My body burned. My shoulder throbbed. My throat felt like a desert.

When I opened my eyes, the world was blurry and strange. The air was too cold, and the bed beneath me too scratchy. Sunlight striped a dirty stone floor and lit on the cheek of a strange, sharp-faced woman-girl dressed in wool. A farm girl, from the looks of her.

I remembered her.

Darkness began to crowd the edges of my vision. My head pounded. I struggled to stay awake. I needed to speak with her. I needed to figure out where I was, what was going on. But I couldn’t let her know that I was as confused and helpless as I felt.

“You,” I whispered. My voice was just a scrape in my throat. “You are one of those Snow People, the ones who live in the Frost.”

“Yes,” she replied. Her face was unreadable.

Fear filled me as memories of before rushed over me. The soldiers. The prison wagon. They’d given chase. Surely they were still looking, perhaps searching the farms and villages along the road. Did she know who I was? Surely she must. Why else had she taken me into her barn this way? Why else did she look at me with such cold suspicion?

“What are you going to do to me? Let me die? Or give me back?”

“Give you back?” She looked genuinely perplexed.

Relief filled me. Perhaps she did not know, did not intend to turn me in. At least not yet. That gave me a little time to escape.

I surrendered to the darkness threatening to engulf me, and unconsciousness claimed me once more.

Shooting pain hit me like a lightning bolt, jerking me away. A cry wrenched from my lips as agony tore through my shoulder and down my spine. I twisted wildly and found the eyes of that same girl, the one with the unreadable face.

“Please,” I whispered, because the pain was torture.

She just looked at me. I could read no pity in her gaze.

Another girl returned, and I remembered her, too. She was younger, smaller, with a thin face and owlish eyes. This one had brought things—a bucket, a shirt, a bowl of something that smelled divine.

“Eat the stew before you starve,” the older girl said.

I grabbed the bowl before she could change her mind. The stew was warm, and the taste of it flowed over my swollen tongue and down my aching throat.

The older farm girl spoke quietly to her sister. She took a rag and reached for me, and I jerked away.

“What are you doing?” The words tore themselves from me.

“Lie still,” she snapped. “I’m just cleaning the wound.”

“Why?” I demanded, once again the words escaping before I could stop them. I was a prisoner. I was nothing to her. Why would she do this for me? Didn’t these Snow People hate us?

Her brow wrinkled, as if I’d asked the stupidest question imaginable. “So you won’t die from infection.”

She pressed the rag to my back, and I couldn’t breathe from the pain. I tried to hold in my gasp, but I couldn’t, and my breath hissed out like steam from a coach. I knotted my fingers and tried to hold back any further outbursts as she prodded my aching flesh.

“That hurts,” I snapped, turning my head to look at her.

“Lie still. Something is buried in your back.”

“It
hurts
.”

“Lie still! Do you want to die from infection?”

Maybe I did. What was there to live for? I lay still as she demanded, and shut my eyes. Then she pulled something from my back, and I fainted.

THEN

“DON’T LOOK YET,” my sister commanded.

I smiled and indulged her, keeping my eyelids shut as she entered my room and closed the door behind her.

“Now you can look.”

I obediently opened my eyes. My sister curtseyed, showing off her dress with a delighted flourish. “What do you think? Shall I impress them all?”

“You look beautiful,” I said, and I meant it. The dress was made of filmy white material and spotted with gold from the hem up, as if she’d stumbled into a river of the precious metal and the drops had splattered up the bodice. “Is it new?”

She smiled widely, as if I were joking. “Of course it’s new.”

“It isn’t...from him?”

Her expression darkened, and I regretted mentioning the Dictator. “No. I would burn it if it were.”

We were in higher spirits than we should be, given the darkness that surrounded us. But it was her birthday, and the occasion was joyous despite everything. We both seemed to be clinging to that fact.

“Come on,” she said, reaching for my hand to tug me to my feet. “We have to get downstairs before all the guests arrive.”