Aeralis (2 page)

“How is Aeralis?” I asked after casting about for something else to say, desperate to fill the space between us that was now laden with pain. “Where are you living?”

Gabe ran a hand over his newly shorn hair. “A slum. All crumbling stone buildings and clouds of steam from the factories.”

“Not in Korr’s fancy house?”

He shook his head. “I can’t be seen with my brother, because I’d be recognized at once for who I am, and by all accounts I’m dead. I have to stay away from his usual venues and anyone who might know me—or Korr, since our resemblance is obvious—which rules out all the nice places. Even his home is off limits, since Korr’s involvement is one of our greatest secrets, given his closeness to the Dictator. I’ve been living with another Restorationist.”

“Restorationist?”

“It’s what we’re called, because we want to see the old monarchy restored.”

“And your family? Any news of them since you’ve returned to Aeralis?”

He bit his lip and looked away. “Korr smuggled them away in secret once he solidified his standing with the Dictator. I won’t be able to see them again unless we overthrow him.”

“At least they’re alive,” I managed.

“Yes,” he agreed.

All small talk ran dry between us after that, and again the air shivered with unspoken things as our footsteps crunched over debris that littered the ruins. My heart ached with hurt and regret, and I was brimming with words that I refused to say. Why had he left so suddenly? Why did he trust his brother now? Why could we find nothing to say to each other except stilted talk of revolutions?

“I miss you.” The words came out unexpectedly, and I flushed. I hadn’t meant to say them.

I saw his chest rise and fall, and his neck flushed. Then he said, almost so low I missed it, “Come back with me.”

I bit my lip. “That’s impossible.”

“I know you said no before, but things were unsettled. The Frost had just been liberated. Now, however—”

“I can’t. It’s impossible to even consider.”

“Lia—”

“Jonn has the Sickness.” It burst out of me, the declaration fueled by pain and sadness and anger rolled up together.

“What?” Gabe said sharply, stopping. “The
Sickness
? How?”

I kept walking doggedly, and he caught my arm and pulled me around. I shot a glance ahead at Korr and Adam. They lingered at the end of the hall, watching us. Adam’s eyebrows lifted as he took in my expression, and he narrowed his eyes at Gabe.

I shook my head slightly to communicate that I was all right. I didn’t want Korr making inquiries, so I resumed walking as I answered Gabe’s questions in whispers.

“I don’t know how it happened,” I said. “He’s been quarantined. He’s been in a coma of sorts since it happened. We’re simply waiting.”
Waiting for him to die
, but I didn’t say that. I refused to say that.

Regret and horror mingled in Gabe’s eyes. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know, or I would have—” He swallowed. “What are you going to do?”

“There’s no cure.”

“Perhaps the doctors in Aeralis—”

“No cure,” I repeated, my voice harsh.

Silence fell between us. Gabe’s shoulders slumped. His eyes slid away from mine. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “He was like a brother to me, too.”

We reached the entrance to Echlos and went out into the cold. The night sky glittered above us, the black punctured with stars. Gabe fumbled with his cloak while I squinted at the stars and the silence crawled over me.

“Gabe,” I began.

“Listen,” he interrupted, and his voice held a note of earnest desperation that silenced me. “If you ever—I mean, if you reconsider—” He stopped, gathering his dignity, and this time when he spoke, his words were measured and calm. “If you ever find yourself in Aeralis and you need to find me, come to the Plaza of Horses. There’s a statue there of a stallion with one leg outstretched. Leave a message in its mouth—there’s a hollow place where the iron has rusted away—or wait beneath it. I’ll look for you.”

“Gabe.” The only way I’d conceivably find myself in Aeralis was if I took him up on his offer and came with him, and that would never happen.

“Just remember,” he said.

I sighed. “I’ll remember. Plaza of Horses. Statue of a stallion.”

“Weaver,” Korr snapped, with the impatience of a man who was not accustomed to being ignored. “Has starvation wasted away your hearing along with the rest of you? I asked you a question.”

Gabe and I had been so engrossed in our conversation that we’d almost forgotten about them.

I straightened and crossed my arms.

“What do you want, Korr?”

His mouth slid into a smile that might have been called charming if it had been on anyone else’s face. “I hear your father has a magnificent collection of journals and notebooks,” he said. “I would like to purchase them from you.”

“Absolutely not.” I wasn’t letting him anywhere near my father’s precious notebooks, which chronicled the secrets and histories of my family in addition to my father’s personal struggles, hopes, and fears.

Korr arched one eyebrow. “I think you’ll find me quite generous.”

“They’re not for sale.”

“Surely there is something you want,” he purred.

“No,” I said. “And why do you want them, anyway?”

“Call me a collector of curiosities,” he said.

My gaze fell on the PLD in his hand, and I understood. “The device was part of our deal; information about its origin and use was not. You’ll have to discover it on your own.”

“Come now,” he said, cajoling.

I glared at him. “You haven’t a chance of convincing me.”

“You’re making a mistake,” he said. “Don’t be stupid, Weaver. I could do a lot for this miserable excuse for a civilization you have here.”

“Stop insulting me, or I’ll summon the Watchers,” I snapped.

At that, Korr paled. He had no defense against the monsters that roamed our wilderness, unlike Adam, Gabe, and me. My family lineage protected me, and both Adam and Gabe had been injected with a serum that would turn the monsters away. However, Korr was defenseless.

His mouth twisted, but then he smiled.

“I’ll concede to you the battle,” he said. “But not the war. Sooner or later, Lia Weaver, I’ll have something you want.”

His eyes slid to Gabe as he spoke the last few words, and I didn’t react, but my heart thudded. I didn’t trust this man not to use everything I cared about to get what he wanted from me, even if he had to betray his own flesh and blood. But I wasn’t giving that snake my father’s notebooks.

“Let’s go, Gabriel,” Korr snapped.

Gabe leaned close and put his lips to my ear.

“I’ll look for you.”

We parted without goodbyes. I watched until Gabe and his brother vanished from view among the trees.

Once they’d gone, Adam and I headed for Iceliss.

If you ever are in Aeralis and you need to find me, come to the Plaza of Horses
.

The invitation haunted me.

“I hope I never have to see that man again,” I muttered.

Adam looked at me but said nothing. A faint smile touched his mouth, and I scowled.

“What is it?”

He shook his head. “I just enjoy seeing the lord brought to speechlessness, that’s all.”

We shared a grim smile as we reached the path that lead to the village, and a comfortable silence filled the space between us. Adam didn’t ask what Gabe had whispered to me, but I think he wanted to.

“Have you managed to contact the Trio yet?” I asked. Since the liberation of the Frost, he’d been sending messages with no response.

“No,” Adam said. “I am still waiting. I shall continue to try to reach them.”

Gabe’s final words continued to echo in my mind.
I’ll look for you
.

We reached the hill and descended the path to Iceliss’s main gate. The village had changed in the last few weeks. The Farther additions remained, but we’d strung the skeletal reminders of our captivity with garlands of snow blossoms and hung them with ribbons. The walls still stood as well, but they were empty of soldiers. Wreaths of pine hung on every door, celebratory symbols of our victory. And everywhere I looked, embroidered banners of a blue bird called the bluewing danced and furled in the wind.

Bluewing—my alias during my exile from the village and civilization, and the name I’d used as I’d made plans to drive the Aeralian occupiers out of the Frost. It had become a symbol of freedom, a symbol of the Frost itself.

Adam and I traveled in silence to the former Mayor’s house, where Ivy and I were still staying. Someone had strung ribbons on all the trees, and they fluttered in the wind. I climbed the steps to the front door, and weariness settled in my bones.

Before we went inside, Adam’s fingers caught mine, and he turned me around to face him. He scanned my face, his mouth saying nothing, his eyes asking everything. The pressure of his hand against mine stirred heat inside me. He’d refrained from speaking about us as a couple the last few weeks—we’d been so busy with the new liberation, and Gabe’s sudden and abrupt disappearance had left me wounded and confused.

Now I’d seen Gabe again, and the meeting had sent me into a melancholy silence.

Neither of us spoke as he searched my eyes. He touched my cheek once, a gesture meant to be comforting rather than romantic, I supposed, although it still sent shivers over my skin. Wordlessly, he opened the door and went inside. I followed.

A shape stirred in the warm darkness, and a match flared to life. Ann. She lit a lamp and padded forward to greet us.

“Did you see them?”

“The PLD has been delivered,” I said.

Her eyes shifted to Adam, and he tipped his head to the side. “They both looked well,” he said, answering the question she didn’t ask.

“Oh,” she said. “Good.”

Silence wrapped us all in invisible bonds. Ann harbored some strange connection with Korr, forged over the months of her captivity in Aeralis. I didn’t understand it.

“We should get to bed,” she murmured after I said nothing.

Adam’s glance was like a caress. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

They left me. I climbed the ornate central staircase and turned left. I stopped at the end of the hall, before a door hung with black ribbons. It was the sign for sickness. In this case,
the
Sickness.

One of the Healers sat outside the door, dressed in a white tunic. She glanced up at me, saying nothing.

“How is he?” I asked.

“The same.”

He’d been sleeping for weeks, his thin body struggling with every breath, his lungs rasping, his skin the color of old milk, his lips cold and pale as frost on a windowpane. His eyelids, closed and threaded with bulging veins, fluttered but never opened.

I rested my forehead against the door and shut my eyes. Inches of wood and miles of silence separated us.

“Please wake up,” I whispered.

Silence.

With a sigh, I turned to go to my room.

Ivy shared the vast featherbed with me. So much had changed for us in such a short time. My little sister, always the baby, the troublemaker, had blossomed into an astonishing leader when it came to the Watchers. She lay curled in a fetal position beneath the feather-stuffed white comforter, her hair fanned across the pillow, her cheeks flushed with the warmth of sleep. I slipped in beside her, moving slowly so as not to wake her. Her face, slack with unconsciousness, was almost angelic in sleep.

Two sleeping siblings.

But one might not wake up.

Tightness squeezed my throat. I turned over, pulled the blankets over my head, and shut out the world with my eyelids.

A pounding sound far away woke me hours later. The room was dark as pitch, the air icy above the quilt. My confusion turned to anxiety as I heard Adam’s voice in the hall, and I threw back the blankets and ran to the door.

Adam stood in the hall, his eyes on the foyer below, his mouth pressed in a line.

“What’s wrong?” My heart pounded. My stomach was sick with dread. “Who is it?”

He shook his head to show he didn’t know.

I grabbed my cloak to wrap around my sleep clothes and followed him into the hall. The sound of shouting floated up from the foyer. Adam and I exchanged a glance. I heard Ann’s name as well as the former Mayor’s, along with strings of ugly epitaphs and the sound of fists pounding on the door.

Ann stood by the stairs, wrapped in a robe. She stepped from the shadows as we descended to the foyer, and I wrapped both arms around her. Dark circles shadowed the hollows beneath her eyes, and her lips were pressed in a thin, brave line.

Adam strode across the room and wrenched the door open. Lantern light outlined the bodies of the people on the porch and spilled across the floor. I could make out no individual faces in the darkness.

A mob.

TWO

“WHAT DO YOU want?” Adam demanded. His voice was harsh from sleep and anger, and he spoke with the full force and authority of his position as Thorns leader.

“We want the Mayor and his girl gone,” someone shouted. “They don’t deserve to live in this fine house anymore, enjoying luxuries the rest of us cannot. They’re traitors!”

Traitors? Who dared to say such things?

I shoved past Adam and glared into the face of the man who’d spoken. I recognized him—a Tanner. He hadn’t been involved in the liberation of the Frost. He’d been one of the ones who’d hidden in their home, one of the ones who wasn’t injected with the serum that kept the Watchers away.

“Ann Mayor has done more for this town than you,” I said. “She helped defeat Raine. She risked her life. That’s more than I can say for you, Robert Tanner.”

He flinched at the mention of his name. “If her father hadn’t sold us to the enemy, there would have been no Raine.”

“You’re a coward,” I said. “Coming here now, making these accusations in the dark of night—”

The Tanner sneered at me. “You know as well as I that the Mayor family has wronged us all. They don’t deserve to stay here in this fancy house. They don’t deserve to be in Iceliss at all. We want them gone, or we’ll burn down the house.”