Aeralis (24 page)

I found my way to Gabe and dragged him to his feet.

“Are you all right?”

He pushed my hands away. “Where’s Korr?”

“I don’t know. Come on, we have to move before—”

Gabe spotted his brother’s crumpled form and broke away from me, running toward Korr as a roar split the air. Three Watchers surged through the blue vortex of light and into the room. They opened their jaws and snarled at the soldiers, who threw down their weapons and dropped to their knees. They’d heard the stories. They knew their guns would do nothing.

The Dictator turned and ran. Gabe saw him and stopped.

“Lia, there’s a secret door behind the dais,” Gabe shouted. “He’s heading for it!”

I wrenched my long skirt away from my ankles and ran after him. He skidded on the tile as he reached the platform, and I leaped after him. I seized the end of his gold-trimmed coat and yanked. He fell hard, and I fell with him.

One of the Wanderers grabbed the Dictator and forced his hands behind his back before he could try to run again. It was Stone. Two growling Watchers flanked us, their eyes glowing and their tails lashing. I gazed at them and marveled that my sister had been right when she’d promised me that the Watchers would do her bidding and make the leap through the gate to help us.

“Please,” the Dictator panted. “Don’t let them eat me.”

“You won’t be so lucky,” Stone hissed.

I got to my feet and looked around.

The Dictator was secured. The sharp retort of gunfire came from the halls, but I knew it wouldn’t be long before those men surrendered.

Adam and Raven joined several of their fellow agents in collecting weapons. The Watchers paced in the center of the room.

Gabe spotted Korr, crumpled on the floor beside the PLD, blood streaming through his fingers. He rushed to his brother’s side. Ann was there already, supporting Korr’s head.

One of the Restorationists climbed onto the dais and addressed the terrified crowd.

“Tonight we return Aeralis to its rightful ruler,” he shouted. “Tonight we see the monarchy restored.”

A hush filled the room, punctuated only by the sound of the Watchers hissing and Gabe repeating Korr’s name. Then, the crowd began to cheer.

But all I could see was Gabe’s anguished face as his brother took his last breath.

TWENTY-FIVE

PAIN TWISTED INSIDE me at the sight of Gabe’s grief, but I couldn’t stay. This was the part of the plan that depended on me. I had to get through the portal and bring the Alice device to Gordon.

I fell through the portal and into darkness. Icy wind swirled around me, tugging at my hair and clothes. I slammed into the ground on the other side. Echlos.

I struggled to my feet, and hands grabbed me.

“You have it?” Borde’s voice trembled with excitement.

I dug in my pocket for the device, still blinking from the effects of the jump. Borde snatched it from my fingers and crooned to it as if it were a baby.

“Let’s go,” he said. “There are horses outside.”

He held a bag that contained the flares Gordon had given me, along with ropes to restrain him once he’d handed over the cure. Together we rushed for the exterior, and the horses.

The ride through the Frost was a blur. We were so close. My hands trembled from exhaustion. So much had already happened already, but it wasn’t over yet.

The clearing was empty and hushed with fresh-fallen snow when we reached it. I struck the flare against a rock, and it sent a column of red-colored smoke and light into the sky and bathed the trees around us in a blood-colored glow. I dropped it and let it burn as we waited. Borde slipped into the bushes to hide. I stood alone in the clearing.

Minutes or hours passed. Finally, the faint
crunch, crunch
of footsteps met my straining ears. I turned.

Gordon.

I held the device in my hands, palms out, like a waiting supplicant. Gordon stepped forward and regarded me, then the object in my hands.

“You found it,” he said. “I didn’t expect that you would.”

“No faith in me?”

He didn’t answer. He surveyed the shadows a moment, and my heart skipped a beat.

He reached out and took the device. “It’s real,” he said.

“Yes. Now give me the cure.”

The forest rustled around us. Somewhere close, I heard the faint snarl of a Watcher. A twig snapped. Gordon whirled, staring at the bushes where Borde crouched in hiding. His chest rose and fell.

“You didn’t come alone. You have a weapon here. They’re attracted to them, I know.”

Borde stood and pointed the gun at Gordon’s chest. “Give us the cure,” he said. “We’ve given you what you want.”

Gordon stared at Borde. “Meridus,” he snarled. “I should have known you’d try to interfere. This time, I’m not going to let you.”

“Refuse and I’ll put a bullet in your leg,” Borde said.

Gordon started toward the older man, but the latter waved the gun warningly, and he stopped.

Borde backed up, holding the gun steady. “Get us what you promised. Slowly now.”

Gordon feigned left and lunged forward, seizing the barrel of the gun. They struggled, and Borde slipped on the snow. The gun went off, and all the air left my lungs as the forest around me fell silent, a gasp of air and snow and trees all together at the shock of the sound.

Gordon toppled into the snow and lay still.

I screamed. The sound ripped from me. I was crying. My cheeks were wet; my hands were wet. I was running, sliding in the snow, turning him over. He was unmoving as I shook him.

He couldn’t be dead.

“Lia,” Borde said, touching my shoulder. “He’s gone.”

My breath was a squeak of anguish in my lungs. “No,” I whispered. “No.”

~

Our trip to the village was a blur. Trees spun around me. The cold licked straight to my bones and froze the skin on my face. I clung to the reins of my mount, my desperation a chant in my head.

Finally, the Farther-built walls of Iceliss shimmered in the distance, bathed in starlight and frosted with dried snow blossoms. Lights glowed in the windows of the houses, scattering steaks of warmth across the icy streets.

Jonn lay unmoving on the bed when we reached his room.

I fell on my knees beside him and picked up his hand. His fingers were cold. His chest didn’t rise or fall. Tears began to gather in my eyes, my libation of sorrow. I clutched at his shirt, shaking him. “Jonn!”

“He’s here,” the Healer said, putting one hand on my shoulder. “He’s just in a deep sleep.”

I sat back, exhausted. “Where’s my sister?”

I found her sleeping, too. She must have returned, exhausted, after sending the Watchers through the gate. Her skin had begun to turn sallow, and she didn’t stir as I sank down beside her on the bed and stroked her hair. I saw Gordon’s final moments in my mind, his shoulders going slack and his legs sagging before he dropped like a doll. I kept petting her hair, the movements mechanical. I didn’t know what else to do.

My sister opened her eyes. “Lia?” she mumbled, the word thick with sleep. “You’re here?”

“I’m here,” I said. My eyes clouded with tears again. “I thought you’d slipped into the coma.”

“You’re crying.” She sat up and touched my shoulder. I turned my head away so she couldn’t see the moisture betraying me. “What is it? You never cry. Lia?”

I shook my head. I couldn’t tell her, not yet. I couldn’t bear to speak the words.

“Oh,” she said, straightening. “The raccoon.”

“Did it die?” I asked it wearily.

“No.” Her face brightened as she spoke. “He’s recovered completely. He didn’t even go through the coughing phase that usually occurs when healing from the Sickness. He’s a strong little guy, I suppose.”

My hand paused. “What?”

“The raccoon is well. The healers said it was nothing short of miraculous. I think it shows what a little love can do.”

The most fragile tendril of hope unfurled in me. My lungs heaved as I straightened. I moved my lips, but nothing came out. The raccoon was healed. Something had happened to it. Memories scratched at the back of my mind, begging to be unleashed. What had happened to it?

Ivy was still rambling about the animal, oblivious to my change of mood. “He’s a cheerful little thing. Loves biscuits. He—”

“Not that,” I interrupted. “What happened to the raccoon last week, Ivy?”

She stared at me, puzzled. “He was in a cage? I cared for him.”

“No, no. He was injured somehow. How was he injured?”

“Oh, a mothkat bit him. But it didn’t seem to hurt him. In fact—”

I was already running for the door.

~

The wind whipped at my hair and cloak as I ran down the path. Snow blossoms brushed my ankles, their petals luminous in the moonlight.

I needed to find a mothkat.

I spotted a rotting hollow tree trunk at the edge of the path and peered inside. Gleaming eyes winked back at me. Mothkats. I took off my cloak and stretched it over the opening, then kicked the tree. A few creatures flew out and thrashed against the fabric, trying to get free, and I scooped them up and held the opening of my makeshift bag shut with both hands. I turned back toward the village, running again.

Borde waited for me in Jonn’s room, Ivy and one of the Healers at his side.

“Mothkats,” I managed. “One bit the raccoon, and now it’s better. Maybe if they bite Jonn and Ivy...”

“It’s worth trying,” the Healer said.

I delivered the mothkats and stepped back. My stomach was rioting in terror. My lips were numb. The Healer pulled one of the mothkats from my cloak, and the creature squeaked and flopped in his hands as he carried it to my brother’s bed.

Borde rolled up one of Jonn’s sleeves and rubbed the arm with brandy to clean it.

I sank down beside my brother and dragged in a strangled breath as the Healer picked up Jonn’s arm, which was bare to the elbow and glistening from the brandy. As I watched, he held the mothkat to the skin. The vermin thrashed, then sank its tiny mouth into Jonn’s flesh. My brother moaned in his sleep. The Healer withdrew the mothkat and looked at Ivy.

“You next,” he said.

She extended her arm and endured the bite without making a sound.

“Now what?” I asked.

“Now,” he said, “we wait.”

TWENTY-SIX

RAIN BLANKETED THE city of Astralux in gray. I stood in the conservatory of Korr’s house, watching the droplets stream down the walls of glass and make pebbled shadows over the flowers and leaves inside the greenhouse. It was a grim day to celebrate the official reinstatement of the monarchy, an appropriate day to bury Korr.

The sound of a shovel filled the room. Gabe stood beside me, his face stiff as a mask, and I reached out and took Gabe’s hand. I squeezed his fingers, but he didn’t return the gesture. At Gabe’s other side stood Ann, holding an urn, her expression remote and her eyes soft. I watched as a tear slipped down her cheek. We hadn’t yet had an opportunity to speak alone, and we wouldn’t, not until things here were finished. She’d been busy settling matters for Korr, wishes he’d expressed to her and no one else. Raven confided to me that Korr had left her the house and grounds, too. Ann had been swamped with details, and by the looks of her, unable to process what had happened yet.

When the servant finished digging a hole in the ground, Gabe stepped forward and lifted a bush covered in white blossoms. He placed it in the hole. Ann joined him and spilled the contents of the urn around the roots of the plant.

Korr’s ashes.

“He wanted this,” Ann said quietly, her voice barely audible above the rain. “He wanted to be absorbed into something beautiful when he died. He wanted to be part of something that wasn’t pain and sorrow.”

“He’s part of more than he realizes,” Gabe said. “He saved my life, and I will not waste what he’s given me.”

Much had happened in the last several days. After the palace had been seized and the Dictator imprisoned, word spread quickly through the city. The majority of the soldiers in the Dictator’s employ willingly surrendered, and the city was immediate and enthusiastic in voicing their support of Gabe’s return. Now, search for his cousin—the heir to the throne—was underway.

After the funeral was over, I stood uselessly as the crowd swirled around me. Political advisors swarmed Gabe, and a servant pulled Ann away to discuss another matter regarding the house.

I descended to the basement alone to where Borde had once again rigged the PLD to a power source to allow it to operate continuously. I needed to visit Jonn and Ivy. I needed to see for myself that they were well.

Steeling myself for the sickening fall and the swirl of gray, I stepped forward, and then I was spinning, careening through space until I struck a hard surface.

I lifted my head. Nausea swam through my veins, but I staggered up and headed for the village. As Borde had promised, each trip got easier.

As Iceliss swung into view, I stopped and inhaled a breath of pine-scented air. I looked at Iceliss now and saw what it had been hundreds of years earlier, and I saw what it was now. A small, tired, worn village of stone in the middle of a world of ice and white. But it was brave, a tenacious barnacle clinging to the landscape, refusing to be forever scraped away by hardship or occupation or internal strife.

My feet found the path to the gate. As I passed beneath the bars that enclosed the path, the cold and ever-present reminder of our painful past, I stopped and put one hand against the metal. It was good metal. Ideas filled my head, visions of future projects. We could build houses with this metal, greenhouses, a bigger school. Something bright and warm nestled inside my chest. Hope.

We actually had a future, and my siblings would live in it.

I hurried to the Mayor’s house on the top of the hill. As I reached the porch, I stopped. Jonn sat on a chair, wrapped in quilts and facing the forest. The wind caught his hair and made it dance. As he turned and caught sight of me, he smiled.

A sharp ache filled me, the feeling that I’d almost broken something precious and irreplaceable, but had caught it right before it hit the ground. I trembled, overcome with sudden fear and relief mingled together. I took a deep breath and approached him.