Borderlands (5 page)

And I'm the one who shot his biplane from the sky. Does Lukas blame me? I don't think so. He knows it was an accident.

But then, how could he
help
but blame me? You can't just douse resentment like a lantern. Even now, I tell myself that I don't blame Lukas for piloting a biplane – but the thought still sends a jolt of ­revulsion down my spine.

‘Lukas,' I say slowly, ‘do you ever wonder –'

And with a screech, an eagle soars above the canopy.

Lukas reacts fast, like someone has slapped him. He throws out his hands, ready to latch onto the bird's consciousness. His body jerks. His eyes flash and he yanks back his head, like a puppet on a string. My own breath hitches.

I've seen this magic before, and I
know
logically that it's just his proclivity . . . but still, it scares me. Because in that instant of connection, it looks like Lukas is dying. Like he's been shot in the gut, and life is bleeding from his eyes. The eagle-screech that escapes his lips sounds just like a shriek of pain.

But then his hands fan open, and he stares into his palms. There's a long silence. I hold my breath. I can't see what he sees – a world from the viewpoint of borrowed wings – but I see the effect on Lukas's face. His lips twitch. His limbs quiver. Whatever he's seeing, it's not good.

A minute passes, then two. I dig my fingernails into my palms and force myself to remain still.
Three, four
,
five . . .
The minutes itch at me like radio static. How far is this eagle flying? But I can't afford to distract Lukas. Not when –

Finally his eyes flash back to green. He leans onto his hands, looking dizzy. Then he shakes his head, takes a deep breath, and meets my eyes.

‘Danika, I . . .' Lukas trails away, fumbling for the right words. I don't know if it's the whiplash of the magic, or just shock at whatever he's seen, but it takes him a good few minutes to compose himself.

‘What?' I say, when I can't stand the silence any longer.

‘This forest isn't deep,' Lukas says. ‘Another day's walk and we'll be out of it.'

‘And then we'll be at the Magnetic Valley?'

‘No, not yet. I saw massive mountains in the distance, with a gap between them – I think that's the Valley. But between here and there, I saw . . . wetlands, I suppose you'd call them. Swamps, rivers, lakes . . .' Lukas looks overwhelmed. ‘I don't know how we'll cross it all. None of us has a Water ­proclivity.'

‘We'll manage,' I say. ‘We didn't think we could cross the mountains, or the wastelands, right? But we did it. And we'll do this too; we'll conquer those rivers like they're puddles, and before you know it, we'll be –'

Lukas cuts me off mid-sentence, which kind of wrecks the ‘inspirational speech' tone I'd been going for. ‘I haven't told you the worst of it,' he says.

‘The worst of it?'

‘We're not alone out here.'

I sit bolt upright. ‘The hunters? They've found our trail?'

‘No, no, nothing like that.' Lukas looks down, as though to sort something out in his head. Then he meets my gaze again and says, ‘I saw an army, Danika. Coming up from the south. There's an army heading for the Valley.'

The others stare at us, stunned into silence. Teddy's mouth hangs slightly open, and Maisy looks ready to dart beneath the nearest rock.

It's Clementine who finally speaks. ‘An army? The king is sending an army to the Valley?' She gives a sharp laugh. ‘That's ridiculous. Lukas, you must have been see–'

‘I wasn't seeing things,' Lukas says. ‘It was real. I saw a massive camp near the Valley. I couldn't figure out what it was, until . . .'

‘Until what?'

‘Until I saw the regiment coming to join it.' Lukas lets out a slow breath. ‘A smaller group of soldiers. They're not coming through the wetlands – they're sneaking up from the south. My father must be sending a few regiments at a time, slowly building up his military presence near the Valley without anyone guessing what he's up to.'

‘But we destroyed his air force!' I say. ‘His Curiefer stash is gone, his biplanes are gone. He can't still want to invade the land beyond the Valley, can he?'

Teddy runs a frustrated hand through his hair. ‘Remember the other night when we were hiding from Sharr? She said something about the king having a Plan B. Like she had to nick out of this region before more trouble showed up. Reckon this is what she meant?'

Something heavy settles in my stomach. Sharr Morrigan is on the run, just like us. Of course she doesn't want to get too close to the king's secret frontier army. Only an idiot would walk into the military hive of their enemy . . .

Yet that's exactly what we must do. We've risked everything to reach the land beyond the Valley – and it's too late to back out now. Our lives are worth nothing in Taladia – only the prices upon our heads. If we hope to live out the week, let alone the rest of our lives, we must somehow cross the Magnetic Valley.

And now, we must sneak past King Morrigan's army to do so.

All that we know of our destination comes from stories: rumours and fairy tales, whispers of a paradise. A land where the king doesn't bomb his people. A land where we will be free. Safe. Alive.

I once asked Lukas for details, a day or so after we escaped from the airbase. But he shook his head at the question, looking weary.

‘I don't know, Danika. My father bragged about his wars all the time – it was our dinnertime conversation, to find out how the battles were going. Wars in the south, in the west . . . He loved to boast about his empire expanding.'

‘But not the east?'

‘No,' Lukas said quietly. ‘Never the east. He refused to even mention the country's name.'

‘But didn't you ever –?'

‘He said I wasn't old enough to learn the truth. The way he feels about that country . . . it's more than just dislike, Danika. He doesn't just want to conquer it. It's something more. Something deeper.'

‘But he didn't even tell you its name?'

Lukas released a slow breath, looking distant. ‘My father's not a gentle man, Danika. I learned it was best not to ask.'

And so here we are, with nothing to go on but rumours and legends. Rumours and legends – and an army of King Morrigan's soldiers to keep us from our destination.

‘Don't worry about them now,' I say, when the silence stretches too long. ‘We've still got a way to go before we reach them, right? Let's just focus on this swampy area, and then –'

‘The borderlands,' Maisy says, quietly.

‘Huh?'

She looks a little flustered as we all turn to her, but she takes a deep breath and explains. ‘The watery region that Lukas saw – I think it's called the borderlands. I read a book about amphibians once, and it said most Taladian frog species lived somewhere called the borderlands, with water and land all tangled up together. I never realised it was near the Valley, but this must be it, mustn't it?'

Teddy nods slowly. ‘The edge of Taladia.'

‘From what I read,' Maisy says, ‘I don't think the borderlands are a natural phenomenon. They're a bit like the wastelands: the result of magic gone wrong. Except they were tainted so long ago, barely a century into the Alchemical Renaissance. There are no official records of why it happened. . . .'

‘Or what sort of weird, alchemical dangers might be there?'

Maisy gives an apologetic nod. ‘Exactly.'

I suck down a sharp breath. In the wastelands, we faced quicksand, plateaus, and endless desert. None of it made geographical sense; it was the result of alchemy bomb testing. Unnatural. Twisted. Magic gone wrong.

But if Maisy is right, the tainting of the borderlands goes back even further. The Alchemical Renaissance was centuries ago, when attempts to transmute lead into gold sparked the rediscovery of alchemy in Taladia. And it marked the end of the Dark Ages – a time of chaos and barbarism, when all knowledge of alchemy was lost.

If this landscape was polluted in a time of such upheaval, who knows how its magic might behave?

‘Great,' Clementine says. ‘This will add a lovely footnote to the end of this trip.' She sounds so sour that I half-expect a diatribe about letting filthy scruffers plan the route. But instead she just narrows her eyes, crosses her arms, and waits in silence for someone else to speak.

Lukas turns towards the borderlands, and we all follow his gaze. We can't see anything from here, of course – just trees, trees and more trees. But beyond those trunks lies a world of streams, islands, shores and lakes. Beyond that lies a growing army: a bullet in the chamber of King Morrigan's unknown plan.

And beyond that lies the Valley.

There's a moment of silence, as we all stare numbly through the trees.

‘Well,' says Teddy eventually, ‘who's up for mushroom porridge?'

The night is long and quiet. I volunteer for first watch, since there's no hope of sleep with all this new information rushing through my head. The worry is like a parasite – like an infestation of nits back in Rourton. The little buggers won't stop niggling at you, and scratching just makes them keen to return.

I drop my head into my hands, take a deep breath, and try to refocus. I'm supposed to be watching for danger, not mentally reviewing all the possible reasons for King Morrigan to amass an army.

After an hour or so, I jump at the sound of movement, but it's just a figure extricating itself from my crewmates' huddle. At first I think it must be Lukas coming to keep me company, but when she steps into the moonlight I recognise Maisy.

‘Hi,' I whisper. ‘Can't sleep?'

Maisy shakes her head. ‘Mind if I join you?'

‘Course not.' I scoot across and gesture for her to sit beside me. ‘Anything wrong?'

Maisy shrugs as she slips onto the boulder. She reminds me of a little bird even more than a mouse – light and skittish, always ready to flitter away. We sit in silence for a while, gazing out into the trees.

‘I have to tell you something,' Maisy says.

I force my face into a politely interested expression. Really I'm burning with curiosity, but you've got to take it easy with Maisy. ‘Yeah?'

‘It's about Lukas.'

Well, that's not what I was expecting. ‘What's wrong? Is he all right?'

‘I think so.' Maisy looks at her knees. ‘But Danika . . . I don't think he told us everything he saw today.'

‘What do you mean?'

Maisy hesitates. ‘I was watching him when he told us what the eagle saw. He didn't look comfortable – he looked like he was still hiding something.'

‘Of course he looked uncomfortable. He'd just seen his father's army bunching up around the Valley we want to get into!' A note of defensive irritation slips into my voice, and Maisy shies back. I give an apologetic smile, and force myself to speak more calmly. ‘Sorry.'

Maisy looks back down at her knees. ‘I watch people, Danika. I know how to listen when other people are talking. I know when someone feels guilty about something – when they're hiding a secret.'

I move to interrupt, but she shakes her head and keeps speaking. ‘And that's not all. At dinner tonight, he . . .'

My mouth feels dry. ‘At dinner he what?'

‘When the rest of us were eating porridge, Lukas excused himself early. Everyone was too tired to pay attention, but he was going through the supplies, Danika. I saw him. He was looking through the hunters' packs, sneaking things into his pocket . . .'

The words hit me like a slap. ‘Are you saying Lukas is stealing from us?'

‘No, no!' Maisy shakes her head, looking terrified by my reaction. ‘No, not like that. Just a few basic supplies, that's all. I think . . . I think he's going to leave.' She takes a deep breath. ‘I think he saw something else when he borrowed that bird's eyes, and it's scared him into running away.'

Another silence. I stare at Maisy, at a loss for what to say. If you collected all the tense silences in this conversation, you could erase half the noise in Taladia. Finally, I manage to cajole my tongue into working again. ‘You're wrong.'

Maisy doesn't look up from her knees. ‘I hope so.'

‘I know so,' I snap, too affected by her words to even soften my tone. ‘What do you think he is, some kind of traitor? Just because he's the king's son? It's not his fault who his father is – people can't choose their relatives.'

Maisy looks up, and suddenly she's not a timid little mouse. Her eyes blaze with all the power of her Flame proclivity, and this time it's me who shrinks back. ‘I know that,' she says. ‘I
know
you can't choose your father.'

It takes me a second to realise what she means, and then my stomach twists. Maisy's father was a ruthless businessman who tried to marry her off for money. That's the entire reason the twins left Rourton – why they traded a life of richie opulence for this dangerous trek through the wild.

‘Sorry,' I say.

Maisy stares at me a moment longer, then nods. ‘I hope I'm wrong, Danika. I just thought you should know. Just in case . . . I hoped it might hurt less if you had some warning.'

She slips from the boulder and pads away. I want to call her back, to apologise again, but she's already snuggled back down beside her sister. So I stare after her, blink, and then turn back towards the trees.

Lukas wouldn't leave us,
I tell myself. And he wouldn't keep secrets. Not after everything we've survived together. Maisy's just paranoid, that's all – and who can blame her, after what she's been through?

But then I remember the afternoon, when Lukas pulled his mind from the eagle's eyes. The way he looked down to disguise his expression. The way he hesitated, pausing between answers. And how he chose his words so carefully . . . like a boy with something to hide.

We reach the borderlands a few hours after noon. The forest ends at the edge of a cliff, which skirts around the region like a picture frame. And the picture within is so startling that it takes my breath away. This isn't just a swamp. It isn't just a network of streams. It's something else entirely.