Such a Daring Endeavor (26 page)

“What’s wrong?”

“All of this is just so…I know the tears chose me. I heard what you said, about them being cried for me. Jomeini told me her vision, how I’m meant to heal the rift between the races and appease the ground crying out for penance. But the more I think about it, the more impossible it seems. I can’t do it.”

Pity pools in Nattie’s eyes. “Have you ever seen a baby chick hatch?”

I shake my head.

“It is a struggle for the creature, to break through the shell, to push it open. A human could make it easier on the fledgling bird by pulling each piece of the shell away and releasing the new creature. But when they do the bird never flies. It didn’t glean the strength it needed from hatching.”

“The bird is stronger because of it,” I say, hearing exactly what she’s trying to tell me. That I have to figure it out on my own because I wouldn’t learn what I need to know otherwise.

“But the cracks in the egg provide light as the new bird awakens, Ambry. Light is there to give the bird cause to keep trying. Light is always there.”

Light. A reason to keep going, to keep trying. My breath bottles in my throat, tingling there. She’s telling me to have hope.

A fluttering sensation jolts, lifting a weight I didn’t know I was carrying.

“Keep following your heart and the ideas that spring as you look at the cards. I suspect it won’t come all at once. And remember, Ambry, not everything we think comes from us. Angels are real, child, and they’re on your side. I must go—you are about to wake soon. I have one more matter to discuss.”

“Okay.” I sort through my thoughts, wondering what else it could possibly be.

She lifts her chin in a regal sort of way. “Tell him he won’t find us.”

“What? Who are you talking about?”

“He needs to get his priorities straight, or he will lose his granddaughter.”

“Solomus?”

“He’s been searching for me. He has been for years. It’s why he left Jomeini in the first place, and she’s suffering for it, Ambry. We appear only when and to whom we are needed by the most—something he’s never attempted to understand.”

“And Solomus doesn’t need you?”

She slants her head to one side, thinking it over for a moment. “He thinks he does. But he’s wasted his life and ruined his granddaughter’s in a pointless search, trying to restore his magic and break his spell. He needs to understand it is not his place to break it. Tell him he won’t get what he’s after from us.”

“What is he after? Why don’t you just tell him this?”

“The angels limit me as well, child. I can only touch this world for mere minutes. You have the tools to figure this out, Ambry. Telling the wizard myself would defeat the purpose of trying to divert his focus. If he speaks to me once he will think he can again. The message must come from you.”

“He might not listen to me. Nattie. Nattie!”

“It is up to you,” she says as she fades.

“Nattie!” I call again.

The dream shifts. The meadow fills with trees, with fallen leaves and the sounds of chittering animals. And I gasp awake.

It must come from you.

“Can’t sleep neither?”

Zeke lies on the floor next to me, his legs tucked into a gray sleeping bag. His head is propped up against the wall. His aud’s screen lights his face, and he lowers the device just enough to peer over it. Thankfully, he sleeps with his eyepatch on. I wonder what happened to his eye.

The fact that he’s lying here instead of somewhere else tells me I just might have stolen his bed.

I sit up and rake my hands through my hair, but the action makes me wince. I ache everywhere. The events of the previous day cluster in, bumping for attention. Talon. The dungeon. Shasa. Jomeini. I clutch the teardrop beneath my shirt and then with a little hiccup of realization, turn and dig for the cards snugly packed under the pillow.

Phew.

“What are you watching?” I ask, sliding onto the floor beside Zeke. This scratch-chinned and gap-toothed man who glared at me over his trunk of wares the first time I saw him at Black Vault with Gwynn now scoots over, giving me space on the sleeping bag. I sidle in, catching sight of the news on his screen.

My image appears—several different shots, actually. The school picture they displayed for my wanted poster back when I was with Talon, me in the dungeon, face filthy and hands behind my back as I knelt on the soiled floor, me running on the beach with the other fugitives.

“You’re a star,” he says. “Wanted wherever you go. Them all wants to kill ya, and that’s sayin’ somethin’.” He grins at me, as though this is the highest of compliments. “You’d make a good keeper.”

“Oh, I would?” I say, catching onto his playful tone.

“Yeah, good at dodging authorities. It’s the number one qualification.”

I chuckle, leaning in as the images change to display several different buildings. All cylindrical and white, just like the one in Valadir. Stations.

“They’re everywhere,” I say, my eyes not seeing fast enough. In Jienke. In Hyerton. Angels, they’re building one in Cadehtraen.

Footage shifts to display soldiers corralling people, standing guard around the line-up of civilians on their way to having their magic stabbed out of them in unison.

“This is disgusting,” I say.

“Look at this,” Zeke says, pointing to the screen with a stubby finger. “‘Join the fight and restore equality. War is coming. Enlist, and your family receives protection from the Arcaian army.’”

I sneer, remembering Nattie’s words about unity. “Equality.”

Tyrus now fills the small screen, his deep voice resonating while the volume is on low. “I’m after a peaceful reign,” the liar says. “But I will not stand for the inequality between us. Power should be shared.”

People around him cheer. Arcaians, probably, or Itharians who don’t have any other choice. No group of Itharians feels that much without being forced to act like it by their oppressors.

“He doesn’t want equality,” Zeke grumbles.

“It’s a fancy way of saying ‘domination,’” Talon says. I tilt up my head to find him slipping in sock-footed. He sits beside Zeke and rubs a hand behind his neck. “I’ve been watching it, too. Tyrus thinks if he uses the word ‘equality’ enough people will start to believe it.”

“That’ll never work,” says Zeke.

Talon slopes against the wall. “It did on me. Until I saw sense.”

“Who does he think he’s trying to convince?” Zeke asks. “He’s already going through towns and building Stations to mass-subjugate people. Seems like he’s got Itharia well in hand.”

“I don’t think it’s only Itharia he’s after anymore,” I say. “And besides, some of us still feel.”

“You mean you do?” Zeke asks. “Magic and all?”

I nod, not looking at Talon. “I thought maybe you all at Black Vault were the same, but apparently not.”

“And you still don’t know why?” Talon asks.

I push myself to sit up against the wall and shake my head. Zeke’s sleeping bag slides beneath my movements. “Have you gotten any rest?” I ask, finally allowing myself to look at Talon for longer than a passing glance.

“A little,” says Talon. “You?”

“A little.”

“Aaaaaand, there it goes again.” Zeke shares his screen, showing the images shift to a different army bearing a flag with orange colors. Orange plumes eject from the soldiers’ helmets, and they march in one body, some on foot, some in thick, armored vehicles the likes of which I’ve never seen before.

Talon moves closer, absorbed by the screen. The light gleams on his face, casting shadows over his brow. “Feihria,” he whispers.

If that’s them, this must mean…

“Talon—”

His eyes flick to mine. “I know. They’ve crossed the Arbors. They’re in Itharia now.”

The newscaster shares as much, and then she begins talking about a series of fundraisers being put on by a local school.

“It’s clever, really,” I say, unable to get the thought of those Stations out of my mind. Cadehtraen. Angels, I wonder if they’ve gotten to my parents yet. “Flash an image of the enemy, spread word that Feihria is coming to attack, and offer protection in exchange for subjugation.”

“Tyrus has been planning this for years,” Talon says, his fingers working against one another as though he’s rubbing sand between them.

“If that’s so, then why would he draw Feihria out? That was a stupid plan on his part if he wants to subject all of Itharia. Your father said it himself, it’s clear our people can’t defend themselves against Arcaians.”

Talon rubs his chin. “No, Tyrus isn’t stupid. He knows what he’s doing.”

“But he deliberately upset them. And for what? Now they’ll be attacking any day.”

Talon’s head lifts. “Exactly,” he says in sudden inspiration. He takes my hand, helping me to my feet. “Night, Zeke,” he says over his shoulder.

“Don’t mind me,” says the older man, slipping back to lie on his sleeping bag.

Talon guides me out into the darkened hall and closes the door behind us. He leans in and begins to whisper.

“He got the Feihrians out of Angel’s Basin. He wants them here.”

“Angel’s Basin?” I whisper back, wishing I could see Talon’s face. “Is that your hometown? Talon, what are you thinking? What are you not telling me?”

“I don’t see how Tyrus can know about it,” Talon says to himself. “It was the one thing I kept from him. How can he know?”

“How can he know what?”

“You’ve heard of the ancient Ithillian race?” he says, his breath stroking my face in the darkness.

“I’ve heard you speak their language,” I say. “And Solomus mentioned them earlier today, about how a battle was fought and the races were divided when the angels intervened.”

“Did he tell you about the waters there, at Angel’s Basin?”

The words sweep a shiver across my back. Nattie mentioned water as well. I never considered Angel’s Basin was an actual, geographical
basin.

“The angels blessed the waters there. It’s how they were able to divide the races. The Firsts were born in those waters, Ambry. And as a result, the waters contain immense power.”

“Enough power for Tyrus to get magic permanently,” I say, thinking it through. It’s the only thing that makes sense. That’s why he’s taking as much magic as he can. “Once he drinks the water, is the water powerful enough to make the changes permanent?”

“I don’t doubt it. That’s why we swore to conceal it from the world, to keep the waters protected.”

“But Tyrus found out about them?”

“And I have no idea how,” Talon says with a resigned exhale.

“He could have read about it,” I suggest. “Solomus has that book that tells him all about the First creation. It might document the water that was used in that very process. Or is it a secret kept so tightly only Feihrians know it?”

“It’s part of our oaths,” Talon says. “To safeguard the angels’ waters.”

Nattie knew. Somehow the tears have something to do with Angels’ Basin. I just don’t know what yet.

I reach in the darkness to find Talon’s arm. “You said he wanted you to lead his army at his side. He wanted you to lead an army against your own people, to get to Angel’s Basin.”

That must make the betrayal sink even deeper.

“Talon, we can’t let Tyrus beat Feihria. We can’t let him get the tears and the power he wants at Angel’s Basin. We need to get to Mt. Rhine.”

I turn and find the doorknob and reenter the room.

Zeke pushes himself up, grimacing at whatever muscle tightness he’s fighting. He rests a hand at his back before adjusting himself. “I heard,” he says. “The end of it anyway. Ya’ll stopped whispering.”

I chew my lip. “Zeke, we need to go. Tyrus is going to want the tears before Feihria gets here.”

“It’s almost daybreak,” he says. “Yeh may be runnin’ outta time.”

A stopwatch lodges in my brain, ticking down every second we sit here.

Talon’s eyes lock onto mine in the darkness. “We don’t have a strategy,” he says as if reading my thoughts. “We’ve barely even discussed anything with the others.”

“Then you come with me. The others can stay here and we’ll—”

Talon shakes his head before I can finish. “Shasa will never go for that.”

Jealousy slaps like a slingshot, straight at my chest. Especially after that dream or whatever it is I saw.

“Neither will your brother,” says Zeke, stretching his back.

“Then we get them up now. How many men will Tyrus bring for something like this? What are we up against?”

“I doubt he’ll send more than a battalion,” says Talon, “especially if they’re all immune to siren song.”

“How large is a battalion usually?” I ask.

“About sixty men. They’ll probably bring climbing gear to storm the siren’s meadow. The sirens are known to be fierce, and they will probably take to the sky, but without their song, they’ll be defenseless.”

“Then we have to leave as soon as possible,” I say as I begin to pace. “Our best chance is to warn the sirens, or try to get the tears first and hide them. It took all night when I walked from our camp in the Ramald Forest, and we’re farther out here. Do we have any other kind of transportation besides that van?” White is a little conspicuous.

“We got cycles,” says Zeke.

“Good,” I nod, thinking. “Talon and I can climb the mountain to warn Estelle and the others. Do you think Jomeini will help us? If things go wrong, maybe she’d be willing to use her bleakfire on them. That would be a real asset.”

“We could ask,” says Talon.

“That poor girl’s been through enough already,” Zeke argues, pushing himself off the floor to stand beside Talon.

“But these are her tears,” I argue. “Her world is at stake just as much as the rest of us.”

Zeke shrugs, and I continue. “Black Vaulters stay hidden in the trees, armed with whatever weapons we can find. We can’t let Tyrus get the tears.”

Zeke and Talon both roll it over in their minds, staring at their hands while the thoughts are obvious on their faces.

“I go for Tyrus,” says Talon. “Chances are he’ll be at the head of his men. We warn Estelle, and then I take Tyrus out.”

His eye burn in the glow of Zeke’s screen, resolute and solid. I place a hand on his shoulder.