The Girl of Fire and Thorns Complete Collection (11 page)

“Yes, Pá,” she says, still clutching the duerma leaf.

2

I
T takes almost an hour for Papá to collapse onto the table. She nudges his shoulder gently, but he does not stir. He will know at once what she has done when he does finally wake. Mara will be long gone by then.

She gathers her bow and quiver, her spice satchel and water skin, and leaves through the back door. A dry wash runs behind their
huta
. It’s overgrown with yucca and mesquite this time of year, perfect for making a quick escape from the village. Not that anyone would question seeing her on her way to the sheep pens at this hour, but she can’t lose the niggling worry that Papá will wake up after all. She imagines him barreling out the door toward her, fist raised to strike.

But the day is so beautiful, and the sheep bleat with such delight at seeing her, that the worry fades as she herds them up the mountain. Mara has always loved early mornings—the clarity of the air, the chirping rock wrens, the waking lizards, the freedom and solitude. She especially loves the way light edges the teeth of the Sierra Sangre, reminding her that not even the mighty mountains can hold back the dawn.

Her bow doubles as a walking staff; it clicks against the rocky trail as she guides them between red-orange buttes and through a gully wash. A quiver of arrows slung across her back rattles with each stride. She’s been practicing ever since her father gave her the bow. Last week she bagged two rabbits, and yesterday she scared off a coyote that had prowled too close. But she wouldn’t want to test her amateur skill against an Invierno.

Still, growing the flock is the smartest thing she’s done in her seventeen years, because duty forces her to leave the village—and her father—almost every day to graze them. Unfortunately, the surrounding area will soon be grazed out, and they’ll have to move farther afield. Her father will never allow it, especially now that the foothills are lousy with enemy scouts.

After today, though, it will no longer be her problem. “I’m sorry I have to leave you,” she whispers. Her sheep are the one thing about this life she’ll miss. They are too relentlessly stupid and sweet to hurt her on purpose.

Her path opens into a drying meadow surrounded by swirling sandstone outcroppings, edged in thirsty cottonwoods. A seasonal creek bed, barely trickling with last week’s fall storm, winds through the grass. One of the younger ewes leaps into the air, tail spinning, and takes off across the meadow in an exuberant gallop. Mara understands how she feels.

Her breath catches when arms snake around her waist and a warm body presses against her back. Julio’s lips nuzzle her neck. He whispers, “Good morning.”

She spins in his arms, pulls his head down, and presses her lips to his. She kisses him deeply, hungrily, until he breaks away, laughing.

But he sobers when he sees her face. The skin around his eyes is prematurely crinkled from days spent on the trap lines, or maybe from too much smiling. It’s one of the things she likes best about his face. He scans her from top to bottom. “Did he hurt you?”

Mara looks down, her bruised forearm suddenly screaming with pain.

“Every time he hurts you, I want to kill him,” he says. “It’s wrong of me, but I can’t help it.”

It makes her stomach turn to think that Julio might be capable of the same rage as her father. She releases his hands, hides her arms behind her back. “I put a bit of duerma leaf in his tea. He should sleep all afternoon.”

His eyes dance. “You didn’t!”

It never would have occurred to Mara to be amused were it not for him, and she finds herself smiling back. “I did.”

“I hope he wakes with a massive headache.”

She glances around the meadow. Julio’s pack of supplies is propped up against a cottonwood. “Where is Adán?” she asks. Julio’s little brother has been their co-conspirator. Today is his turn to check the trap line, but he agreed to ditch his duties and instead bring his horse for them. After they leave, Adán will herd the sheep back to safety.

Julio rolls his eyes. “Mamá caught him stealing pomegranate jelly from the cellar. She’s making him muck out stalls this morning. He’ll be here soon enough.”

Mara nods, relieved. Julio’s mother won’t keep Adán long. His parents are aware of their plan, or at the very least suspect something. For Deliverance Day this year, they gave Julio a brand-new traveling cloak lined with fur. Julio said that when they draped it over him to gauge the fit, his father wrapped him in his arms and held him long enough for Julio to feel awkward.

What must it be like to have loving parents, who encourage you to follow your dreams, even when they don’t exactly approve? Even when they might be dangerous?

“I’m worried about the Inviernos,” Mara admits. “A man who bought scones from me the other day said they’re harassing traders along the northern road now. What if the way west is blocked?”

Julio plunks onto the ground and crosses his legs. He sifts through the grass with his fingers, saying, “Then we join the rebellion.”

She snorts. “The rebellion. What a sorry bunch of—”

“What’s the king doing to protect us? Nothing! If it weren’t for the rebels—”

“You shouldn’t say such things so loud!” She sinks to the ground beside him.

Julio yanks a blade of grass and starts chewing on it. “Yes, the sheep might declare me seditious.” More seriously, he adds, “Whatever we do, it’s only for a year. Once we’re married—and your Pá has cooled off—we’ll be back.”

Papá’s temper never cools. It only simmers, hidden, until an explosion brings it to the surface. But it would be cruel to ask Julio to leave his family forever, so instead of protesting, she sprawls out and lays her head in his lap. “So,” she says, gazing up at the brightening sky, “we go west as planned, but if the way is blocked, we join the rebellion.” She silently considers that her hostile feelings toward the rebellion might have more to do with Belén, the boy who wooed her, then ignored her, then left to join the rebels. “I suppose even sedition is better than asking my father for permission to marry.”

“Frankly, I can’t decide which is more fraught with adventure and peril.”

She laughs giddily, thinking,
Oh, Pá, you are so wrong. It’s not the desires of the flesh I can’t resist. It’s this. The sharing of dreams. The
hope
.

His fingers trace her cheek, her neck, her collarbone. She closes her eyes, wanting to savor every sensation, treasuring them up in her memory box so she can take them out for admiring later.

But then her eyes fly open. “I smell smoke. Not a cook fire.”

His fingers freeze. “You’re sure?”

The scent is off. Not green wood, not firewood. More like rushes, or maybe wool. “My cook’s nose is never wrong.” She sits up and scans the horizon.

“Stay here.” He launches to his feet and dashes toward the nearest outcropping. Despite the dread curling in her throat, she can’t help but admire the way he scrambles up the rock, the strong hands that have learned every bit of her body clutching handholds with swift assuredness as he pulls himself to the peak.

He gazes off in the direction of the village, and his mouth drops open in horror.

Julio scrambles back down—more falling than climbing in his rush, and she’s shaking her head against what he’ll say long before he reaches her.

“The village,” he pants. “Burning. All of it.”

“The Inviernos,” she whispers.

He cups her face in his hands. “We could run,” he says.

Hope sparks in her gut, so shining and sharp that it hurts. But she stuffs it away.

“No. My pá. Your little brother . . .”

“Adán!” he gasps, his face frozen with guilty shock. “How could I not think . . . he could be trapped in the stable!” And then he’s off running.

“Oh, God,” she whispers at his back. “The duerma leaf.”

Mara sprints after him.

3

T
HEY slow as they approach, fearful of stumbling upon the enemy. The village lies in a small canyon at the base of a mountain. It’s usually impossible to see until one is at the edge of the ridge, looking down at it. But today its existence is brutally marked by a beacon of brown-black smoke choking the sky.

They hear the Invierno before they see him—his anklet of bones rattling, the
thwack
of a longbow releasing its arrow, the victory yell. Mara barely holds in a whimper. The Inviernos are up here on the ridge, shooting the people she grew up with like they’re sheep penned for slaughter.

They crouch behind a manzanita bush. Julio slides a knife from his boot. He pantomimes creeping through the scrub and taking the Invierno by surprise. She shakes her head in protest, but he grabs her hand, brings her knuckles to his lips. His eyes are dark with intensity, and she hopes he’s not saying good-bye.

He’s on his feet in a swift, silent movement, and he disappears into the scrub brush.

Mara claws the dirt as fury washes over her. She will not let Julio die. Or young Adán. Or even her papá. She
won’t
.

She reaches behind her back and quietly slides an arrow from her quiver.

Mara steps forward in a half crouch even as she notches the arrow against her bowstring. With luck and no wind, she can hit a rabbit at fifteen paces. Can she kill a human at five?

Julio is nowhere to be seen, but the back of the Invierno’s head is barely visible through the high scrub. Never has she seen such hair—pale yellow-brown, like aged oak. As she creeps toward him, his longbow comes up. He pulls an arrow, draws, sights something—or someone—in the village below.

Mara abandons stealth. The underbrush stabs her ribs, slices her face as she charges through, yelling. His shot flies wide, and he whirls to face her.

She breaks through the manzanita as he pulls a dagger. She draws her bow.
Focus, breathe.
He lunges, and his eyes—blue as the spring sky—are so startling that her elbow shakes as she lets fly.

The arrow grazes his shoulder with enough impact to twist him around. He rights himself and stumbles toward her. She pulls another arrow from her quiver, tries to notch it, misses, tries again. He is nearly upon her.

He freezes, back arched, eyes wide. Mara sidesteps as he topples forward to reveal Julio standing behind him, holding the blood-soaked skinning knife.

“Are you all right?” he says.

She nods. Her heart races, her hands shake, and something wet and warm slips down her cheek, but she feels neither pain nor exhaustion. That happens sometimes, when her father raises a hand to her. It might be hours before she understands whether or not she is hurt.

She steps over the body of the Invierno, trying to ignore how human it looks, and together they look down into the burning village.

The blacksmith’s stall has burned to the ground, with the attached stable soon to follow. Horses neigh in panic. Villagers scurry everywhere. Most try to flee, but volleys of arrows from the south ridge keep them penned toward the center. Papá’s
huta
is intact for now, but it’s only a matter of time before the roof catches.

Her breath hitches. The dry wash behind their
huta
! It’s overgrown, invisible to outsiders. It hasn’t caught fire yet, and she doesn’t see any arrows coming from the ridge above it.

Her people could use it to escape, if someone showed them the way.

“Do you see Adán?” Julio says, panic edging his voice.

“Maybe he got away.” The lie feels heavy on her tongue.

Julio starts forward. “I have to find—”

Mara grabs his arm. “Look. The east ridge.” She points to the tall figure silhouetted against the sky—one of the dreaded animagi. Wind whips his robes taut against his gaunt body and sends his eerie white hair streaming behind him.

He lifts his hand. Something dangles from it, something that shimmers in the morning light. A white-hot firebolt spews from the shimmering thing and explodes against a nearby rooftop. The roof collapses, shooting flames and smoke into the sky.

Mara lurches back, her heel skidding in gravel, as Julio whispers, “Oh, my God.”

Her heart hammers with fear and rage. “If I were a little closer, I could shoot him.”