The Girl of Fire and Thorns Complete Collection (14 page)

T
HE next morning, Julio still has not come. Adán stands on the ledge, gazing down the mountain. He is a lot like his brother—the same long limbs, the same straight black hair bleached red at the temples. His hands are as big as paddles, hinting that he might be even taller than Julio someday.

Mara steps up beside him, squinting against the morning sun.

“He’s coming, right, Mara?” Adán says.

“He’s coming.”

“And
then
what are we going to do?”

She shrugs. “Julio will know. He’ll probably lead us to the nearest village. Some of these children might have family there.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” says a voice at her back, and she turns.

Reynaldo’s curly hair is sleep mussed, and his wide-spaced eyes blink against the sun. Mara has always thought him young looking for his age, with his round cheeks and open gaze. But there is something old and weary about him now. Perhaps they’ve all aged years in the last day.

“What do you mean?” Mara probes.

“Our village isn’t the only thing that burned.”

As he stares out into the empty expanse of sky, something in his face prompts Mara to say, “Your farmstead. Is that why you were in the village yesterday?”

He nods. “They killed everyone. All the livestock. Burned our . . . I ran to the village to warn everyone. But I was too late. And I’ve seen smoke on the horizon.”

Gently, Mara says, “You helped me save these children. You weren’t too late for that.”

He swallows hard and nods, but he says nothing.

Mara crosses her arms and hugs her shoulders tight. She wishes Marón had lived. He was a smart businessman, and his tavern was a cornerstone of their community. He would have known what to do. “So you think the nearest village suffered the same fate?”

“All of them, Mara. All of them within two weeks’ journey. It’s war, now. Full out.”

Adán whirls on him, tears in his eyes. “We have to go
somewhere
!”

“We don’t have enough supplies to stay here forever,” Mara agrees. “We hardly have enough to get us through the next two days.”

Reynaldo says, “Maybe we could hunt—”

“Game is scarce,” Mara interrupts. “The fires will have driven most of it away.”

Reynaldo looks down, scuffs the toe of his leather boots against the rock ledge. “I know of a place, but . . .”

Mara and Adán regard him expectantly. “But . . . ?” Mara prompts.

“It’s a secret. I’m not supposed to tell.”

Mara inhales sharply. “The rebel camp. You know where it is.” Julio was always so sure it existed, that the rumors were true. A safe, hidden place, somewhere west of here in the scrub desert, where an oasis provides good grazing and even some farming.

Reynaldo says, “My cousins Humberto and Cosmé went there last year. I visited once. They invited me to join, but my Pá needs . . . needed me.”

The tiny hope sparking in Mara’s heart is all the more precious for how fragile and weak it is. “Would they take us in, do you think? Could you show us the way?”

“I can. But it’s on the other side of the Shattermount, where the hills start to become true desert. A week away. We should leave right now. Before our food runs out.”

“No!” Adán says.

Mara nods at the boy. “We’ll wait for Julio.”

Reynaldo sighs. “What if he doesn’t come?”

“We’ll wait,” she repeats.

“But, Mara . . .”

“Two days. Give us two days.”

Reynaldo nods once, sharply. “Two days.”

9

T
WO days later, the children are restless and hungry, the shallow, hastily dug latrine is full, and there is no sign of Julio. There is no sign of anyone else, either. Reynaldo and Adán scouted back toward the village to no avail. Mara searched the area around the cave but found only flood-tumbled boulders and dried brush. Though she says soothing words to the children, she has come to believe they are all who remain.

Overlooked, because they were the smallest and most helpless.

Mara goes through the motions of heating up leftover soup, breaking camp, and packing—all without speaking. She will do what she can to get the children to safety, because it is a purpose, something to focus her thoughts on. But after? She doesn’t know what comes after.

One little boy tugs on her shirt and asks, “Are we leaving today, Mara?” She can only nod wordlessly. She is an overfilled water skin, her sides stretched too thin from the pressure, and if she opens her mouth everything will come bursting out—grief, rage, despair.

They made their food stretch longer than they anticipated. Adán bagged two jerboas the previous day with his sling, and Mara made a stew of the tiny rodents. She made sure no one was looking when she slipped the hearts, livers, and even the wobbly stomachs into her pot. She made the children wash down their stew with a brisk juniper tea, and everyone went to sleep with full bellies.

Now she worries about water. The trickle running down the Shattermount’s giant fault will be dry in a day or so. They need another storm. But a storm on the Shattermount almost invariably means a flood.

“Which way?” Reynaldo asks as they gather on the ledge before setting off. “Do we stick to the ridge or climb down through the ravine?”

The mountain is not lush like its brothers farther east. It is a lone monolith, too near the desert. “We would be exposed on the ridge,” Mara says. “Visible to any Inviernos still in the area.” And the Inviernos are practiced archers—far more skilled than she is. They come from a place where wood is plentiful, and their beautiful bows are sturdy and tall, meant for long-range. “They wouldn’t even have to get close to take us apart.”

“If it rains . . .”

“We’ll climb out at the first sign.”

Reynaldo nods agreement.

They give Adán a head start. Like his older brother, he has spent days in the wilderness, and of all of them is most suited to scouting ahead in stealth. After Mara warns the rest of the group to silence, they set off after him.

They will travel down the fault line, then circle the base of the mountain until they reach the desert side. From there, Reynaldo will guide them through the warren of buttes and fissures that make up the scrub desert to the secret rebel camp. It’s a good plan, the best one they have. But Mara plods along by rote, putting one foot in front of the other in numb silence.

She and Reynaldo carry the tiny girl in shifts, and they’re about to do a handoff so Mara can navigate a boulder in their path when she hears something.

The cracking of a branch. The rustle of leaves. Coming from behind.

Mara shoves the tiny girl at Reynaldo, swings her bow around her shoulder, reaches back, and draws an arrow from her quiver.

The scuff of a boot. Definitely not a deer or a fox.

Mara notches her arrow. “Get behind me,” she whispers, fast and low. “Now!” The children scurry to obey.

She glares at the path they just traveled, trying to parse a face or figure among the dead windfalls and scattered boulders. A manzanita bush waves violently. Mara draws her bow until the fletching rests against her cheek.

A face materializes. Streaked with sweat and blood. Wild-eyed.

“Julio!” She may have screamed it. Mara drops her bow and sprints forward, reaching him just as he topples forward into her arms.

His sudden weight almost drives her to her knees, but she holds firm. His back is sticky and wet, his skin fevered. She drags him to level ground, then gently lays him down, instinctively stretching him out on his stomach.

Sure enough, the broken shaft of an arrow protrudes from his lower back. He gasps, his cheek grinding into the dirt, as she peels back his shirt to expose the wound.

The skin around it is swollen and oozing. The arrowhead is not deep, but it might be lodged in a rib. At least it missed his vital organs. They could have treated it easily two days ago. But infection has set in, and now streaks of sickly black zigzag across his skin.

“Oh, Julio.”

“Mara,” he whispers. “You shouldn’t have waited for me.”

If he is clearheaded enough to have made it to their cave, read the signs of recent occupation, and tracked them here, then there is hope for him yet.

Hope. Such a dangerous thing.

She traces his cheek with a forefinger. “I need to get this arrow out,” she says.

“I know.”

“I’ll have to scrape out the infection. It will hurt.”

“I know.”

The children crowd around. They stare at his oozing wound with a mix of delight and revulsion. “That’s gross,” says one boy, peering closer.

“I have duerma leaf in my satchel,” Mara says. “I can at least make sure you sleep before and after.”

Julio murmurs something that she takes to be assent. She bends over and plants a quick kiss on his hot forehead, then leaps to her feet. “Reynaldo, go find Adán. I’ll get a fire going to heat up my knife.”

“But the fire . . . the smoke . . .”

“We have to get that arrow out.”

Reynaldo frowns, then disappears down the ravine.

She floats through her preparations, a grin occasionally turning up the corners of her lips. Julio is alive. Alive, alive, alive. She steals glances at him as she rims a fire pit, gathers firewood, kindles a tiny spark into a bright flame.

Mara heats up the last of their water. She uses a cupful to make a tea of the duerma leaf, which Julio sips slowly from his awkward position on his stomach. She will need the remainder for cleaning the wound.

She doesn’t want to let the arrowhead fester inside Julio’s body a moment more, but she needs Adán and Reynaldo to hold him down while she works. So she sits by the fire, one hand trailing in Julio’s matted hair, the other holding her blade over the flames.

“My brother?” Julio mutters. “Is he . . .”

“Adán is safe. He’s scouting ahead. I sent someone to fetch him.”

Julio wilts against the ground, as if his body is finally able to let go an excess of air. “Thank you, Mara,” he breathes. “God, that’s a relief. And your pá? Did you find him?”

Mara can’t meet his eyes. “I found him.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

She pokes at a glowing branch with her knife, sending sparks flying. She whispers, “I found him alive.”

Julio says nothing. Mara feels his eyes on her as he waits patiently. He could draw secrets from a rock this way, by letting the empty silence stretch on until the rock has no choice but to fill it with words. It’s how he got Mara to tell him all the things her pá had done.

Mara doesn’t mind. Because Julio—unlike everyone else she has ever known—truly wants to listen.

“He tried to hurt me,” she says finally. “Even though I came back to help. He thought I was stealing. I think he was crazed from smoke, maybe from the duerma leaf I gave him. So I kicked at him to get away, and I . . . I think I killed him. Either way, I left him to die.” She turns a defiant gaze on him. “I know I should feel guilty. But I don’t. Not at all.”

She watches carefully as the shock on his face fades to acceptance.

“You’re free of him,” he says finally.

She nods, unable to speak. Free of
him
, yes. But she doesn’t feel free. Maybe when Julio recovers. Maybe then.

With the rustle of dry brush, Adán and Reynaldo return. Adán barrels forward, tears streaming down his face, and drops to his knees beside his brother. He reaches down to hug him, but Mara says, “Easy. Don’t jostle the wound.”

“Hello, Adán,” Julio breathes. Mara hopes it’s the duerma-leaf tea making him sound even weaker than before. “I hope you’ve been keeping an eye on my girl for me?”

Adán nods, swiping at his cheeks with the back of his hand. “Even though you’re too ugly for her.”

“True,” Julio says. “I hope . . .” His voice devolves into a cough. “I hope she likes scars. This one is going to be huge.”

“I love scars,” Mara says, but her voice trembles. Coughing is a bad, bad sign.

Her blade glows red. It’s now or never.

“We’re getting this arrow out. Reynaldo, take his shoulders. Adán, his legs. He’ll try to throw you off. He won’t be able to help himself. You
must
hold him down. Do you understand?”

“I can help,” says Carella’s daughter. “I’m a good helper!”

Mara almost snaps at her to go away, but changes her mind. “Could you . . .” She searches her mind for a task to keep the girl busy and out of her way. “Hold his feet? That would be a big help.”

The girl nods solemnly. Everyone gets into position.

Reynaldo reaches for a twisted bundle of mesquite and snaps off a large twig. He slides it into Julio’s mouth and encourages him to bite down. “Don’t want you biting off your own tongue,” he says.

Mara hesitates. She has treated all sorts of minor wounds, for their village had no doctor. But she has never removed an arrow. What if she makes it worse? “Everyone ready?” she asks, knife poised.

They nod, eyes wide.

Mara touches the burning knife to Julio’s back. He hisses as it sizzles his skin, but he doesn’t move. She shoves the blade down alongside the arrow shaft. He screams.

She works fast, abandoning finesse. There is so much pus, and the flesh is so swollen that it’s hard to see. He grunts horribly, over and over like a hungry pig, and his body thrashes around. “Hold him!” Mara yells.