The Offering (12 page)

“At first when those people came around askin' us questions,
we were all too scared to answer, too afraida the chief. But then Caspar said we had to. Said if we didn't tell 'em what they wanted to know, the chief'd keep hurtin' kids forever. So we did.” She shifted, so she was sitting sideways on her bunk. She kicked her legs, swinging them back and forth and back and forth as she spoke. “The day they took the chief away was the best day ever.” She glanced up, and her eyes sparkled in the pale moonlight. “Best day ever,” she repeated, a dreamy, faraway smile on her lips.

I couldn't imagine what the chief must have done to these kids, and my skin flushed as I remembered the other girl and the way she'd simply repeated the same words, “You sleep here,” over and over again.

Gritting my teeth, I fought to contain my reaction. I couldn't risk my skin blazing to life if I didn't keep my emotions under control. I clutched the fabric closer to my face so I could peer through a narrow opening.

“There's no way they'd just allow Caspar to run the place. How did that end up happening?” Brook shot back.

The girl's feet stopped swaying, and she looked around, nodding smugly, and I realized that the others must have been listening too. A roomful of children all lying in their cots and listening to our conversation like it was a bedtime story. “We chased 'em off.”

Brook sat up, more than a little interested now. “What do you mean, ‘chased them off'? Who? How many of them?”

The girl's face screwed up as she concentrated. “Three,” she answered. “They sent three more to run the place, after the chief.”

“Four!” piped up another voice from somewhere down the row—a little boy's voice.

The girl paused and counted on her fingers, then nodded once more. “Yep, that's right. Four,” she corrected with a quick jerk of her head. “Four that we had to
persuade
to leave.”

“Why?” I wondered aloud, hating that I might somehow be responsible for putting others like the chief in positions of authority over these children. “Were they all so terrible, like the chief?”

She waved the idea away. “Nope. They was fine. We just didn't need 'em, did we?” She wasn't asking me now. She was asking the other children, and the response was resounding.

They were all in agreement as “no” echoed through the bunkhouse. They most definitely did not need adult supervision. Caspar was their leader. He'd take care of them.

“So.” I was almost afraid to ask my next question. “Where did they all go exactly? The adults, I mean.”

The fiery-haired girl shrugged. “Don't know, don't care. Long as they don't come back.” She started swinging her legs again. “I'm Ku,” she announced, grinning widely at me, and I could make out a wide gap between her two front teeth.

“I'm Cassia,” said another girl.

“Santiago,” said the little boy who'd corrected Ku.

And then they were all saying their names. All of them at once, a snarl of voices that twisted together, making them sound like one jumbled mess.

These were the children who'd been sent to the work camps. Abandoned by parents and relatives—by society—and now
they'd banded together to form a new family. Taking care of one another.

And now taking care of us.

“I'm Cha—” I stared to say, but Brook elbowed me so hard in the ribs, I gasped, reminding me that even my real name was too dangerous. I faltered, trying to think of something else to say, struggling for a lie—a name I could offer in place of my own.

And then I heard Sabara, offering me a name that no one else would recognize, one that hadn't been used in decades . . . centuries. Maybe eons.

When it hit my tongue, it tasted bitter, but there was no going back. “Layla,” I said instead of my own name. “My name is Layla. And this is Brook.” I wanted the attention off me, and off the fact that I'd just given an entire room of people—children or not—permission to call me by the name Sabara had confessed was her original name. The name she'd been born with all those many, many years ago.

Before she'd taken possession of the first body that hadn't been her own—her sister's body.

Before she'd killed to stay alive time and time again.

I hate you
, I silently told her, hoping my message was clear. Hoping she understood how badly I wished I could just be myself again. Alone inside my own head.

When there was no response, I thought maybe our connection wasn't as strong as I'd thought it was, that maybe she couldn't hear me as clearly as I could her. But then her response came, as slick as oil as it slithered up my spine.

I know you do . . . Layla.
Hearing her call me by that name
was as inciting as knowing what the chief had done to these poor kids in his work camp, and I could feel myself responding, my skin growing hotter.

I hoped Sabara wasn't right, that I wasn't walking into a trap.

I couldn't stop thinking about Queen Elena and wondering what exactly she'd meant when she'd written,
I'll give you everything you want
. Because I wanted too many things.

I wanted Xander to still be alive. I wanted peace for Ludania, once and for all.

And more important, and more selfishly, I wanted to believe she really did have a cure for me. That she really did know a way to banish Sabara's Essence. Forever.

I considered that long after the children had settled down in their bunks, and long after Brook had given up keeping watch and had drifted to sleep, her back pressed against mine.

And long after I'd stopped worrying about Xander and Ludania, and whether Max would ever forgive me for keeping yet another secret from him.

sage

Bare feet were best for this kind of work, the kind of work for which she needed to be furtive. As quiet as a sigh.

No one could know what she was doing. If she were caught, even her title wouldn't be able to save her head.

But it wasn't unusual for her to be skulking about under the cover of darkness with no shoes. The calluses on her feet proved as much. She prided herself on her ability to become one with her surroundings—day
or
night. To blend and go unnoticed. To find things that others considered unfindable.

And to kill without a second thought.

Yet she'd need none of those skills this night. Tonight she knew exactly where her quarry was, and she had no intention of killing him. At least not yet.

“You,” he barely managed to croak out, a strangled sound caught somewhere between a moan and a whimper when he caught sight of her. He didn't even bother to lift his head from the cold ground he was lying upon.
A bad sign,
she thought as she studied his motionless form.

She glanced all around, noting the fact that no one had heard his feeble attempt to voice his contempt for her. She couldn't have cared less that he despised her. She had every intention of being his salvation, whether he wanted her help or not.

Noiselessly she removed the key from her front pocket and slipped it into the lock. Without a single creak or scrape, she slid open the door to his cell. Had he been stronger, he would have stormed her, mounting an attack to try to regain his freedom. She knew because she'd seen him fight before. But he'd been a different person then. As it was, he stayed down, unable to even lick his own swollen and bleeding lips.

“Here,” she said, ignoring the stink of his unwashed skin and the smell of human waste and rotting flesh that emanated from him as she twisted the cap from the water-filled flask that hung from her waist. She held the flask to his lips and let the water trickle into his mouth. She was careful not to choke him, since he barely seemed able to swallow. “We'll try again later,” she finally told him, when she realized most of it was dribbling down his chin.

“Wh . . . ,” he tried, but the pathetic attempt to question her died on his cracked lips as if the effort were too much.

Why had she come? What did she want? Why him? It could've been any or all of those questions, and she half-wondered herself what the answers were. If her sister discovered what she'd done . . .

Well, she would discover it eventually, all right. The trick was not getting caught for it.

“I need you to get up,” she told him. “Just long enough
so I can get you out of here. There's a vehicle waiting for us. We'll be safe until we reach the border, and then we'll have to travel through forests. You'll have to ride on horseback then.” She didn't know why she was explaining all of this to him; she doubted he understood. She wasn't even sure he'd heard her.

She slipped his arm around her shoulder, again trying to shut out the stench coming off him, but failing miserably. He cringed against the movement but didn't resist her. Despite the pain he was in, and his weak physical state, she was surprised to see that he actually managed to help haul himself from the ground. He wobbled, and leaned heavily against her, but he allowed her to lead him toward the cell door.

“It'll be okay,” she assured him in a voice so quiet, it was almost nonexistent. She didn't want to risk being discovered.

They slipped through the passageways more noisily than she had on her way in, but because she'd timed it so perfectly, they managed to go unnoticed. As they emerged, with the vehicle still there, waiting for her, she let out a breath of gratitude.

She eased him inside and watched the way he clutched his arm, keeping it close to his chest. His skin was greasy and pale, and she noted the way the bandages surrounding his hand were saturated with a mixture of blood and pus. She wondered what kind of infection she'd find when she uncovered them. She wondered too if she'd have to take the entire arm.

With the last of his strength, he lifted his head. “Why . . . are . . . you . . . doing . . . this?” he rasped, right before he passed out again.

Because you're being used,
she answered silently as she slammed the door, checking once more to make sure no one had spotted them, before she climbed into the front.
And if I don't get you out of here now, I run the risk that Niko will make good on his promise to keep my sister alive forever.

vii

Eden pulled us out of bed while it was still dark outside, but I knew it was close to dawn when we crept from the bunkhouse onto grass that was damp the way it was in the early morning hours just before daybreak. As we followed her, staying quiet and keeping close, I briefly wondered if she'd even managed to doze, since she didn't appear to have changed out of the clothes she'd been wearing the night before, and she didn't look nearly as rumpled as I felt after sleeping in mine.

Brook grumbled about the hour, about needing more sleep, about the cold, and about wanting food. What she got instead was coffee when we arrived at yet another cabin. It was a poor substitute for all that she wanted but was a substitute nonetheless.

I curled my fingers around the warm mug and sniffed the bitter contents as I sat down across from Eden and her brother, still marveling at the resemblance between the two of them. It was stronger now that Caspar, like all the children he was in charge of, had rinsed the muddied grime from his face. His
strong brow and sharp jawline and black eyes were so similar to hers that if they'd been closer in age, I might have mistaken the two of them for twins. It was his size that gave him away as younger, but it was his hair that truly set him apart from his sister. It was almost too light to be called blond. A sharp contrast to Eden's natural crow-black hair.

I lifted the coffee in front of me, which smelled nothing like the savory blends we'd become accustomed to at the palace, and I realized how spoiled I'd grown over the past months. There was a time when I wouldn't have dared turn my nose up at such an indulgence, despite the fact that I wasn't a coffee drinker by nature. A hot drink was a hot drink, and hospitality—no matter its manifestation—was always hospitality.

“Thank you,” I told Caspar, keeping my face as straight as I could while I sipped the pungent beverage. It didn't matter how it tasted, though. It went down hot and thawed my belly.

Eden didn't have to pretend, nor did Brook, both of whom swigged the scalding liquid as if it were the sweetest elixir they'd ever tasted. Clearly they'd been accustomed to worse.

“So what's the plan? How long are we staying here?” Brook asked. She shoved her empty mug toward our host, her way of requesting a refill, but she looked to Eden as she spoke, not Caspar. “I'm thinking we need to move on by daybreak or we're begging for trouble. These kids are all alone here now, but they won't be for long. Eventually someone'll come to check on 'em, and we can't be here when they do.” Caspar filled her mug and passed it back to her. She offered him a quick nod of appreciation in return.

He, like so many before him, grinned back at her, not invulnerable to Brook's smoldering looks, even when her hair was matted from a night of restless sleep. She barely seemed aware he was watching her with such eager intensity.

But Eden noticed. She glared sideways at her younger brother, and I wondered how it was that he'd come to be here in a place like this without his sister. She kept her eyes trained on him the entire time she spoke to Brook. “We'll stay for the day, gathering the food and supplies we'll need. Then we'll leave at dusk.”

Brook slammed her mug onto the table, barely aware she was spilling her coffee as she did so. “No! We can't risk another nighttime ride. The first one was too treacherous. It's difficult enough for the horses—every step they take is like walking through a minefield.” And then she shot a disapproving look in my direction, making it clear that
my
riding skills were in question as well.

She was right about riding in the dark, of course. It
was
dangerous, although less so with me along, shedding light wherever I went.