The Offering (18 page)

Meg's eyes brightened. “You think I could be like you someday?”

Eden scoffed at the notion. “You don't want to be like her. Look at her. She's not so tough.” Her lips curled in wry amusement as she indicated the bruises on Brook's face.

The littlest boy wrinkled his nose. “Then you must not be tough either,” he said, ogling Eden's black and swollen eye.

Eden directed her gaze at the boy, glaring as sternly as she could until the boy blinked and glanced away. Then she nodded, as if satisfied in her ability to intimidate.

I made a clucking sound in her direction, letting her know I didn't think she was very impressive, terrifying a little boy and all.

“How far is your village?” I asked, turning my attention back to Deirdre when I didn't get the appropriately contrite response I'd hoped for from Eden.

“Not so far.” I caught her shooting one of the older two boys a warning look when it seemed as if he might dispute her statement. “Just past the next harbor.” She pointed vaguely along the coastline.

Perplexed by her explanation, I frowned and turned for clarification to the boy she'd prematurely silenced. “And how far would that be?”

The boy looked sheepish and avoided his mother's eyes
when he answered, “Almost a day's walk.” He admitted, before she had the chance to stop him, “It's hard on the little ones.”

Concurring, Meg nodded vigorously. “It's true. It's awful far.”

Again Eden sighed, reading my thoughts before I could even give voice to them.

I tried to reason with her. “It's on our way, Eden,” I said under my breath. Deirdre had been pointing southward. Eden could hardly argue. According to Caspar's maps, we had to go south before heading east toward the Astonian border. “Besides, we have more than enough room.”

In the end I won and we piled Deirdre and her four children into the VAN. Eden drove sullenly, while I felt downright pious about the decision, especially as the wind died down and the fog churned up from the sea, making the ground difficult to see, and nearly impossible to navigate. Because of the poor visibility, it took us more time than it should have to locate the highway so we could follow it.

To the children the VAN was an adventure. They bounced exaggeratedly up and down in their seats, and traded places every few minutes and pointed out the windows. They chattered among themselves, while Deirdre showed us landmarks along the way. She gave names to the cliffs and the plains, and even the road we traveled, which was in such a state of disrepair that for the most part we drove alongside it, using it only as a guide to mark our route.

The Coastal Highway, she called it, and I had a hard time imagining it had ever been anything but the pitiful mass of crumbling concrete it was now.

Her village, she told us, was formerly 116Southeast but now was called Graylond, and they'd held a huge party to christen it as such.

“That was the day before my husband and my Erin left,” she explained. “So we stayed up all night, drinking and dancing around the bonfire, and I pretended it was because our city had a new name. But really it was so I could be with them as long as possible.” She looked down at her hands, which were folded and motionless on her lap. “I hope they come home soon. I hope the new queen knows what she's doing, and that all this talk of war is just that. Talk.”

I nodded. I hoped everything she did, and more. I couldn't tell her I was doing my best. That I was willing to sacrifice everything—including myself—to bring her family home, so I merely nodded.

“That's it,” she said, pointing through the thick layer of fog to a knot of homes that seemed to be built right over the water's edge.

It was almost too silent to be called a village, with none of the bustle or activity I would have expected.

“Where is everyone?”

“Most families were forced to leave after the militia came through looking for recruits. No way to support themselves. The few fishermen we have left—those too old or too young to fight—are probably still out trying to fill their nets. Sometimes they don't come home for days.”

The VAN's headlamps barely penetrated the dense mist that grew heavier, clinging to everything like the salt from the sea. As we approached, the few villagers who remained
came out from their homes to get a look at our unusual vehicle. They followed us through the narrow streets until we stopped in front of the home Deirdre pointed out to us. I understood the curious expressions on the villagers' faces. It was the same mixture of fascination and awe I'd felt when Caspar had first showed the VAN to us. The vehicle was rare and impressive and atrocious, all at once.

“Come inside,” Deirdre told us. “Let me repay your kindness. I don't have much, but we do have fish and a warm fire.” She smiled, ushering her children through the doorway. “Glen,” she said to one of the older boys with sparkling moss-colored eyes, “start a fire for our guests.”

Eden didn't bother arguing this time, and I didn't bother listing the reasons we should accept their hospitality, particularly since I was neither hungry nor cold. My reasons for wanting to stay had more to do with the roiling in my stomach that seemed to grow stronger the closer we drew to the border. To Elena.

To my fate.

sage

Sage dragged Xander from his mount and smacked the animal on its hindquarters, sending it loping toward the hills, in the same direction her horse had just gone. She doubted they'd ever see the beasts again. But for now all that mattered was that there was no chance the horses could draw unwanted attention to where she and Xander were hiding.

She crouched low in the bushes, helping Xander settle back against a boulder. When he winced, a soft groan escaping his lips, she dropped so her face was level with his. “You have to be quiet now,” she coaxed. “No sound. Do you understand?”

Xander's skin was an unhealthy pallor, pasty and gray, and slick with sweat. His eyes were glazed with fever, but he nodded nonetheless. He understood.

“Good. Now let me take a look at that.”

She needed a distraction, something to preoccupy her restless thoughts, and Xander's wounds were as good a diversion as any. She didn't want to spend too much time thinking about the other thing, the reason they'd just had to cut their horses loose.

Or what their next step would be if they somehow managed to get through this unnoticed.

She reached for his bandage and unwrapped layer after layer of the dirty gauze that she'd already replaced once. She tried not to breathe the foul odor that made her eyes water and her nose burn. The fact that the dressing was soaked through with infection and had to be peeled from the rotting wound was a bad sign.

The fever was a worse one.

Yet, even one-handed and febrile, Xander had managed to ride his horse once they'd discarded their vehicle to cross into Ludania. She'd hardly heard a complaint from him, except for the occasional moan or involuntary whimper.

No wonder Elena had been so afraid to release him.

Xander had the heart of a champion. And he had no intention of letting Elena stop him.

“Where are they?” He grimaced, and she wondered if he was talking only to take his mind off the antiseptic she poured over his wound. The shoddy row of uneven sutures where the prison doctor had attempted to stitch him up was raw and inflamed, and still oozing.

Her eyes shot up to his, wide and filled with concern for his welfare. She would have asked if it hurt, or if her ministrations were too clumsy, but she knew his answers. He'd lie even if the answers were yes. “When I was at the top of the hill, I could see them approaching.” Her expression was grave as she repeated what she'd seen. “There were thousands of them. I'd say the first wave of troops to cross. But there are probably thousands more behind them, spreading into
your country like a plague. I imagine they're crossing at every point—from east to west, and will move north, burning everything in their path.” She glanced back down at his arm, going back to work on it. She began wrapping the fresh strip of gauze around the stump where his hand used to be.

“And what about us?”

She stopped. “We're not far ahead of them, Xander. We have less than an hour till the entire battalion could be upon us. Our best hope is that they don't come this far into the hills. That they stay on flatter ground and continue marching north. There's not much up here, and as long as they don't suspect we're here . . .” She trailed off.

“There's no reason they would,” he finished, and she nodded, putting the finishing touches on his dressing.

“There,” she said, and sat back on her heels.

He watched her for several long moments. His glassy eyes were anything but fatigued. Finally he asked what was really on his mind. “Can you tell where she is now?”

Sage understood the question well enough. He was asking her to use her ability, something she'd been doing since they'd crossed into Ludania.

He was asking her to use her tracking skills.

She closed her eyes, concentrating . . .

Concentrating . . .

Trying to pull an image of the Queen of Ludania from her mind, to find her—and only her—in a country filled with millions of people.

When she opened her eyes again, eyes that were completely
and totally white, and completely and totally sightless, she declared, “She's close. She's very, very close.”

And then she blinked, her vision swimming back into focus while she saw Xander leaning forward, watching her intently. She frowned as she realized what exactly she'd just seen in her vision, and where Charlaina was.

“The army,” she said ominously, reaching for Xander's only hand. “They're almost upon her.”

x

It was well after midnight when we finally departed Graylond. The feeling that we were safer traveling under the cover of darkness was likely an illusion, but it was an illusion I clung to. It made me feel better to think that we were as invisible as the world around us.

I'd wrapped myself tightly in my shawl as we'd prepared to leave Deirdre's home, long after the last of her children had gone to bed and the plates had been cleared from her table. We'd given her the crate she'd tried to steal from us earlier in the day—filled with jars that would likely last them until summer.

I hesitated at the door, letting Eden and Brook go ahead of me to the VAN.

“Here,” I told Deirdre as I held my hand out to hers. “I've no idea of its value, but you can likely get a good price for it.”

She opened her palm and looked at the sapphire pendant I'd dropped there, still warm from my skin.

She shook her head, her green eyes somber. “I couldn't. It's yours.”

But I pushed her hand away. “I insist. You need it more than I do. For your children.” And it was true. Where I was going, I had no need for jewelry or sentimental keepsakes. I needed nothing at all, save my name and my blood.

Deirdre could make the money for a necklace like this last for months, years maybe. It could support her even if her husband and daughter never returned. I knew guilt was making my decision, but it didn't matter to me.

I pushed again, until she finally acquiesced, closing her fingers around the jewel. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you, and safe travels.”

It was Brook who first noticed it, the sound—or rather the feel—of thunder. It seemed to come from nowhere, and yet everywhere, all at once.

We hadn't gone far when she told Eden to kill the engine, and then the lights. And we all sat, awash in the darkness, letting the rumbling sensation fill our lungs, our veins, and find rhythm with our heartbeats.

“What is it?” I managed, when my voice finally found its way free from the drumming in my chest.

“I don't know,” Eden admitted. “But we have to go. Now.” Neither Brook nor I argued as we followed Eden from the VAN, evacuating it and leaving it where it stood, on the open expanse of ground that had once been a thoroughfare.

We took nothing, saving only ourselves. We followed silently as she climbed the slopes of the stony precipices that dominated the southern coastline. To lose our footing here,
now on these rocky cliffs that overlooked the even rockier shores, would mean certain and swift death. All the while, the ground shook and the gravel beneath our toes shuddered and shifted.

But Eden climbed without pause, higher and higher, somehow finding traction where I doubted there was any. She pointed here and there, so we could follow suit. She was patient but demanding, and insisted that we climb higher and keep up with her.

“Where are we going?” Brook hissed, but Eden shushed her.

“Silence” was all the explanation she offered.

The sharp-toothed rocks ripped my pants, and my fingers and knees were raw by the time Eden finally allowed us to rest, leading us inside the mouth of a cave that was carved into the hillside.

She prodded us farther in, until the cavern narrowed and we couldn't go any deeper. As I glanced down at myself, I knew why she wanted us so far inside. Even in the intense blackness of the cave, my skin was notably visible.