Under the Never Sky (4 page)

Perry knelt, wobbling as he did, and looked the Dweller over. Her eye had stopped bleeding. She was finely made. Thin, dark eyebrows. Pink lips. Skin as smooth as milk. His gut told him they were close in age, but with skin like that he wasn’t sure. He’d been watching her from his perch in a tree. How she’d stared at leaves in wonder. He nearly hadn’t needed his nose to know her temper. Her face showed every small emotion.

Perry brushed her black hair away from her neck and leaned close. With his nose blunted by smoke, this was the only way. He drew in a breath. Her flesh wasn’t as pungent as the other Dwellers’, but it was still off. Warm blood but a rancy, decaying scent as well. He inhaled again, curious, but her mind was deep in the unconscious so she gave off no temper.

He thought about bringing her with him, but Dwellers died on the outside. This room was her best chance to survive the fire. He’d planned to check on the other girl too. No chance of that anymore.

He stood. “You better live, little Mole,” he said. “After all this.”

Then he sealed the door behind him and stepped into another chamber, this one crushed by an Aether strike. Perry ducked through the crumbling dark corridor. The way grew tighter, forcing him to crawl over broken cement and warped metal, pushing his bow and satchel ahead of him, until he was back in his world.

Straightening, he drew a deep breath of the night. Welcomed the clean air into his singed lungs. Alarms broke the silence, first muted through the rubble, then blaring all around him, so loud he felt the sound thrum in his chest. Perry looped the strap of his satchel and quiver over his shoulder, took up his bow, and pulled foot, sprinting through the cool predawn.

An hour later, with the Dweller fortress no more than a mound in the distance, he sat to give his pounding head a break. It was morning, already warm in the Shield Valley, a dry stretch of land that reached nearly to his home two days to the north. He let his head fall against his forearm.

Smoke clung to his hair and skin. He scented it with every breath. Dweller smoke wasn’t like theirs. It smelled like molten steel and chemicals that burned hotter than fire. His left cheek throbbed, but it was nothing compared to the core of pain behind his nose. The muscles in his thighs twitched, still running away from the alarms.

It was bad enough he’d broken into the Dweller fortress. His brother would cast him out for that alone. But he’d tangled with the Moles. Probably killed at least one of them. The Tides didn’t have problems with the Dwellers like other tribes did. Perry wondered if he’d just changed that.

He reached for his satchel and rummaged through the leather pack. His fingers brushed something cool and velvety. Perry swore. He’d forgotten to leave the girl’s eye patch behind. He brought it out, examining it in his palm. It caught the blue light of the Aether like a huge water droplet.

He’d heard the Moles as soon as he’d broken into the wooded area. Their laughing voices had echoed from the farming space. He’d crept over and watched them, stunned to see so much food left to rot. He’d planned to leave after a few minutes, but by then he’d gotten curious about the girl. When Soren tore the eyepiece from her face, he couldn’t stand by and watch any longer, even if she was just a Mole.

Perry slipped the eye patch back into his satchel, thinking to sell it when traders came around in spring. Dweller gadgets fetched a sizey price, and there were plenty of things his people needed, to say nothing of his nephew, Talon. Perry dug deeper into the bag, past his shirt, vest, and water skin, until he found what he wanted.

The apple’s skin shone more softly than the eyepiece. Perry ran his thumbs over it, following its curves. He’d bagged it in the farming space. The one thing he had thought to grab as he’d stalked the Moles. He brought the apple to his nose and breathed in the sweet scent, his mouth filling with saliva.

It was a stupid gift. Not even why he’d broken in.

And not nearly enough.

Chapter 4
PEREGRINE

P
erry strode into the Tide compound near midnight, four days after he’d left. He stopped in the central clearing, inhaled the briny smell of home. The ocean was a good thirty minutes’ walk to the west, but fishermen carried the scent of their trade everywhere. Perry rubbed a hand over his hair, still wet from his swim. Tonight he smelled a bit like a fisherman himself.

Perry shifted the bow and quiver over his back. With no game slung over his shoulder, he had no reason to follow his usual path to the cookhouse so he stayed where he was, taking in fresh what he knew by heart. Homes made of stones rounded by time. Wooden doors and shutters worn by salt air and rain. As weather-beaten as the compound was, it looked sturdy. Like a root growing aboveground.

He preferred the compound like this, in the dead of night. With winter coming and food in such shortage, Perry had grown used to anxious tempers clotting the air during the day. But after dark, the cloud of human emotions lifted, leaving quieter scents. The cooling earth, opened like a flower to the sky. The musk of nighttime animals, making paths he could follow with ease.

Even his eyes favored this time. Contours were more crisp. Movement easier to track. Between his nose and his eyes, he figured he was made for the night.

He drew in his last breath of open air, steeling himself, then stepped into his brother’s home. His gaze swept over the wooden table and the two ragged leather chairs before the hearth, then rose to the loft nestled against the roof timbers. Finally he relaxed as his eyes settled on the closed door that led to the only bedroom. Vale wasn’t awake. His brother would be asleep with Talon, his son.

Perry moved to the table and inhaled slowly. Grief hung thick and heavy, out of place in the colorful room. It pressed in along the edges of his vision like a bleak gray fog. Perry also caught the smoke from the dying fire, the tang of Luster from the clay pitcher on the wooden table. A month had passed since his brother’s wife, Mila, had died. Her scent was faded, almost gone.

Perry tapped the rim of the blue pitcher with a finger. He’d watched Mila decorate the handle with yellow flowers last spring. Mila’s touch was everywhere. In the ceramic plates and the bowls she’d shaped. The rugs she’d woven and the glass jars full of beads she’d painted. She’d been a Seer. Gifted with uncommon sight. Like most Seers, Mila had cared about the looks of things. On her deathbed, when her hands could no longer weave or paint or mold clay, she’d told stories and filled them with the colors she loved.

Perry leaned his weight on the table, suddenly weak and weary with missing her. He had no right to brood, with his brother who’d lost a wife and his nephew who’d lost a mother hurting far more. But she’d been his family too.

He turned to the bedroom door. He wanted to see Talon. But judging by the empty pitcher, Vale had been drinking. A meeting with his older brother now would be too risky.

For a moment, he let himself imagine how it would be, challenging Vale for Blood Lord. Acting on a need as real as thirst. He’d make changes if he led the Tides. Take the risks his brother avoided. The tribe couldn’t go on cowering in place for much longer. Not with game so scarce and the Aether storms growing worse every winter. Rumors spoke of safer lands with still, blue skies, but Perry wasn’t sure. What he did know was that the Tides needed a Blood Lord who’d take action—and his brother didn’t want to budge.

Perry looked down at his worn leather boots. Here he was. Standing still. No better than Vale. He cursed and shook his head. Tossed his satchel up to the loft. Then he pulled off his boots, climbed up, and lay staring at the rafters. It was stupid to daydream about something he’d never do. He’d leave before it came to that.

He hadn’t yet closed his eyes when he heard a door whine and then the ladder jostle. Talon, a small, dark blur, catapulted over the top rung, buried himself beneath the blanket, and went still as stone. Perry climbed over Talon to the ladder side. The space was cramped, and he didn’t want his nephew taking a tumble in his sleep.

“How come you never move that fast when we’re hunting?” he teased.

Nothing. Not even a stir under the blanket. Talon had fallen into long stretches of silence since his mother’s death, but he’d never stopped speaking with Perry. Considering what had happened the last time they’d been together, Perry wasn’t surprised by his nephew’s silence. He’d made a mistake. Lately he’d made too many.

“Guess you don’t want to know what I brought you.” Talon still didn’t bite. “Shame,” Perry said after a moment. “You’d have loved it.”

“I know,” Talon said, his seven-year-old voice bright with pride. “A shell.”

“It’s not a shell, but it’s a good guess. I did go for a swim.” Before coming home, Perry had spent an hour scrubbing the scents from his skin and hair with handfuls of sand. He’d had to, or one whiff and his brother would know where he’d been. Vale had strict rules against roaming near the Dwellers.

“Why are you hiding, Talon? Come out of there.” He drew the blanket back. Talon’s scent came at him in a fetid wave. Perry rocked back, hands fisting, his breath catching in his throat. Talon’s scent was too much like Mila’s had been when the illness came in force. He wanted to believe it was a mistake. That Talon was well and would grow to see another year. But scents never lied.

People thought being a Scire meant having power. Being Marked—gifted with a dominant Sense—was rare. But even among the Marked, Perry was unique for having two Senses. As a Seer, he made a skilled archer. But only Scires with noses as strong as Perry’s could breathe and know despair or fear. Useful things to know about an enemy, but when it came to family felt more like a curse. Mila’s decline had been hard, but with Talon, Perry had grown to hate his nose for what it told him.

He forced himself to face his nephew. Firelight from below reflected off the rafters. It outlined the curve of Talon’s cheeks with an orange glow. Lit the tips of his eyelashes. Perry looked at his dying nephew and couldn’t think of a single thing worth saying. Talon already knew everything he felt. He knew Perry would trade places in an instant if he could.

“I know it’s getting worse,” Talon said. “My legs get numb sometimes. . . . Sometimes I can’t scent as good, but nothing hurts too bad.” He turned his face into the blanket. “I knew you’d get wrathy.”

“Talon, I’m not—it’s not
you
I’m wrathy with.”

Perry drew a few breaths against the tightness in his chest, his anger mixing with his nephew’s guilt, making it difficult to think clearly. He knew love. He loved his sister, Liv, and Mila, and he could remember feeling love for Vale as nearly as a year ago. But with Talon, love was only part of it. Talon’s sorrow dropped him like a stone. His worry made Perry pace. His joy felt like flying. In the span of a breath, Talon’s needs became Perry’s own.

Scires called it being rendered. The bond had always made life simple for Perry. Talon’s well-being came first. For the past seven years that had meant plenty of roughhousing. Teaching Talon to walk and then swim. Teaching him to track game and shoot a bow and dress his kills. Easy things. Talon loved everything Perry did. But since Mila had fallen ill, it wasn’t as simple anymore. He couldn’t keep Talon well or happy. But he knew he helped Talon by being there. By staying with him as long as he could.

“What’s the thing?” Talon asked.

“What thing?”

“The thing you brought for me.”

“Ah, that.” The apple. He wanted to tell Talon, but there were Audiles in the tribe with hearing as keen as his sense of smell. And there was Vale, an even bigger problem. Perry couldn’t risk Vale scenting it. With winter only weeks away, all the trading for the year was done. Vale would have questions about where Perry got the apple. He didn’t need any more trouble with his brother than he already had.

“It has to wait until tomorrow.” He’d have to give the apple to Talon a few miles away from the compound. For now it would stay wrapped in an old scrap of plastic, buried deep inside his satchel with the Dweller eyepiece.

“Is it good?”

Perry crossed his arms behind his head. “Come on, Tal. Can’t believe you asked me that.”

Talon muffled a giggle. “You smell like sweaty seaweed, Uncle Perry.”

“Sweaty seaweed?”

“Yeah. The kind that’s been on the rocks for a few days.”

Perry laughed, nudging him in the ribs. “Thanks, Squeak.”

Talon nudged him back. “You’re welcome, Squawk.”

They lay for a few minutes, breathing together in the quiet. Through a crack in the timbers, Perry could see a sliver of the Aether swirling in the sky. On calmer days, it was like being on the underside of waves, seeing the Aether roll and pitch above. Other times it flowed like rapids, furious and blazing blue. Fire and water, come together in the sky. Winter was the season for Aether storms, but in the past years the storms were starting earlier and lasting longer. Already they’d had a few. The last nearly wiped out the tribe’s sheep, the flock too far from the compound to be brought to safety in time. Vale called it a phase, said the storms would lessen soon enough. Perry disagreed.

Talon shifted beside him. Perry knew he wasn’t asleep. His nephew’s temper had grown dark and damp. Eventually it tightened like a belt around Perry’s heart. He swallowed, his throat raw and aching. “What is it, Talon?”

“I thought you’d left. I thought you dispersed after what happened with my dad.”

Perry let out a slow breath. Four nights ago he and Vale had sat at the table below, passing a bottle back and forth. For the first time in what seemed like months, they’d talked as brothers. About Mila’s death and about Talon. Even the best medicines Vale traded for weren’t helping anymore. They didn’t say it but both of them knew. Talon would be lucky to live through winter.

When Vale started to slur, Perry told himself to leave. Luster sweetened Perry but it did the opposite for Vale. Turned him rabid, just like it had their father. But Perry stayed because Vale was talking and so was he. Then Perry made a comment about moving the tribe away from the compound to safer land. A stupid comment. He knew where it’d lead, where it always led. Arguments. Angry words. This time Vale hadn’t said anything. He’d just reached out and cuffed Perry across the jaw. Given him a sharp knock that had felt familiar and horrible at once.