Water & Storm Country (36 page)

“To see a girl,” I say.

“He told Feve and Circ there’s a girl on the
ship that looks like us.” This time it’s Siena who speaks.

“Go,” I say. “Find your sister.”

They look at the water, then back at me.
“Uhh…”

“I can take you,” a man says, striding
forward. He’s weaponless, his face covered in streaks of blood.
He’s clutching one of his arms, blood seeping through his fingers.
He’s wearing a dirty and torn blue uniform.

“We don’t need anything from you,” I say.

“My name’s Lieutenant—” I wait for him to
finish. “Name’s Cain. Just Cain,” he says. “I’m friends with the
boy…the young man that just killed the admiral. I’ll take you to
where he’s gone. As long as you do the rowing.”

“Yes!” Skye and Siena say at once.

“I don’t know a searin’ thing ’bout what
rowin’ is,” Siena says, “but we’ll do whatever you tell us if you
can take us to our sister.”

“Are you sure—” I start to say.

“Yes,” they repeat, once more in unison.

“I don’t know anything about your sister, but
I’ll take you to meet the Heater girl that Huck’s going to
see.”

Excitement flashing in their eyes, Siena and
Skye follow Cain down the beach to one of the boats.

Again, without command from me, Passion trots
up the wet-sand beach and clambers over the dunes. The plains are
rain-drenched and muddy, but she never misses a step. I try not to
look at the bodies staring unblinking and vacantly at the sky.

Remy waves to me as we approach. Dazz is
being worked on by a Healer, his friend Buff hovering over him.

All of a sudden I find tears springing up as
emotion swells in my chest. The desire to be close to someone again
hits me so hard I swear someone’s pounding on my stomach. I have no
one to hold, no one to comfort me. My mother and father are still
with me, yes, but too far away to give me what I need. I have no
family.

Remy stares at me, his eyes wet with sadness.
Or is it just the rain in his eyes?

I start to dismount, but a flame of pain
shoots through my hip. With everything that’s happened, I’ve almost
forgotten about my injury. I’m pretty sure it’s not
life-threatening, but it hurts like being dunked in a bath of
spearheads.

But I don’t need to dismount, because Remy
runs to me, grabs me around the waist, pulls me down. The shock of
the pain in my hip and his hands touching me is overwhelming,
swarming over my skin and through my blood like a warm blanket and
a lightning strike and the thrill of battle.

My legs wrap around him and the pain melts
away and he holds me in his arms, kisses my neck, nuzzles me with
his head. I want to kiss him, but not now, not with the bodies
around us, not with the lives of our people so casually ended.

But I will hold him, forever and ever and
ever if he lets me.

A
s I climb the rope
ladder to the deck, I’m scared about what I’ll find.

When I left her there was so much blood.
Should I have fought my father then? Could I have? I know the
answer is no, that he wouldn’t have hesitated to kill her then and
there, but I still wonder.

I whipped her half to death. At least I hope
it’s half and not whole.

Just before I swing my leg over the railing,
I whisper a silent prayer.
Deep Blue let her be alive. If only
so I can say goodbye properly.

The moment my eyes find their way above deck,
my heart beats erratically.

Because she’s there. Not unconscious and
lying in a pool of her own blood—the blood that I beat out of
her—but standing, looking right at me, a blanket wrapped around her
shoulders.

My feet are nailed to the planks. I can’t
move toward her, because what will I say? What will I do?

One of her hands pokes through a gap in the
front of the blanket. Her fingers gesture me to her.

Does she mean it?

I lift a heavy leg, then another, stumbling
forward. I don’t care if she forgives me, don’t care if she ever
wants to see me again after today. None of that matters, because
she’s alive. Of her own strength, she’s alive.

When I’m two or three steps from her, I stop
again. Her black hair is wet and hangs in shiny strands around her
face. She looks so calm, her wounds hidden behind the blanket and
her emotionless expression.

What do I say? Should I even try for her
forgiveness?

She speaks first. “Huck…”

I wait for it. For the anger, for the blame.
It’s what I deserve. “I’m sorry,” I say quickly. I have to try.
“I’m sorry for everything. I’m a terrible, terrible person and I’ve
lived a terrible, terrible life. Everything I’ve touched has turned
to—”

“Huck,” she says again, but I wave her off
with a hand.

“No,” I say. “I have to say this. I’ve hurt
you in so many ways. I never should have let it go this far. I was
weak, still am, but maybe a little stronger than before. My father
will rule me no more. He can’t—not from where he is.”

“Huck,” she says once more.

But I’m not listening, my mouth on automatic.
“You should hate me, you should leave me far, far behind. Never
look back, Jade. Never look back at these miserable yars. Forget
about—”

“Huck!” she says, this time more forcefully.
“I don’t want to forget. I don’t want to move on. I forgive
you.”

“What?” My vision blurs, but I blink my way
back to clarity. “You can’t mean that.”

“I do,” Jade says, stepping forward, closing
the gap between us by half. “You risked everything for me. You
killed for me. You hurt me to save me. I heard what your father
said. If you didn’t…do it…he would’ve killed me. I don’t blame
you.”

She steps forward again, right up against me,
her face just below mine. My arms want to wrap around her, but I
can’t because of her ripped, torn back. I can’t hold her because of
what I’ve done to her.

“Are you sure?” I say, feeling her breath on
my lips as she breathes—really breathes!

“Yes,” she says, and then she rises up on her
tiptoes and kisses me. Soft and tender and forgiving, and she
doesn’t want to leave me, doesn’t wish to forget me, and I’ll never
do anything to hurt her again—never ever ever—and although I’ve
never kissed a girl before, it’s easy, because it’s her. It’s
her.

I curl my hands behind the back of her head,
careful not to touch anywhere that might be raw. We kiss twice,
thrice, four times, just little pecks, before pulling away to look
at each other.

And in that look is everything I’ve ever
wanted. The pride of someone who cares about me. It never had to be
my father—never
should
have been my father—just someone.
Someone worthwhile. Someone like Jade.

If a rainbow were to appear, falling from the
sky, coming down to shine colors for each of my emotions, it
wouldn’t have enough colors. ’Cause I’m feeling so much, every
emotion there is and everything in between, streaking through me
and around me and across me and
in
me.

I’ll never let this girl go. Never ever ever.
Not in my heart, at least.

“Jade,” a voice says from behind.

The boy’s taller’n her and partially blocking
her, but there’s no doubt in my mind that it
is
her.

“Jade,” I say, calling out to my long lost
sister.

Her little head that’s so much bigger’n it
should be—or at least bigger’n how I remember it—pokes ’round the
Soaker boy, the one who helped end the battle.

She’s the spitting image of my mother,
beautiful from head to toe, although I can’t see much of her ’cause
of the blanket ’round her shoulders.

Skye pops up beside me, a moment behind on
the ladder. “It’s her,” I whisper, but I don’t hafta say it, ’cause
she knows too.

“Burnin’ chunks of tugblaze,” she says, but
her voice is way behind me, ’cause I’m already running, crossing
the wooloo moving wood floor in five steps. The boy blocks my
path.

“Get the prickler-burnin’ scorch outta my
way,” I say.

“Sorry, I—I just wanted to tell you to be
gentle. She’s injured. On her back.” The boy steps aside.

“Don’t touch my back,” Jade says, rushing
forward and smashing into me, hugging me so fiercely that she warms
me from head to toe like there’s a fire and about ten tugskin
blankets inside of her. My arms don’t know where to go, ’cause I’m
not s’posed to touch her back, so they just hang in the air all
awkward-like. Maybe I can’t hug her, but I can kiss her, and I
plant a dozen on her head, on her hair, which is wet and don’t
smell so good.

But I don’t care, ’cause it’s my sister and
she’s hugging me and I’m saying over and over again,
“JadeohJadeohJadeohJade.”

And then Skye’s there and she’s hugging us
both, and the boy’s reminding us to “Be careful of her back!” and I
think one of us grazes her skin once or twice because she shudders
but don’t cry out, ’cause she’s our sister and tougher’n a pack of
green-eyed Killers.

We got no parents, but we got each other. And
if Skye or me got anything to say ’bout it—which I ’spect we do
considering we’re here, ain’t we?—we’ll stay together till the Fire
takes us all.

“Take me home,” Jade murmurs into my chest,
and I wanna tell her we will, but I can’t get the words out, which
is stranger’n tugs sprouting wings and flying, stranger’n Perry the
Prickler having something nice to say.

But Skye covers me, says, “We’re takin’ you
home, Jade, you can bet yer life on that. We’re all goin’
home.”

I hear a gasp and finally pull my face outta
Jade’s hair to see the Soaker boy staring out across the big ol’
pond everyone keeps calling “the ocean.”

And there it is, a sight I swear to you I
ain’t never seen. Almost as big as the sky itself, arcing ’cross
the waters, full of so many colors I couldn’t count ’em without
taking my moccasins off, there’s this thing, hanging in the air,
lit by the sun, which is fiery and red and breaking through the
clouds.

“A rainbow,” the boy murmurs.

“No—our rainbow,” Jade says, hugging me even
harder.

A
week after the
largest—and strangest—Soaker/Stormer battle, the first ever
multi-tribe peace conference is held in storm country, which
probably isn’t the best idea considering the dark clouds that are
swirling overhead, always threatening rain.

But the boy—Huck Jones—and his friend Cain
insisted on it.

Everyone is invited. Every last living
Soaker, Stormer, and the visitors from fire and ice country. The
Heater children who survived the battle sit at the very front of
the crowd, their legs crossed underneath them.

Inviting everyone was also Huck’s idea. He
said we all need to know the truth. It turns out there’s a lot more
to the boy whose life I spared than I ever could have imagined.
Even now, the thought that everything might’ve been different had I
let my lust for vengeance move my hand to kill him tingles through
me.

But you didn’t kill him. You chose not to.
You chose right.

My father’s voice in my head calms me. “I
love you, Father,” I whisper.

“What was that?” Remy asks from beside
me.

“Nothing,” I say, taking his hand. “Nothing
to worry about.”

He smiles, squeezes my palm.

Gard stands to address the audience. Although
both tribes’ numbers have been decimated, and now the women,
children, and elderly outnumber the young and the strong, there are
many more than there could have been. We should count ourselves
lucky.

“For the first time in any of our lifetimes,
we are here to discuss peace,” Gard says.

An uneasy cheer rises up, but falls silent
when someone shouts, “How can there ever be peace?”

Gard raises a hand. “I understand. When all
you’ve ever done is fight, you know no different. I know no
different. But I’m willing to listen, and so should all of you.
Please, I implore you all, listen to what he has to say.”

Gard steps back and motions for Huck to take
his place.

Huck takes an uncertain step forward. I hear
whispers slide through the crowd like rustling leaves. “They say he
killed his father during the battle.” “No, I heard he tried to kill
Gard.” “Did you?” “Definitely.”

Huck clears his throat. “We were wrong,” he
says. “All of us. Although my father’s leadership took the Soakers
in a direction we never should have gone, we followed him. I don’t
know why the leaders of the Heaters and the Icers let themselves be
used by him—I can’t speak for them. All I know is that we have no
excuses. We can’t bring back the dead. We can’t apologize for their
deaths, because, although we are deeply sorry, we know words are
meaningless when our actions have spoken so loudly.”

The audience is silent, craning their necks
forward, hanging on his every word, recognizing the wisdom in them.
He’s not saying what I expected him to, not making excuses or
laying the blame solely on his father.

“We can only say that we want things to
change. Those who refuse to be a part of it will be sent away. We
don’t need them. It will take time, but we will try, if you will.
We want peace. I want peace. What say you?”

Silence. Heads turn, looking at neighbors,
looking at friends, at husbands and wives and children. No one
speaks. No one.

And then…

A sound pierces the silence, but not a voice.
The scuffling of feet, moving fast, scraping across the plains,
skimming past the edges of the tents. No one is on guard, because
who would they guard against? Every last Soaker is here, except for
the injured.

The crowd shifts as one, gazing in the
direction of the sound. Behind us, a form bursts into the center of
camp, stopping suddenly when she sees us.