Edge of the Falls (After the Fall) (6 page)

When I look back, he has dropped from the tree, and stands almost close enough to touch. I gasp, and his golden eyes dart to me, and he steps back. “Don’t,” I say, before I can stop myself. “Stay.”

His eyes are cold. How can eyes the color of molten gold be so very cold? And aloof. His brief moment of curiosity is over, it seems. I can’t help but remember the way his eyes filled my mind that night, with Berg. I blush, and look away. “I just wanted to thank you. For saving me,” I add, as if he does not know.

He is looking at me, his ears perked up. A ghostly scream comes from the darkness, imperious and commanding, and he steps away, looking past me. I bite back the protest, unsure of why I want him to stay. Then he steps closer, a whine building in his throat. His eyes go the Manor and back to me, and he whines again.

Belatedly, I understand. He rises as I stand, picking my way toward the Manor. I can feel him following me at a slight distance.

When I reach the door, he makes a soft noise, and then he bounds away, his scream filling the night. It’s almost musical. I smile, a tiny private smile, as I slide inside and lock the door against the terrors of the night.

“Lilith, after you clean the kitchen, take the children to the garden and start the weeds,” I order as we finish first meal. “Guin, go with Cedric and Spiro to check the fish lines and collect eggs.”

I can feel all of them watching me, but there is nothing more to say. We risk starvation if we don’t keep the Manor running—and with Mistress absorbed in her study, it falls to me to make sure we do.

I swallow the last of my tea and stand, carrying my cup to the large washbasin before I retreat from the too crowded kitchen.

Berg finds me an hour later, cleaning the boys’ bedroom. I fold one of Spiro’s tunics, drop it into the chest at the end of his bed, and stare at Berg. I refuse to explain my recent actions, even as I perversely want him to demand an explanation.

He doesn’t. “I spoke to the Mistress. When can you leave?”

My mouth falls open. I had not expected him to capitulate so easily. It takes me a moment to answer. “I need to speak to Gwen. And change into my City suit.” I glance down at my gray homespun shirt and pants.

He nods. “An hour, and we’ll leave. Mistress has arranged a testing for me, so don’t dawdle.”

I watch him stride away, his shoulders stiff. There is no warmth in his voice, no light touch that tells me all is forgiven. He is doing this, but he is still angry. And it is for the Mistress as much as Kaida.

I don’t know what to do with an angry Berg. I don’t know how to assure him that my irrational mood will pass—and don’t know if I
can.
I want to find a dark corner of the Manor where I can think, without the children and Cook and Berg and all the rest of the responsibilities I find thrust upon me.

I want to go outside and wait. Wait until I see golden eyes gleaming in the darkness as they watch me, silence wrapping around us as we sit in silence. Something in me twists, strangely longing.

Instead, I go find Gwen.

I remember when Gwen first came to the Manor—a young woman, pretty and healthy and—from the swell of her belly—fertile. She’d been stripped of her Quota and Insurance, turned out of the City. A med-tech, she had informed us. She had been called to operate on the young daughter of the Prince of the City—a child of privilege and Quota.

The little girl had died on the table, Gwen explained, shock in her pretty gray eyes. An aneurism, something the genetic testing at birth had missed—something that would have killed her eventually. The stress of simple surgery to repair a bone break had been too much for the child.

Enraged, the Prince had used his considerable sway with the Commission to have her status stripped. They pulled a Gutterling from the streets of the City, and gave her Gwen’s Quota and Insurance. Within two days of the child’s death, Gwen was turned out of the city. No one spoke in her defense.

She had found the Mistress, following the whispered rumors that filled the streets of the Exiled lady who cared for Gutterlings.

“What do I need, and where do I need to go to get it?” I ask when I find her mixing something that smells foul. The weary look in her eyes fades, replaced by determination as she pulls a small pad of paper from a pocket in her apron.

I wait as she scribbles, my fingers tapping impatiently against the wood of the doorframe. “Take this to the pharmed—are you taking Mistress’ maptable?”

I nod, and she scribbles an address on another sheet. “Tell them Gwenyth Awan of Luenear City sent you,” she orders.

Without showing the shock I feel, I fold the papers and shove them into a pocket, then hurry down the hall.

My City suit is hanging in a small closet on the Mistress’ floor. I notice that Berg’s crisp blue linen is missing—he’ll be waiting, impatiently.

I snatch my outfit, for once not caring about the fine weave, the decadent color. In my room, I pull my dress over my head, drop it heedlessly on the floor before I wiggle into the form fitting pants—it feels like a second skin. A soft, warm skin the color of palest blue.

I slip the top on, noting the way it emphasizes the slight curve of my chest, my narrow waist. I twist my long dark hair into a knot on my head, and assess myself.

I could almost pass for a Citizen. My features are finely formed, my big gray eyes full of unanswerable questions. In this tailored suit I look older, mature. Confident.

As if my world was not shaking under me, threatening to collapse the only life I have ever known.

Since those thoughts never lead to anything productive, and my window to the City is a narrow one—and the Mistress can slam it closed at any time—I slip my shoes on, snatch up Gwen’s note, and race down the stairs to where Berg is waiting.

His eyes scan me when I reach him, and he nods, turning away. I sigh—as angry as he is, this trip will be nothing short of unbearable.

We walk, a weathershield warding us from the elements. It encloses us in a bubble of quiet, tense anger. I don’t speak. Years of being around Berg, around his mood swings and silent rages guides my silence. Free of the need to defend myself, I let my thoughts wander.

The ban-wolf had been concerned about me last night. But it made no sense that a ban-wolf would care about a human girl, an Exile.

The Commission control Cities. They control the marriages within them, the births, even death.

And they control genetic experiments.

After the Cataclysm, the nuclear holocaust that left the world a wreck and ninety five percent of the population dead, bio-geneticists were rounded up. They had been one of the final matches that lit the fire of the Cataclysm—their experiments had resulted in almost invincible reptiles that could spew fire and attacked on whim.

They lost control of their creation, and the dragons spawned like wildfire, killing and mating and killing, a vicious cycle that seemed unstoppable.

The nations of the world had rallied against the bio-geneticists who led the experiments, and before the warheads shadowed the sky, thousands were killed.

After, the Commission culled them from the population, hid them away in anonymity within one of their Cities. Very few Citizens were brave enough to accuse the Commission of using the scientists, of creating the ban-wolves.

But very few have seen them up close, either. Most see the wolves from a distance, or hear their screams. But everyone knows the stories—and seeing them did nothing but confirm the rumors.

Men with the fur of a wolf, the teeth of a killer. Men who were stronger than any man had a right to be. With claws on their hands and feet that made them exceptionally good at slaughter.

Men with the scream of a child, the scream that could lure anyone to them in pity.

It was true—in part. They were heartbreaking. And if the Commission had kept control of them, they would have been a perfect weapon. But the Commission learned well the lessons of our now-dead ancestors: Hybrid experiments are not meant to be caged, controlled and used. They are wild and fierce and pitiless.

The Commission turned the packs loose Outside—if nuclear waste and acid rain storms and roaming dragons aren’t enough to keep the Citizens safely controlled within Shielded cities, vicious packs running the boundaries would.

So why am I still alive? Why would a ban-wolf save my life, and then herd me to safety—they are made for killing, and this sudden kindness makes no sense to me.

“Mistress is sad you didn’t come to her,” Berg says, and my attention jerks from my thoughts about the wolf—was his fur as soft as the clouds it looked like?—to the boy I grew up with.

“She doesn’t exactly go out of her way to make herself accessible, Berg,” I say, crisply.

“She has her reasons, Sabah,” he says.

“Mm, but it seems
you’re
the only one who knows what those reasons are. Why is that, Berg?” He stops, jerking around to stare at me in surprise. Guilt flares in his eyes. I look away, dread settling in my stomach.

It bothers me that she is so close to him. Berg is mine. We are both bound to the Mistress, a loyalty and debt so deep I cannot see who I am, separated from it. But this... this is different. It is
too
much. His voice is filled with an affection that I had once thought would only be there for me. I want to say something, but I don’t know what and now the bridge looms through the mist, gleaming like a silver rope before us.

A very small booth sits on our side, the door bearing the seal of the Prince. Berg mutters a curse and shoves the maptable into his bag, withdrawing documents from the Mistress.

We are not Citizens and we never will be. But even the Commission will allow Exiles entrance to the City once a year for essentials—food, meds, sanctuary in very rare cases. They like to trade with the Rover tribes, who scavenge and harvest where the Commission doesn’t bother. These visits are carefully regulated, and expensive beyond belief. But it is possible. And when the Mistress rouses herself, she carries influence that I have never understood. The Keepers are cautious around her, almost afraid. That she can arrange so quickly to have Berg tested at the University is only mildly surprising.

A Keeper pushes open the door, and I am startled that he appears only a year or two older than we do—he must be a new recruit. He stares at us with thinly veiled contempt. “What is your business in Mlena?”

Berg extends our creds, and says, “We need meds—and have Commission marks to purchase them.”

The Keeper grunts, rifling through the papers. He peers at me, a leering grin on his face. “She’s pretty.”

A low growl reaches me, and I shoot a quick look at Berg. But he is still, tense, but quiet.
No, he can’t—

“I’m an Exile,” I snap, loudly. I hope that no one else had heard a growl that shouldn’t be here. I keep my face blank, trying not to wonder about the white ban-wolf. Or why he is following me.

The Keeper’s bright interest fades so fast it’s almost laughable. No Citizen will risk their status by having sex with an Exile. He looks back at our papers, and waves us ahead, thrusting them at Berg, “Go on, then. And hurry—Mlena has no need of gutter rats littering its streets.”

Berg ignores that, and takes my hand. The bridge is thin—we can’t walk side by side. It sways in the breeze, the strong alloy metal twisting gracefully to accommodate the weather. Cold leeches from it, the slick ice shining brilliantly in the mist.

Keepers, the military arm of the Commission, use hovertransports to cross the gorge. Citizens never have the need to leave the City—unless they are Insured to someone in another City, and then the Commission arranges escorts. The bridge is solely for Outsiders, Exiles. They make it dangerous to discourage the unwanted scum of society.

But Berg has outsmarted them before, and we fall back on the oldest of his tricks. He wraps a thin chain around my waist, connecting me to him, and he clips the end to a sliding hook he attaches to the bridge itself. He glances at me, a silent question, and I force a smile, full of false confidence.

And then we step out onto nothing.

The whole bridge shudders with the sound of shattering ice echoing across the gorge. It groans, alarmingly, and then the metal adjusts, firm under our feet. It is always a nerve wracking first step. Berg squeezes my hand, inching forward.

It’s over a mile across—our weathershield is already dripping with water, the rain streaking the outer surface, making it almost impossible to see.

I don’t speak, afraid of disturbing Berg’s careful concentration. He guides us with a determination I recognize, a fierce will to live. The minutes stretch as we work our way across the expanse, the lights of the City brightening before us. At one point I look back. The Keeper’s shack is a dim outline. I wonder for a split second if the ban-wolf is out there, watching me.

“Careful, Sabah,” Berg murmurs, and my attention snaps forward again. It’s the first thing he’s said to me since stepping onto the bridge.

I shuffle-step after him, clutching his waist as a particularly strong gust of wind rattles the bridge. It twists with the weather, and my feet slide, edging precariously toward the open nothingness. Then it settles, and Berg is moving forward again.

“Do you really think this will save her?” he asks, his voice unnaturally flat in the silence of the shield.

I shrug even though he can’t see me. “I don’t know. I trust Gwen, and she thinks it will. It’s better than letting the blood infection set in, and watching her waste away.”

He doesn’t argue that, merely leads on through the mist in silence for a long time. I can clearly see the cliff face when he speaks, “It’s not fair to make me the enemy, you know.”

I pause, watching his head. His dark hair is curly, the roots wet with sweat. A scar traces down his neck, disappearing into his shirt—I know they trace all the way down, savage claw marks that mar the smooth beauty of his back.

“I’m not,” I answer finally. “I’m just... Berg, don’t you wish there was
more
?”

He laughs, and I flinch at the edge that coats his tone when he answers, “We’re Exiled Gutterlings, Sabah. What
more
is there? We’re lucky to be alive.”