Firewalker (39 page)

“I've never been to Ohio,” Breakfast said, staring out at the sunset gracing the vast tracks of open land that lay before them.

“I don't think it looks like this in our world,” Una said, smiling.

“Yeah, pretty sure it doesn't,” Breakfast agreed. “Probably a freeway right here. Or a mall.”

“Right? And it'd be one of those nonsensical malls that had a tire shop right next to a nail salon.” Una's face fell. “I'd kill for a mani-pedi,” she said mournfully.

Lily and her Tristan shared a smile. He threw an arm over her shoulder. “This is the weirdest road trip ever,” he said. “Not what I imagined I'd be doing this spring.”

“We'd be graduating right about now,” Lily said, struck by the idea.

“Yeah,” he said, his eyes drifting across the view. “The whole senior class would be signing yearbooks and saying good-bye. Well, most of us would be, that is.”

Lily thought about Scot for the first time since she'd left her world, and her homesickness intensified. She couldn't go home. None of them could. They were all remembering that—and the people they'd left behind.

“Who knew Ohio was so gorgeous?” Breakfast said cheerfully. He never let the group wallow for too long.

Una shook her head at him, a tender smile on her face. “My bighearted boy,” she said, and gave him one of her rare public kisses.

Lily became intensely aware of the weight of Tristan's arm across her shoulders and the warmth of his body against hers. She stole a glance at him. His hair was longer, and his skin was tanned from wind and sunshine. He was leaner now, but just as strong as he ever was. He looked rougher, and she realized that somewhere along the way, her Tristan had stopped appearing and behaving like a charming but irresponsible boy. He'd stopped being the guy who'd cheated on her, and had become a man. The change suited him.

Tristan caught Lily staring at him and glanced down shyly. “Come on. Let's give them some time alone,” he said, and led Lily back to the campfire and the chatter of friends. Over the next few nights, Tristan caught Lily staring at him over the flames, and he wasn't the only one.

Una became particularly interested in the thickening atmosphere between Tristan and Lily, and brought it up one afternoon when they were alone and stuck with dish duty by the river.

“So, what's up with you and Tristan?” Una asked.

Lily scrubbed a crusty pot with a little more force than necessary. “Nothing. I'm just looking,” she replied.

“He is easy to look at,” Una said with a grin. “You know, no one would blame you if they saw him coming out of your tent in the morning.”

“That's not going to happen, Una.”

“I'm just saying.” Una raised her soapy hands in surrender.

Lily paused in her work and looked up at Una. “It's nice to be wanted, but I'm not ready. Would you be ready to move on to another guy if Breakfast hurt you?”

“Immediately,” Una said quickly. “I find another guy and get him into my tent right away. But I'd never move on.”

Lily smiled in understanding. “I can't do that, Una.”

They left the mountains behind and were able to travel much faster. As they rode west, they ran into other small tribes, some heading to the Ocean of Grass to hunt buffalo and others hunting for minerals and ores that trickled down with the mountain streams.

“Most of the rivers have been picked clean,” Caleb said as they parted company with a hungry tribe that was little more than four or five family groups clinging to one another. Juliet had given them a small pot of healing salve for basically nothing, as they had nothing to trade. “But no one wants to go into the mines,” he said, shifting in his saddle and stifling his compassion. “I don't think they're going to have much of a choice, though.”

“Where are the mines?” Lily asked.

“Back in the hills,” the other Tristan said. “They mine coal, iron, zinc, and other minerals that the cities need and that Outlanders generally don't. Only the most desperate go down into them.”

“Are there Woven down in them?” Lily asked.

“Woven don't go underground,” Juliet said. She looked at her and held up a hand in surrender before Lily could comment. “No one knows why, exactly. But I'm sure you'll figure it out.”

“The mines are dangerous in other ways, I'm guessing. Are there a lot of cave-ins?” she asked.

Rowan had mentioned the mines once before and how the cities exploited the Outlanders by paying them a pittance for the ores they sold after all the hazardous work they did. The way Rowan had talked about the mines made it seem like most Outlanders would do anything to avoid them. Lily didn't bring Rowan into the conversation. It had been over a month since she'd last seen him, but it didn't matter. She still felt like he was near.

Caleb sat tight-lipped and shifted uncomfortably again in his saddle. “Yes, there are a lot of cave-ins, bad air, you name it. It's hell down in the mines. I spent a season in them after I dropped out of training as a mechanic at the Citadel,” he said quietly.

Lily looked at Caleb, surprised he'd mentioned the Citadel. He rarely spoke about his training as a mechanic. He'd left everything but warrior magic to Lily's other mechanics, and avoided assisting her in the rituals to make clean water, cleansers, or medicine for the group. Lily sensed a dark memory behind his dislike for the rituals, and she wished he'd talk about it. She got the terrible feeling that the witch or crucible who trained him had mistreated him in some way.

Lily saw Una staring at Caleb with wide, sad eyes and wondered if the two of them had more in common than she was privy to. She didn't pry. Keeping the peace between so many telepathically connected individuals meant that they all had to give one another space and know when to back off a subject. Lily's inner circle of Juliet, the Tristans, Una, Breakfast, and Caleb would sometimes go days without speaking and purposely put a lot of physical distance between themselves on the trail. Not because they were arguing, but because they needed a break from always having someone so close to them, brushing up against their minds.

The rest of the braves needed their space as well. While they craved Lily's strength and her presence, it was the first time any of them had spent so much time around a witch. Many of them found it hard to adjust to having her in their minds and none of them were accustomed to sharing their headspace with someone who could potentially possess them. It set them on edge. Tempers ran high and the trail seemed to get longer every day.

Lily started to understand why witches lived in citadels, separated from the rest of their claimed for most of the day. She had become a sounding board for everyone's emotions, and more often than not, even non–stone kin were affected by one another's moods because they were connected through her. Lily needed a buffer, but there was no way to seclude herself while they all rode on horseback across the ever-flattening terrain.

 

CHAPTER

14

Carrick bartered his last beaver pelt for a sack of grain. It was a small sack, but he'd have to make do. There were still two bombs left for him to locate and disarm. Hakan, the builder, didn't have any idea where to start looking for them and Carrick had to make his supplies last for as long as his search took. The money and first-class train passes Lillian had given him had made his trip between the cities downright enjoyable, but Carrick was in the wild now. City money wouldn't get him grain or beans out here.

At least the winter hadn't been too harsh and some of the smaller family groups Carrick encountered still had stores of food they could trade. Some didn't, of course. Being an Outlander often meant you went hungry, no matter what the winters were like.

Now, if only Lillian had given him some witch's medicine, then he could have bartered for more than just one sack of grain. He could have even gotten some dried peaches or a jug of maple syrup. Witch's medicine was just about the most valuable thing there was in the Outlands. Carrick would ask her for it next time he was back in Salem, which probably wouldn't be for a while yet.

With Lillian's help, he'd beaten all of Alaric's messengers to the bombs, but he still had two to go and Lillian had made it clear that even one bomb was too many. She'd shared a brief glimpse of a cinder world with Carrick to motivate him, but he didn't care much one way or the other. Cinder world, not cinder world, what was the difference? People had always killed each other, and Carrick couldn't see that he'd be worse off if one of the bombs detonated, as long as it detonated far away from him. He might even do better, he figured. Cinder worlds were where men like Carrick—men who weren't squeamish and knew how to take what they wanted—could run the whole place. One thing kept him motivated, though. He'd grown to crave the power his witch supplied him, and in the cinder worlds witches were done in first. Lillian wanted the bombs defused, and as long as he did what she said, he knew that she'd keep sending him those heady rushes of invincibility.

For as long as she lived, that is. The last time he'd seen her she looked worse. Her skin had a green tinge to it, and her eyes burned with fever. Carrick didn't think she'd last longer than a few more months—maybe a year at best—but he took comfort in knowing that there was still Lily. She was fresh and healthy. Carrick spent many hours thinking of her and her three willstones. Lily had been his first taste of real power and it had been the sweetest. Someday, he promised himself. First, he had to deal with his half brother.

Carrick got swiftly back on Rowan's trail after making his trade. Again, Rowan was moving away from the cities. The mountains would cause problems with his connection to his witch. Lillian was special, Carrick knew that, and she could keep the connection with her claimed over vast distances, but granite was granite, and not even she could penetrate that if there was enough of it. He didn't like the thought of losing Lillian's strength. He told Lillian in mindspeak that he didn't think Rowan was leading him to the two unsecured bombs anymore, but she'd still wanted Rowan followed and Alaric's plans for him discovered.

Carrick didn't know what Alaric was using Rowan for anymore now that Lily was gone. If anything, with Lily's possible control over his mind and body, Rowan was a security threat to the sachem. After watching them for over a week, he'd realized that Alaric and Rowan were stone kin, and as such their private discussions were beyond even his most cunning attempts at eavesdropping. That had come as a surprise. It was rumored that Alaric had no stone kin. Lillian had wondered how long that had been going on, and she doubted if anyone knew about it. Not even Lily.

Something had happened between Rowan and Alaric—maybe it had been a fight, or maybe it had been an order—and then Rowan had left Alaric's tribe unimpeded and in the middle of the day. Lillian sent out other spies to find either Chenoa, Keme, or the bombs, and she sent out Carrick to follow his half brother. Carrick was the only one of her spies suited for that task. He could still feel his brother, even though Rowan had buried their connection so deep even Carrick couldn't sense it anymore. That didn't matter. Their blood bond wasn't what Carrick followed now.

Carrick knew everything there was to know about suffering. It was his one true gift. After a childhood spent sending off wounded animals to drag themselves panting and whimpering with pain into the darkness, he even knew how to
track
suffering.

Rowan had no idea he left a trail of sorrow behind him as bright and clear as painted stones.

*   *   *

Lily dropped her bedroll on the ground next to her sister's and looked around. She didn't see Juliet anywhere. The sun was setting, and by this time her sister would usually have some kind of meal waiting for the two of them. Lily laughed at her own annoyance. She was starting to think like some fifties' husband who expected his wife to have dinner on the table as soon as he got home from work.

She reached out to Juliet and followed the connection between them to the perimeter of camp. Her sister sat atop a small rise that was covered in shin-high grass and dotted with vibrant spring wildflowers. Lily joined her, sitting down next to her in the fragrant grass. They looked out over a vast plain that was so mind-bogglingly large that it seemed to stretch on past the edge of the gathering evening, through the night, and straight on to the next morning. Lily fancied she could see all the way to tomorrow's dawn rising behind this setting sun.

“Look at them run,” Juliet said.

An uncountable number of buffalo undulated across the plain like a dark tide of muscle and blood washing over the Ocean of Grass. The pounding of their hooves thrummed through the earth and felt like a heartbeat under Lily's hand.

“Alaric told me about this,” Juliet continued quietly. “He said seeing it would open me up so wide that all the hurt inside would just spill out.”

Lily realized her sister was crying. She wished she could join her, but her hurt was more complicated than her sister's. It wasn't clean. When Lily did an autopsy on her love for Rowan she saw that most of the evidence pointed at her. And Lily had never been good at feeling one emotion at a time, like pure sadness or utter joy. Her sister had that talent, but not her. Everything Lily felt was tainted with other feelings, and sometimes she wondered if all the complications she put on her emotions kept her from ever really feeling anything. Except once. There was one night when all she had felt was love. Having that single taste just made it worse.

“Thank you for choosing me over Alaric,” Lily said. It was the first time they'd talked about it—the first time Lily acknowledged what Juliet had sacrificed for her.

“I couldn't let you die,” Juliet replied, wiping at her face.

“Actually, you could have. I'm not your real sister.”