Fugitive (6 page)

~

I woke from my fever with a clear head for the first time in days. I didn’t remember making the trip from the barn to the house, but I quickly deduced what must have happened. I sat up and looked around the room, taking in the collection of strange and wonderful things that covered the walls. The little sister sat in a chair by the fire, her chin in her hand and a snarl of yarn in her lap. She didn’t see that I was awake at first, and when I stirred to stretch my cramping legs, she started and put a hand over her throat.

“You’re awake!”

I grimaced a smile. “Yes.”

She studied me with open curiosity. She was small, with her hair in two braids. Her eyes were bright and inquisitive, and they lacked the hardness of her older sister.

Without a word, the little sister went away, and returned with a plate of bread and jam. I ate hungrily, barely tasting the food. When I’d finished, I wiped crumbs from my lips with my wrist and looked at her. “Thank you.”

She drew her legs up and tucked her knees under her chin. “You’re a Farther,” she said.

I didn’t dispute the strange term.

“You spoke in your sleep last night,” she said.

“What did I say?”

Her eyelids fluttered as if she didn’t want to recall. “You sounded sad.”

She seemed sympathetic, and she was young. Maybe she could help me. Maybe I could convince her.

“I’m in trouble,” I whispered. “Some people from my country are trying to hurt me. I need to get to safety.”

Her eyes widened. She nodded, listening.

“I’m looking for a gate.”

Her forehead crinkled. “Gate?”

Clearly she had no idea what I was talking about.

“Look,” I said, desperation spilling into my voice. “I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt anyone. I just need to find this gate and get to safety. Then I’ll leave you all alone.”

“I’m sorry,” she murmured.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry this is happening to you. It’s terrible. But we’ll help you. Don’t worry.”

I was certainly worried.

She set the tangle of yarn down and stood. “My brother’s sleeping, so try not to make too much noise.” With that, she went to the door and took down one of the cloaks on the hook beside it. She slung the heavy fabric around her shoulders and stepped out into the snow, letting in a swirl of breath-takingly cold air.

That was when Lia entered, wearing a dress of blue that made her look like a woman. She took my breath away the moment she descended the wooden stairs of her home. She wore flowers in her hair, and she was startlingly beautiful this way, dressed up and delicate-looking except for her vigilant expression of wariness and the ruthless shape of her lips.

When she saw me, however, she hesitated on the steps and looked at me with an unguarded expression, because she did not think I saw. As a prince, however, I was practiced at seeing things others did not think I noticed, and I let her think she was unobserved for a moment. She eyed me with appreciation, and I had the oddest urge to say something that would make her smile. I wanted to see if it would light up her eyes.

I squashed the urge without mercy. She was not a friend. She was someone to be wary of, despite the fact that she’d taken me into her home and covered me with a quilt beside the fire.

“Are you done ogling me yet?” I asked, just so she knew I knew she was watching.

She straightened and descended the rest of the stairs with a clatter, as if to make up for her earlier stealth. Was it my imagination, or did she seem flustered? “I wasn’t
ogling
you,” she snapped, as if the idea were utterly ridiculous. She reached the floor and stopped. This time when her gaze flicked over me, it was cool and dismissive. “Your fever broke?”

I hadn’t the faintest idea about determining that, as I’d never had to bother with my own health before. We’d always had a court physician who handled such matters. But she was expecting an answer.

“I suppose so,” I said, “since I am lucid and feeling better.” The urge to tease her returned, stronger this time, and I gave in. “Or maybe I have died, and this is the afterlife, although you and your sister make a pair of strange angels.”

She lifted an eyebrow, and one corner of her mouth tugged in a ghost of a smile at the notion of her as an angel, but she said nothing in response. She looked around the room at the mention of her sister as if wondering where she was.

“You look all dressed up,” I ventured, fishing for information. “Are you going somewhere?”

She went into the kitchen, and I heard her opening cupboards. “I have to go into the village to speak with the Mayor,” she said, and there was something about the way she said it that made me freeze. As if she was steeling herself for the inevitable. As if she was warning me to brace myself.

She was going to turn me in.

“Why?” I asked, breathless. Perhaps she had some other errand, unrelated. Perhaps I was imagining things. Perhaps...

I was too weak to run, and we both knew it. I was utterly dependent on her mercy.

She returned and leaned against the doorway. “Because I have to figure out what to do with you.”

Well, then. All cards were on the table.

That didn’t mean I couldn’t try to change her mind.

“But your sister said,” I started, and stopped. Would bringing the other girl into it weaken her resolve, or make her angry and only fuel her desire to see me gone?

Lia’s eyes narrowed. She straightened almost imperceptibly. “What did she say?”

I clamped my mouth shut. Mentioning the other one was a mistake.

She studied me for a long moment, and my heart pounded so hard against my chest that I could hear it. Fear spiked down my limbs and fizzled in my palms. Her face softened so slightly I might have imagined it.

“It’s going to be all right,” she said. “You’re going to have to trust me.”

Trust me.

With those words ringing in the air between us, she went out and shut the door.

~

WEEKS HAD PASSED, trust had flourished and withered and flourished again.

Now, I was leaving her, and everything inside me had turned as brittle as ice across a river in winter. I felt the cracks appearing across my heart, little stabs of pain as she looked into my eyes, and I saw the shimmer of emotion in hers.

She never cried. But here she was, with wet eyes and hands that gripped mine so tight I thought she would break me.

“Have you ever felt that it’s just too dangerous to love people?” she whispered.

Pain shot through me. Yes, I wanted to say, a thousand times I’ve felt it. But a stronger feeling overrode it. I looked at her, and I saw the love she felt written plainly across the ache on her face, the sharp line of her shoulders, and the curve of her wrist over mine, and I’d never felt so alive, so vulnerable, or so strong as I realized I felt the same thing.

She kept speaking, the words furtive and low, desperate, as if she was burdened with a terrible truth that she must share or die. “I keep losing people. Is this struggle to feel worth it? I keep bleeding and bleeding, and it seems like it never stops.”

Words filled me, but I couldn’t speak them. They were too big, too deep, their roots went down to the unspoken parts of my soul.

She looked at me, her eyes huge and black with sorrow and hope mixed together.

Only one hope filled me.

“Lia, what if—?”

She lifted one hand and put her fingers against my mouth, silencing the thought. Her face softened, just barely, and I saw the sacrifice for what it was.

“You’ve got to leave tonight,” she said fiercely. “We don’t have much time.”

A single tear fell from her eye and left a silver trail down her cheek. I touched the path it left, and she sighed.

“Lia.”

She leaned forward and touched her forehead to mine.

“You’re right,” I said. “It’s not safe for you if I stay. And there’s no life for me here.” I was a fugitive. An Aeralian. I had nothing to offer her except danger and harm. I had to go.

“I know,” she said. “I know all of that. But knowing doesn’t make it any easier.”

Then I kissed her, because sometimes words won’t do when you have to say something.

~

THE NIGHT OUTSIDE was black, the darkness punctured by stars. It was time to go.

Lia’s little sister gave me a bag of food for my journey, and she then hugged me fiercely. I shook her brother Jonn’s hand, and a wordless understanding passed between us.

The air bit at my face and neck where my skin was exposed as we left the farmhouse and stepped into the yard, but I barely felt the cold. Words still churned within me.

Standing at the edge of the trees, bathed in lantern light, were two men in cloaks, their faces hidden by hoods. I stopped.

“Are we sure we can trust them?”

Lia looked at me. “We have to. We don’t really have a choice.”

I gazed into her face, and a warm emotion rushed through me. I trusted her. I would follow her. And so I did.

The one called Adam pulled back his hood as we approached. His gaze flicked over me, and he lifted one eyebrow as if observing something of note. Something about his gaze made me bristle. I stared back, refusing to cower.

“This is my older brother, Abel,” Adam said after a long moment. He gestured at the other man. “Only he and I will accompany you tonight. It’s best to travel in small groups into the deep Frost, to avoid attracting too much attention from Watchers...and anyone else who might be watching.”

A restless energy had slipped into my bones. It felt like dread. Beside me, Lia was still. I ached to reach for her hand, but I didn’t. Instead, I offered mine to Adam. It was more a challenge than a gesture of friendship.

Adam stared at me for a span of two breaths before gripping my hand in brief greeting. His mouth twitched. I had the sense that he trusted me as little as I trusted him.

But we both trusted the girl standing between us.

That was enough for me.

Months later

I STOOD IN the wild, stark forest of the Frost, gazing at the black branches coated with dripping snow. Behind me the sounds of celebration filled the air. I knew that somewhere in the night, Lia Weaver and her siblings were happy. Laughing, perhaps. Dancing, because we’d done it. We’d liberated the Frost.

An emptiness filled me, an ache without a name. I did not turn to look back at the village behind me. For some reason, seeing it filled my mouth with a bitter taste.

Freedom had come to some people this day, but there were many others still in bondage.

My sister’s face flashed across my memory, and I lowered my head. I had not thought of her in a long time. I had no idea where she was now, or what had happened to her. Shame licked along my bones.

Footsteps crunched in the snow.

It was Korr. He’d been in the Frost for months, working his own agenda to overthrow the Dictator, and he’d helped us drive out the Farthers from Lia’s village in exchange for the use of a device her father had discovered.

Our trust was tenuous as best.

He stopped at my side, should to shoulder with me, gazing at the same thing I looked at, which was nothing, really. We stood that way for a short while, saying nothing.

“Congratulations on not getting yourself killed,” he said.

I ground my teeth together to hold in a sigh. My half-brother had proven himself able to make a wise choice or two, when it suited him, but that did not mean that all was forgiven.

Silence filled the woods along with the gathering darkness. The sounds of celebration came from Iceliss. Music, laughter. Spontaneous bursts of cheering broke out intermittently.

Korr stamped his boots to warm his feet. “Shouldn’t you be with them? Reveling in the victory of your adopted people?” When he spoke, his breath was a white cloud before his face. The night was cold, colder than we’d had in weeks. A hiccup in the coming Thaw.

“It’s not...I’m not...” I stopped. “I don’t belong here.”

I expected agreement, or at the very least, mockery.

Korr said nothing of the sort. His dark eyes scanned my face, as if looking for confirmation of something. “They do not want you?”

“No, it’s not that. It’s just...” I hesitated to bare my thoughts to him, but somehow, I spoke the words anyway. “I have unfinished business in Aeralis.”

“Yes,” Korr agreed. “You do. We both do.”

Shocked by such an honest admission, I looked him in the eye. He wasn’t smirking, smiling, or scowling. His expression was serious, thoughtful.

“Why did you do it?” The words tore themselves from me before I could stop them.

“I didn’t want to get involved in this village squabble, but your Lia Weaver had something I needed very much, and—”

“No. Why did you have me arrested?”

Korr stilled. “I did not have you arrested.”

I stared at him.

“I swear it,” he said, and his voice was low and earnest. “Upon my dead father’s grave, I promise you.”

He sounded so sincere I almost believed him. But he always was a good liar. Still, I wanted to see what explanation he might possibly give. “Then who did?” How creative could his lies be?

“I don’t know.”

I wasn’t expecting that. I was expecting a ruthless finger-pointing, if nothing else.

“If I did,” Korr continued, “he or she would be rotting in prison now.”

I lost patience for the charade quickly. “We’ve gone through enough together. I think you can tell me the truth.”

“It is the truth.” He paused. “If I had wanted you ruined, I could have done much, much more. I could have exposed your involvement with the plot to depose the Dictator, along with that note. And I certainly wouldn’t have given information to the Thorns about the prison wagon you would be on, and your description, so they could rescue you. Nor would I have convinced the operative to do it even though they said they hadn’t run a rescue operation for months, that the contacts in the Frost who had taken prisoners to safety were no longer responding to messages. Nor would I have smuggled our sister and your parents to safety beyond Aeralis, out of the hands of those who could harm them. Lakin, too. I only asked her to marry me so I could send her away. She was a member of the Restorationists in the early days. She believed in what I was doing. Neither of us wanted you involved, but obviously we weren’t successful in stopping you.”