Lark Ascending (36 page)

The sunlight poured down, warm and bright, and as my eyes adjusted, the gloom of the tunnels below began to drift away. I took a deep breath, tilting my head back and letting the wind carry away the last of the smell of darkness and damp.

I headed through the empty city, keeping an eye out for anyone who might have skipped the rally. I saw no one, though, and after passing a few streets without incident, I began to breathe a tiny bit easier. Despite how easy it had been to sneak out, each step felt heavier than the last. I forced myself to ignore the ache in my bones and tried to keep myself from thinking about what I was doing. That I'd likely never see him again. That he'd never know why I left him here. That I'd written a dozen letters and thrown them all away, because how could I tell him that I loved him in the same breath that I told him I was leaving, perhaps forever?

It was about half an hour's walk to the edge of the city, still marked by the groove where the Wall had once stood. I slowed to a halt, staring at the line, my thoughts grinding to a halt and trickling away. Spring was in full bloom beyond the remnants of the Wall, flowering weeds winding up through the cracked pavement and dangling from crumbling eaves. It was beautiful, and yet I hesitated, unable to take that first step beyond.

Then a wry voice split the quiet. “You're still as easy to track as a wounded deer.”

I jumped, whirling to find Oren a few paces behind me, his expression unreadable. My heart leaped at the sight of his face; all it knew was that it had wanted him, and he was here. It didn't matter that it'd make saying good-bye a thousand times harder. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out when I tried to speak.

“Well?” said Oren, taking slow, deliberate steps toward me. “No explanations, no apologies, no attempts to make me understand?”

The morning sun caught his sandy hair, gilding it white-gold as it stirred in the breeze. In the light, his normally pale blue eyes looked brighter, more like the sky overhead, like windows through to the world beyond my city. I thought my ribs would crack from the pounding of my heart.

For a long moment, neither of us said anything. Then I stepped forward, reaching for his hand to pull him closer. I stretched up on my toes and kissed him, soaking in the way he responded, the shape of his mouth fitting to mine, the hand that wound around my waist. I held onto that instant, memorizing it, storing every tiniest detail in my mind.

Slowly, reluctantly, I dropped back down onto my heels again.

Oren swallowed, forced to clear his throat before speaking. “What was that for?”

“For you.” I smiled, scanning his face. His face seemed so different now from the one I knew when I first met him; the wildness, the savagery, the way his gaze had scared me so. And yet I could still see that wild boy in there, the angry, lonely, desperate boy who had saved my life. Who had made me whole. “And for me,” I added, smile turning a little wry. “So I don't forget.”

“Forget?” Oren's expression darkened. “I knew you were going to do this,” he muttered. “Were you really going to sneak out like some kind of criminal? Lark, I'm coming with you.”

I ignored the faint relief that someone, at least, was arguing with me, and closed my eyes. I couldn't bring myself before to have this fight with him, but he had to know. He had to know it was all a dream, that I was right. Not speaking about it didn't make it go away. Leaving words unsaid didn't rob them of their truth.

“Oren—I have to leave. I can't change that. But you… you can stay here. You have a home, you have a place where you belong. You're just like everyone else now, no shadow to hide, no secrets. It's everything you've always wanted.”

Oren didn't answer, and after a moment of silence I opened my eyes to find him watching me, his expression far more thoughtful—and less angry—than I was imagining. He reached up, tracing with one finger the line scored across my cheek. “Lark,” he said slowly. “
You're
the one who's been searching for home all this time. Not me. You're the one who's been longing to fit in, to belong—to feel whole.”

My eyes burned, and I shook my head. I couldn't speak, wordlessly trying to deny what he was saying.

He curled an arm around my waist and ducked his head, pressing his forehead against mine. “I already have a home.”

A dark knot deep inside me, deeper than the shadow had been, tore its way free in response to his voice. The darkness rose up, carrying all my fears and lost dreams, everything I'd put aside so I could fight, so I could lead, so I could make the decisions that would save or shatter the world. And, like a shadow destroyed by the light, the darkness found Oren and fled. I dropped forward into his arms, letting him wrap me up and tuck my head below his chin. My shoulders shook, hands trembling, voice tangled in a sob.

“My home is you,” Oren whispered, his arms tightening around me while I cried. “You think you're alone—you think that's your punishment for all of this, for being the one to save mankind from itself. You think I don't see that, but I know you, Lark Ainsley. I
know
you.”

I let out a shuddering breath. Tilting my face upward, I let the sun shine down on it, warming my skin and drying my tears. The sun's rays warmed the pendant resting in the hollow of my throat, the tiny iron bird that I wore now always on a chain around my neck. “I am whole now,” I whispered, not trusting my voice to speak aloud without breaking.

Oren grinned that quick, fierce smile, then ducked his head to kiss me hard. Though his words were confident, I could feel his fear and relief in the strength of his embrace, the quick heat of his mouth.

When he lifted his head, it was a long moment before I could speak again. I ran my scarred hands across his chest, loath to pull away, half afraid he was a figment of my broken heart. “How did you know to come find me?” I asked.

“Kris woke me.”

My mouth fell open. “K-Kris? But I told him—he promised he wouldn't—”

Oren's mouth twitched, showing briefly an expression dangerously close to a smile. “Maybe he's not quite as useless as I thought.”

I didn't know if I was furious at Kris or so grateful I could cry; I couldn't help but wish better for him. Perhaps, in leading the city, he'd find purpose again. Maybe he'd find whatever he once thought I could give him.

Oren released me except for one hand, which he kept custody of so he could press his lips to the puffy skin there. “So, what now?”

I shook my head. “I… I don't know. I want to find Eve.”

Oren's hint of a smile vanished. “Eve? She's dangerous, and she's mad. If she's alive—just leave her.”

I raised my eyebrows at Oren. “She's no more dangerous than I am anymore. And… there's just something about the shape of her mind, when I can sense her. I can't feel that burning hatred. I feel… confusion, I feel fear. But I don't feel anger.”

Oren still didn't look convinced. “Facing her nearly killed you.”

“And it nearly killed her,” I replied. “We're—we're connected. Still, somehow. I can't help Kris run the city, I can't help Basil with Lethe, I can't help my people adjust to their new lives. But before Gloriette, Eve was just a normal girl, like me. Maybe she is again, and if she is out there, there's no one to help her. I can do that.
We
can do that. Maybe… maybe she's the start of redemption.”

Oren squeezed my hand, gently, so as to avoid pulling at the barely healed skin. “Then we should go. How do we find her?”

I took a deep breath, letting the spring air fill my lungs, fill every corner of my body. Turning so that I faced the outside, I stepped forward until the tips of my feet aligned with the groove where the Wall used to be. On this side the pavement was darker, less weathered. On that side, weeds grew up through the cracks, spindly flowers opening to the morning light. A fitful eddy of wind tossed a spray of gravel from under my feet, across the line.

“This used to be the end of the world,” I whispered, closing my eyes. I could still feel the memory of the Wall, its vital crackle, the glow of magic against my skin. I hoped I would never forget the way magic felt. “Right here.”

When I opened my eyes I could see only sky, a few distant clouds scudding across a blue so pure it could be the ocean where Eve grew up. I could still feel her, lingering in my mind halfway between a memory and a dream. She might have vanished, but she wasn't gone. She was out there somewhere; and, like the tendril of a breeze touching my cheek, I could sense her mind against mine.

A flock of birds, startled by something unseen, erupted from the ruins a block beyond the edge of the shattered Wall. Calling to each other, they swooped overhead, ducking down through the alley and then up again into the light. I remembered how Nix used to play with the birds in the Iron Wood's orchard, shifting shape in midair to confound and challenge them. There was such joy in their flight, as the unfolding spring and the promise of sweet sea air beckoned them north to the homes they used to have.

I smiled. “Maybe we'll follow the birds.”

I'm standing by the sea, my feet swallowed by the sand. There is a storm coming, but not for a little while. For now the wind on my face is cold and lively, waking me. The salt from the spray burns my eyes, and I blink away the tears forming there. The water is cold, numbing my feet and promising a quick, painless end.

When I close my eyes, I'm standing at the edge of a cliff, daring myself to take that last step. The impulse starts in the base of my feet, deep in the sand, tingling like feeling returning after the cold. It burns up my legs and makes my thighs tremble, surging into my lungs and making the air feel like knives between my ribs. My heart sings, my hands clench and release. My chin lifts, and the wind grabs at my hair, whipping it like strands of ice around my face.

Not today,
I realize as the impulse fades, returning me to the ground, connecting me once more with the sand beneath my feet.
And probably not tomorrow, either.

It's the choice that leaves me breathless.

I turn away from the waves, heading for the twin quaking aspens at the edge of the rocks to the south. The ruined house up just beyond the dunes stands dark and empty, and full of ghosts. I slept there once and had such dreams… dreams of another life, of a wood of iron and a city of shadows, of a sister lost and love shattered. I choose not to sleep there. Instead I rest under the aspen trees, and listen to the leaves whisper things, and think that sometimes I can almost understand.

But then I stop. I am not alone.

There's someone there, standing under my trees, watching me. I move closer, leaving thin, cautious prints in the sand behind me. When I'm close enough to see her face, she smiles.

“I know you,” I whisper.

“Hello, Eve.” She tucks her hair behind her ear, and I see healed-over burns scarring the backs of her hands. “I'm glad I found you.”

The aspens overhead stir in the wind of the oncoming storm, a ripple that starts over the girl's head and sweeps through the rest of its branches. “Come sit with me, sister.” There's time yet, before the rain.

I've tried and failed several times to write the acknowledgments for this book. Despite the solitary nature of writing, the creation of a book is anything but solitary, and there are at least a hundred people I need to thank for making these books, this trilogy, a reality.

My agents, Josh and Tracey, my editor, Andrew, the entire team at Carolrhoda Lab and Lerner Publishing Group. My family: Mom, Dad, Josie, Naomi and Jerry, Harry Wolf. The booksellers at One More Page and at Malaprop's Bookstore. The bloggers and librarians who've been with me from before the beginning. The friends who welcome me back for board games and dark ‘n' stormies no matter how long I vanish into the book cave. My fellow authors, for their support and wisdom, especially the girls at the CL: Megan, Alexa, Beth, and particularly Stephanie, without whom I'm not sure I would've gotten through the shadows. And, of course, Amie, soul mate and general nuisance, always making sure I've done my words and that I haven't given up.

I was on my way back from a book festival the other day and I finally realized why these acknowledgments were such a struggle for me: I wasn't thanking who I really wanted to thank. Though
Skylark
certainly wasn't written in a vacuum, it was written privately; and to a certain extent,
Shadowlark
was as well. But by the time I got to the third book in this trilogy, I wasn't writing it just for me anymore, or even for me and my publisher. I was writing it for you.

You, who stays up late at night, reading by flashlight. You, who write to me after you finish each book. You, who I've never met, and perhaps never will meet, but for a few shared moments spent in this book. It's your enthusiasm for this story and these characters that has kept me going and pushed me to finish this trilogy. I couldn't have done it without you. And I mean that from the bottom of my heart.

So thank you.

Meagan Spooner grew up reading and writing every spare moment of the day. She graduated from Hamilton College in New York with a degree in playwriting and spent several years living in Australia. She's traveled with her family all over the world to places like Egypt, South Africa, the Arctic, Greece, Antarctica, and the Galapagos, and there's a bit of every journey in the stories she writes. She currently lives and writes in Northern Virginia, but the siren call of travel is hard to resist, and there's no telling how long she'll stay there.

In addition to writing the Skylark trilogy, Meagan is the coauthor of
These Broken Stars
with Amie Kaufman. You can visit Meagan online at
www.meaganspooner.com
.