Of Dreams and Rust (18 page)

He takes my face in his hands. “To have more, you must ask. And you must be very clear. I know that is foreign for an Itanyai, but that is what I need from you.” I open my mouth, and he shakes his head. “But not now. Now we must—”

Screams and shouts drown out whatever he says next. More gunfire clatters just outside the tent. Sinan rips the tent flap open, his eyes wide.
“Icin baze murabirse!”
he yells, his voice cracking.

Melik fires back a question, but Sinan disappears, the fabric fluttering shut once more.

Melik's brows shoot up and he jumps to his feet, pulling me to mine. “He said something has come for us.”

“The army?”

“I don't know. Stay here.”

I squeeze his hand. “No. We leave together.”

His fingertips are tender on my throat as he leans down and kisses my lips, like he thinks it might be the last time. Then he peers out of the tent and tugs me behind him. People are pointing down the lane, back toward the Line. The men have clustered at the edge of the open area, their rifles aimed. They are calling back and forth to one another as Melik leads me into the crowd toward Anni, who is standing next to Sinan right behind the line of men, peering into the darkness. Melik pushes me behind him. “They said that something is circling the village.”

“A war machine?”

He looks over his shoulder at me. “Some people think that's what it is, but it hasn't fired on us. And some of them say it is too small to be a war machine.”

My breath catches as a shadow passes through the torchlight. The men freeze, their guns aimed into the night. There is a distant metal creak, and they fire at the noise.

Something lands with a thundering crunch, right in front of the crowd. The ground vibrates beneath our feet. The men stumble back, but before they get their rifles raised again, I scream, “Stop!”

Metal scrapes against metal, accompanied by the hum of circuitry. The thing is covered in a cloak of rich velvet with silver clasps, a garment for a fine gentleman, but it is dusty and the hem is frayed. Nevertheless, the cloth conceals a machine. But it's not a war machine. It's shaped like a man, and as it rises from its crouch and throws its hood back, my heart squeezes tight. His full-metal face glints with fire, and his glass eyes are glowing with piercing light.

I step forward, pushing my way through the men, who are too stunned to hold me back. “Bo?”

The metal monster's eyes wink out, becoming dead and black. His steel hands, one thicker, covering his flesh, reach up and slide half of his faceplate aside, revealing the man beneath. His brown eye focuses on me. “Hello, Wen. I've come to take you home.”

Chapter

THE MEN GIVE Melik anxious sidelong glances as they aim their rifles at Bo. At this range I don't see how bullets wouldn't penetrate his armor. Sinan is staring at Bo with his mouth hanging open. Melik turns to me, betrayal etched into his furrowed brow. “You didn't tell me he survived.”

“He is a secret I am used to keeping,” I murmur.

Something flares in his eyes. “I need to give the men an explanation, or they will shoot him out of sheer terror.”

“Tell them he will not hurt them.” I look at Bo's face as I say this.

Bo's lip curls. “Unless they come closer.” His shoulders are covered in a row of metal bumps, and each of those bumps has eight eyes—dormant, fanged spiders, ready to attack. He is wearing the frames he's been working on for the past year, and they cover both legs, his remaining arm, and his torso. They envelop him, making him wider than and nearly as tall as most of the Noor. There is sheet metal contoured over his limbs, covering the inner workings of his artificial body. His fingers are spindly, too long for his hands, with too many joints. His head is covered in a helmet, with that one side that swings open to reveal his actual face. I have no idea how many terrors he's tucked into the arms and legs and belly of this suit, but I think he could kill half this village if he wanted to.

And he looks like he wants to.

“You have traveled a long way,” I say.

He lets out a hard laugh. “So have you. Guiren is distraught, Wen. He thinks you're dead.”

I cover my mouth with my hand, my eyes stinging. “In the train?” I force out.

He nods. “But I was not willing to let it end there.”

Melik's eyes narrow. “You were in Kegu, weren't you?”

Bo tilts his head, his suit letting out an eerie hum. “I was told that's where she would be.” He looks back to me. “Your bag was found in a demolished dining car along with over a dozen dead Itanyai soldiers. Guiren was scared to hope.” He focuses his gaze on the ground. “But I was scared not to.” His joints whir as he stands straighter. “I came through the canyon.”

“And you met five Itanyai soldiers who had escaped the vicious Noor rebels, but with only nine fingers each,” says Melik as he gently nudges aside the barrel of a rifle aimed at Bo's face, then puts his hand on the back of the young man wielding it and gives him a reassuring nod.

“Correct, Red,” says Bo. “They described the girl who cared for their wounds and cut them free. They also told me of the Red One, who sliced off their fingers to save her life. They said the girl was being taken to Kegu.”

“But we were at Kegu only three days after I left the Ring,” I say. “It takes at least a week to hike the canyon.”

Bo rolls his eye. “Wen, I have warned you about underestimating me.”

“So you ran through the canyon, all the way to Kegu, in less than four days.” Melik glances at Baris, whose forehead is crinkled as he listens to a conversation in a language he doesn't understand. “And then you blew up the municipal complex. How many did you kill?”

Bo shrugs, the metal spiders on his shoulders shifting under the moonlight. “I have no idea, and I truly don't care. I needed everyone completely occupied so I could get out with Wen.” He bares his teeth at Melik. “But she was gone.”

“Are you sorry I rescued her?” Melik asks in a hard voice. “She was going to be executed at dawn.”

“She didn't need you,” Bo snarls. “She had me.”

“She doesn't need you,” says Sinan. “She has my brother.”

I put my hand on Sinan's arm. Once again he is too open, too frank, too willing to say exactly what he's thinking. “Sinan . . .”

“Wen, your father needs to see you,” says Bo, stepping forward. The Noor men raise their rifles again, and they keep glancing back at Melik, waiting for any signal. But Bo does not seem the slightest bit concerned with them. “It is time for you to come with me.”

“I'm not going to—” I begin, but Bo raises his arms, glaring at me.

“You are,” he says. “We're wasting time. The first war machines were already assembling at the eastern mouth of the canyon when I left. You cannot be here when they arrive!”

Melik's eyes meet mine. “You were right,” he whispers.

“Did you not believe me after all?”

His gaze is both fond and full of regret. “I did, but I hoped you would be wrong at the same time.”

I can certainly understand that. I was hoping I was wrong too, but now Bo has confirmed that the nightmare is reality. “How quickly can they move through the canyon?”

Bo looks down at his body. “If it took me four days, it would take them no more than two. We must go,” he says to me. “Truly, if they are not here by now, it is only a matter of time.”

“Taslar,”
Melik mutters under his breath. He grabs the shoulders of two of the young men with rifles and speaks very quickly, pointing to the gaping maw of the canyon that leads east. While he talks, several other young men cluster around him. They ask him a few questions and then jog away, along with their women, heading for their respective cottages. “They will set up a scout line all the way to the Quebian Falls. They will leave as soon as their supplies are packed. We'll have signal fires to warn of the war machines' approach.”

“It won't save you,” says Bo. “Nothing will.” He holds out his spindly metal hand to me, but even if I wanted to go with him, I would be scared to grasp it. “Come on, Wen!”

Melik moves so that his body is half in front of mine. “You want to leave with her now so that you can meet the machines in the canyon?”

“We could go high enough into the hills to avoid them,” Bo snaps.

“Even if you don't freeze, you are likely to get lost. The high passes are a maze,” Melik retorts. “Is that likely to mend her father's heart? When her body is found frozen in a crevasse?”

“If the alternative is being crushed along with a bunch of Noor, then perhaps.”

“A bunch of Noor?” Melik laughs. “Is it somehow better if she dies at your side?” My stomach tightens as I hear the bright, overfriendly tone in his voice, as I see the cold look in his eyes. His hand travels to the hilt of his knife.

I put my free hand up, trying to calm the rising storm. “Please. I can speak for myself. I—”

But Sinan steps forward, standing shoulder to shoulder with his older brother. “Wen married Melik. She is part of our family now. Her place is here with him.”

I inhale a sharp breath as Bo's face loses all of its tension. He looks as if Melik has slipped that knife between the plates of his armor. His gaze slowly traces my body, my bloodred gown, my embroidered cap, as if he is only just noticing them. “Is that true?” he asks me, his voice trembling.

“Bo, please, you and I should talk,” I sputter. “Someplace . . .”
Without all these eyes on us.
“I want you to understand.”

Melik's features flicker with raw hurt as he hears my words, but it's gone in an instant. “Yes, perhaps the two of you should talk,” he says in an even voice. He raises his arms and speaks in Noor, gesturing at Bo and at his own body, as if he is explaining that beneath the armor there is a man. Then he turns back to me. “Take all the time you need.”

“Melik—”

“No,” he says softly. “I need to meet with the village council anyway. We must find a way to prepare for what's coming.” He stalks past our wedding tent, and the people follow him, leaving me and Bo alone. Sinan jogs after the crowd but nearly stumbles over his large feet because he keeps turning back to stare at Bo.

I ache as Melik walks away from me. It feels like whatever step we took in those minutes within the tent has been erased, leaving us stumbling back in the wake of Bo's arrival. But my new husband, if that is indeed what he is, has disappeared from my view. I turn back to Bo.

“Can you imagine . . . ,” he begins, then clears his throat. “Did you think for one moment about how it might feel to me as I waited for you on First Holiday morning?”

I watch his spindly fingers twitch. “It was very hard to leave, Bo.”

“I thought . . . I thought you had chosen me. But the whole time, the entire time, you were planning to leave, weren't you? It wasn't a beginning. It was a good-bye.”

“I couldn't tell you,” I say, my voice breaking as I raise my gaze to his.

“You are the cruelest girl.” His expression is tight with pain. “Why did you let me believe you cared?”

Because I will never stop caring about him. But it is a soft feeling tangled around all the jagged edges of the metal boy who stands before me. “You must be very angry at me.”

He stares at my face. “You have no idea how deep it goes. How could you do this?”

“The same way you could come after me instead of leaving me to my well-deserved fate, Bo.” It is difficult to return his gaze because he is horrifying like this. He does not look like my Bo right now. He looks like a war machine. “Your heart is not that cold.”

“I wish it were,” he says, his voice rough. “You can't stay here, Wen. These people are going to die, and you will die with them. The outrage over the train attack energized everyone in the Ring, along with the rest of the country. If any of them were sympathetic to the rebels in the west, this atrocity has changed their minds. They will cheer as the war machines destroy these villages.”