The Defiance (Brilliant Darkness) (11 page)

I take Peree's hand in a chaste handshake. "Compromise?"

"I'm listening," he says.

"We'll go. But we need a few days to get organized. To collect the food and supplies we need? We'll tell a few people we're leaving—a
few
, Eland—and find out who might want to go. I'll bet it'll be more than you think."

"And what if the Three find out?" Eland asks.

"Or the Covey," Peree adds.

"That's a risk we'll have to take."

I know what Aloe said, but I can't believe Fox would allow Eland or me to be harmed. It doesn't fit with what I know to be true about him: that he's a good man who treated us well all our lives. Maybe I’m naïve to still believe that.

"I doubt they'll be happy about it if they find out, but what can they do to stop us, if enough people really want to go?" I ask.

"Seriously, Fenn,” Peree says, concern strong in his voice. “You both need to be careful."

He doesn't need to remind me of that. I know I may be making a huge mistake. But I have a dream of delivering on my promise of a peaceful home for our people to share, and I've fought too hard to give up on it now.

The trees exhale as I crouch in the forest after the rain. Their moist, scented breath covers my skin like an herbal poultice. I'm gathering dry kindling for the bonfire later. It's not an easy job after so much rain. We might have had enough firewood stored up if the Lofties had allowed us to cut down more trees.

Calli's nearby, chattering about spending the afternoon with Cricket and his family. Calli and Cricket still have both their parents. It's unusual among Groundlings. Lofties, too, from what Peree has told me. Between the sick ones, accidents, illness, and occasional violence, the forest has never been an easy place to live.

The Lofties are on the move above us. I hear their footsteps and the sounds of sawing on the walkways. It's too muffled to make out much else.

I wonder what Peree's doing now. He managed to get back into the trees without being spotted by the guards, although Eland said it was close. Peree's distinctive honeysuckle taste lingers on my lips from when he kissed me goodbye. I hate that he had to go.

I stand up and stretch, then balance on one foot, gently rotating the ankle I sprained when Moray pushed me into the pit. My body feels closer to normal, but I still bear the aches and pains of our search for the Waters.

"Fenn. You're not listening," Calli says.

"Sorry, what were you saying?"

"I asked if you'd met up with Peree since the fires. I know he's not supposed to come down now," her voice turns teasing, "but I didn't think that would stop you two for long."

I hesitate. Is Calli asking as my best friend? Or as an informant for her father and the Three?

"No, I haven’t." My voice is even. I need to lie convincingly.

"Can't be too bad. You're still wearing his bird thingy around your neck."

I touch my necklace, recalling the feeling of Peree's hand covering it in farewell. "I hate this. I miss being with him, Calli." I might have to lie about other things, but I can tell her the truth about my feelings.

"Why?"

My laugh is incredulous. "What do you mean, why? I
love
him."

"No, I mean what is it about him that you miss?" She sounds serious now. "I told you I'm trying to understand your choice, but it's . . . hard. How is being with him better than it would have been if you'd chosen Bear? You still could, you know. He would partner with you in a heartbeat."

I lean against a tree, and Calli moves closer. Water drips from the branches in a staccato rhythm around us; I'm almost as wet as I would be if it actually was raining.

The
anuna
sing when it rains in Koolkuna, offering thanks for the life-giving water. All
our
water seems to give us is blindness. It's like the story Peree told me about the sighted man who wanders into the valley of the blind. It's our story, only in reverse. Everyone here might be able to see, except me, but they can't seem to understand anything outside the realm of their own experience. At least Calli is trying to understand.

"I love Bear as a friend," I say. "I always have. But how I feel about Peree is different. Of course I think he's wonderful—thoughtful, kind, strong . . . and sort of sulky sometimes—but there's more to it than the things I love about him." I struggle to put my feelings into words without sounding supercilious.

"Choosing him represents something bigger. Something I want more than only a partner. I'm choosing a new way of life with Peree. If I partnered with Bear, it would feel like accepting the way things were before I found Koolkuna: fearing the Scourge, tolerating the Exchange, hating the Lofties without question. I can't do that now, Calli."

"You wouldn't have to go back to the way things were. Things
are
changing. I've heard Father and Mother talking. Before the fires the Confluence was already discussing getting rid of the Exchange. The Three aren't going to let things go back to the way they were, not exactly. But partnering with a Lofty . . . ." She stops, as if she might be going too far.

"Tell me, Calli. I want to know how you feel."

"It's only that . . . you partnering with a Lofty . . . it's like saying that everything they've done to us over the years, the way they looked down on us—that it doesn't matter to you." She talks fast, stumbling over her words. "It's like Peree is more important to you than us. I mean, I'm not saying that's what
I
think, but that's kind of how it looks."

Her words sting. After everything I've tried to do to help my people, they don't think they're
important
to me? I try to stay calm.

"I can't help how it looks. I have to do what I think is right and be true to my feelings. I love Peree, and I'm going to partner with him. I want our people to believe that the Lofties aren't all heartless and cruel like we've always thought—and our people aren't always blameless. I mean, look at Adder. Human life didn’t mean a whole lot to him—at least the lives of those he saw as different from him.”

“Adder was crazy. The Council is different now. Fox, Pinion, and Bream will handle this crisis with the Lofties and find a way to work with them."

I'm not so sure about that, but her confidence in her father is understandable. "Fox is a good man. I know he wants what he thinks is best for us."

"That's what I want for you, too," she says. "I worry you're making a mistake."

I go to her then and wrap my arms around her. "Peree and I are supposed to be together. If I'm sure about anything, it's that."

"I hope you're right." She turns me around and quickly whips my damp, stringy hair into a loose knot. "At least he's not hard on the eyes. Except for all that blond hair and the feathers and everything."

"That doesn't mean anything to me. Sometimes I wish he
wasn't
good looking. He attracted a little too much female attention in Koolkuna."

"You aren't the jealous type, are you?" Calli teases, turning me around again.

"I didn't think I was until I met him. Now I'm not so sure." I pick up my basket and reach for her hand. "Sit with me at the meeting?"

"Of course. We've got to stick together. Plus I'm still playing hard to get with Cricket. I already spent the afternoon with him; I can't spend all evening with him, too."

"Poor guy. He has no clue what he's in for."

She swings our hands between us as we walk back toward the clearing. "I have to keep him on his toes."

I chuckle. "At least he'll be taller then, right?"

She sighs dramatically. "If only." A moment later she stops us. I feel her bend down next to me as she lets go of my hand. "Huh."

"What is it?"

"A feather."

That's not so strange. Animals may be scarce on the forest floor, but birds flourish in the trees. They're a mainstay of the Lofties’ diet. "What kind of feather?"

"That's just it. I've never seen one like it. It's colorful . . . I mean,
really
colorful, like red and orange and green. I'd like to see the bird this came from. It probably poops rainbows." She puts it in my hand. "Give it to your Lofty. It'll look so pretty in his hair." She's joking, but for the first time I don't feel like her humor is a thin cover for her anger.

I hope our talk brought us back a little closer to the way we were. Best friends. Partners in crime.

But I don't know if it's really possible now after everything that's happened, after all of my choices and hers, and all that could still happen before I leave, maybe forever, for Koolkuna.

I watch the firelight frisk against my perpetual darkness. I asked Marj why the contrast of light and dark is the only thing I can sort of see. She speculated it's because I was sighted, for however short a time, before the Three took my vision. The perception of light was all they left. Thinking about it makes me bitter, but then I remember Nerang’s gentle reminder that being Sightless has also forced me to be strong. I need that strength now.

Bream is doing his best to make a quick meeting long, drawn out, and skull-crushingly boring. He's going on about the progress made by the Confluence. Or lack of it.

"The Council will get to the bottom of who set the fire in the cave and threatened one of our young people," Bream is saying. "Lofty aggression, while certainly having roots in our shared history of mistrust . . ." he stops to clear his voice and blow his nose, prompting a low, "Oh, for the love of—" from Calli, who’s sitting beside me, " . . . is a clear indication of their blatant disregard for our rules and mutual agreements to honor the boundaries of our respective territories. It cannot be tolerated. Of course, this is not the first time the Lofties—"

"Yes, yes, Bream," Vole says. "We know all about the Lofties and their aggression. The question is what the Council plans to do about it?" The crowd murmurs its agreement.

"And what about the fires?" someone else calls out. “Who set them?”

"These are certainly serious questions," Pinion says. " I'm assuming no one wants to admit to setting one or both of the fires?" Silence. "Then I suggest we start with a discussion of how to proceed with the Lofties. The Confluence is indeed in jeopardy. There's no use pretending otherwise. The Lofties will be at least as suspicious of us as we are of them. We don't know yet how they will respond. But do we want to continue our talks with them? What is the will of the people?"

There are sounds of confusion around me. The Three never ask what to do, they tell. This is encouraging, at least to me.

"I've said from the beginning they can't be trusted." It's Thistle, Moray's horrible, meddling mother. I want to stick my fingers in my ears to shut out her piercing voice. "And those who befriend them can't be trusted either.” I bristle, but stay silent. “This talk of negotiations and Convergences hasn't gotten us anywhere. The only thing the Lofties pay attention to is action. Words do no good with them. It's like talking to a young child. In one ear and out the other."

"Maybe they're mentally deficient," a woman jokes.

"We already knew that," Moray says. Others laugh.

"Please stay on task," Fox interrupts. "The Council has decided to try a new approach by asking for your thoughts and opinions . . . don't make us regret it." He says the last with his usual humor, getting a few more chuckles.

My first thought is to speak up and encourage cooperation with the Lofties, but I don't. I'd be dismissed as only interested in defending my intended and his people. I need to lay low, find out where this will go.

"I have every reason to hate the Lofties." It's a woman called Ivy. Her voice is normally high and breezy. Tonight it sinks under all the suffering of the last few weeks. Her partner was killed in the Reckoning, leaving her with a young daughter, Dahlia, to raise. "But isn’t this an opportunity? If we work with them, maybe their lookouts would give us more warning when the Scourge comes, or we might get permission to cut down more trees for wood. Or maybe,” she pauses, “maybe we could do away with the Exchange.”

Her words garner a smattering of claps.

"But will they even consider working with us now? What's your sense, Fox?" someone asks.

"Weren't the fires answer enough?" Thistle says sharply. "They don't want to have anything to do with us, any more than we do."

"Speak for yourself, Thistle," Vole says. "Ivy has a point. We could benefit from developing better relations with the Lofties. And what about the other goal of the Confluence, to talk about what Fennel told us about the water, what the Scourge really is, and this Kookoony place she found?"

Thistle's dismissive laughter is more of a bark. "Are we going to blindly accept what Fennel tells us? We have no proof that this magical place exists."

 “Why would Fenn lie, Thistle?” Bear sounds annoyed.

“She’s a
Lofty
lover. Bear, you of all people should know she’s capable of betrayal.”

“She didn’t betray me,” he mutters. I close my eyes, tamping down my anger and embarrassment.

Fox clears his throat. "Yes, well, perhaps the water and Koolkuna are subjects best left for another time.”

I wait for someone to press them to talk about it. From the uncomfortable shifting and muttering around me, the subject of the poisoned water and the possibility that we all might be delusional about the Scourge are even more difficult topics than how to handle the Lofties.

It reminds me of something Aloe used to say:
Better the devil you know than the devil you don't.
The Lofties and the Scourge might be devils, but at least they're familiar devils. Giving up a belief you’ve held close all your life, a belief that shapes how you live in your world, is even more frightening.

"Why not discuss it now?” I ask. I can't help it. I have to try one more time before Peree and I pick up and leave. “If we went to Koolkuna, we'd be leaving the problems with the Lofties behind." I hope Peree and Kadee will convince at least some of the Lofties to go, too, but mentioning that out now wouldn't be terribly helpful. “When I was sent to the Hidden Waters, I thought the idea was to find somewhere we could go that would be safe from the Scourge. What's stopping us from leaving, other than our fears? Why are we wasting all this time? We could already be there."