These Divided Shores, page 28
He got as close to a smile as he could. Lu returned it, her face relaxing.
“You won’t keep working on permanent magic?”
The broken words came from the side of the road. Tattered uniform rolled to his elbows, Jakes held a rag in one hand, fear racing through his eyes.
Lu looked as though she might say something, but tears welled in her eyes, and she dropped her gaze to the road.
“You can’t stop!” Jakes’s expression was, remarkably, just as brittle as his voice. “Now more than ever—you have to be stronger than Elazar. His defensors took one of your vials! He’ll come again, but undefeatable now.”
“And death will come too.” Lu cut her arm around the disaster of the sanctuary. “I won’t foster more of this.”
“You could save everyone,” Jakes snapped. Vex eyed the raider Heads, Kari, Ben—would they lock Jakes up again? But Rosalia, Nate, and Pierce all held, maybe feeling their same grievances in this defensor. “You could stop Elazar. That boy his commander took at Fort Chastity? You could save him. You’re being selfish.”
Kari swung in front of Jakes, her hand lifted. “Don’t you dare presume to—”
“That boy”—Lu spoke over her mother, her glare on Jakes dark—“that boy is Bianca’s son.”
Five simple words. That boy is Bianca’s son.
Lu didn’t know why she told Jakes now. She wanted to silence him; she wanted him to realize what this war truly cost.
But each word dragged forward one of Lu’s memories and connected it with another, cobbling together a picture out of realizations, hunches, and fears.
Tom had gotten Lu’s vial of permanent magic—but he wouldn’t have known about it. Getting that vial would have been a surprise in addition to his true purpose here. Why had Tom come to the sanctuary, not gone to Port Fausta with Elazar and Milo?
Tom had brought Teo with him. To a battle.
“He wanted something out of Teo too,” Vex had said.
Tom had made defensors grab Teo in Fort Chastity. Not Vex or Ben or Edda. Teo.
Tom had intercepted Bianca and Annalisa for Elazar. Bianca, who had died of Shaking Sickness. Bianca, who had given birth to Teo while she had Shaking Sickness.
“In the Port Camden prison.” Lu looked at Gunnar, who seemed startled to have her attention on him. His wonder turned to confusion from the stunted, secret words that she had never intended to repeat for the danger in them: “Pregnant women. You said Eye of the Sun was given to pregnant women.”
Lu pressed a hand into her chest, unable to breathe.
Teo was a product of Elazar’s experiments.
Tom had known—it was why Elazar had sent Bianca and Annalisa to Grace Loray. Had Bianca already been pregnant when she arrived on this shore? Could Teo’s father be . . . Elazar?
No—Teo was too young. Wasn’t he? Lu had heard from Bianca only that Teo’s father was a soldier who had died during the revolution. But where did the lies end? Were other children of Elazar’s experiments out there? Who was Teo’s father? Worse, a question Lu could barely think, let alone ask aloud: did Teo have permanent magic?
No. Unless Elazar’s people had figured out the proper mix of magic plants and Visjorn blood, the result wouldn’t have been the same as when Mechts gave it to their people. Or Tuncian spices, Emerdian brickwork, and more—Elazar hadn’t known of those things until recently. Teo couldn’t have magic in his blood. He couldn’t.
Of all the people around Lu, Jakes was the only one connecting the same pieces. His face went utterly white. “Bianca’s child survived? Pious God—”
“Who’s Bianca?” Vex asked.
A divot punctured Kari’s brow. “Teo’s mother.”
“She was part of Elazar’s experiments,” Lu filled in, breathless.
Ben gagged. “My father experimented on Teo? No—”
“He thinks Teo has permanent magic,” Lu said. “That was why Tom brought him here, to the attack. To test him.”
It was madness. Throwing an innocent child into a battle to turn him into a weapon—
Bile seared Lu’s throat and she closed her eyes. But there lay only memories, everything Tom had trained her to do, the blood on her hands, the secrets and lies—
This was it, wasn’t it? This was what he had given her Menesia to forget. The dreamlike scene that had plagued her in the Port Camden prison, of Kari accusing Tom of destroying everything, of breaking someone’s trust—Kari and Lu had found out about his involvement with Teo, hadn’t they? That he had stolen Bianca’s and Annalisa’s memories too, and was a spy for Elazar, watching over Teo should he show any signs of magic?
Obliterate him, Lu’s rage said. Find him. End him like I ended Milo.
But that demand was an echo now, a fiery cry that burned itself out.
No more blood. No more fighting, no more war, no more.
She wanted Teo back. She wanted Argrid off her island.
She wanted peace.
“Elazar has everything now.” Jakes’s voice grated. “You can’t—you can’t do nothing. Why are you giving up?”
“I’m not giving up,” Lu told him. “I’m just refusing to fight this war on Elazar’s terms. I will not let Teo get swept into an even deadlier war. This has to end without more magic!”
“The goddamn Argridian defensor is on our side,” Pierce boomed. “Everyone wants to fight the war this way—except you.” He pointed at Lu, Kari, Ben. “That’s why we’re leaving. Let your wrongness strangle you.”
He turned, tugging Nate with him. Rosalia made to leave as well.
Kari shot a step after them. “And what is your plan, if ours is wrong?”
“The Grozdan Gloria has always supported us. If I ask, she’ll send us aid.” Rosalia turned back. She hovered a handbreadth over the ground, her Aerated Blossom powers undiminished. “I don’t care about the rest of you. Attack, don’t attack, die, live. This isn’t Grozda’s war, and if we can’t get more permanent magic out of it, there’s nothing here for us.”
“Yeah,” Nate snapped. “The people on this island hate us, anyway. They’re the ones who told Argrid how to get into the sanctuary. I ain’t gonna waste my time fighting for—”
“This city is destroyed!” Kari’s shout silenced him and the whole area. “Port Fausta is destroyed. You say this island is yours, that it belongs to raiders, yet you have no respect for it because you demand that the people respect you first, or the Council respect you first, or Argrid respect you first. You always wait for others to move first. Take control! You cannot help only the people loyal to you.”
Rosalia floated closer, intimidating. “The people on this island deserve to suffer. They deserve to know what it’s like, to be hunted and hated and treated as less than human. You bet your ass I help only those loyal to me. The Council wasn’t any different. Argrid, too.”
She included Ben with a glance. Lu stepped between them, into the stream of hatred.
“You’re right,” Kari said, her voice lower but no less intense. “The Council had flaws. But when this war ends, what kind of world do you imagine if you become the oppressor? You want to terrorize people, and ostracize them, and be the one they hate? You feel you deserve to inflict pain because pain has been inflicted on you?”
Rosalia’s shoulders rose, but her feet met the dirt road again. Lu’s brows lifted.
“The Council had flaws,” Kari repeated. “But keeping ourselves in these separate groups contributed to its flaws. When this war ends, Grace Loray cannot continue as it was before. The system that needs to be in place must be one of unity—all of you must be represented. We cannot fight this war or lead this island separately. That includes the raider syndicates as well as any who aren’t raiders, as well as any who are more Argridian than Grace Lorayan, or who worship the Pious God, or who hold to a different deity. We are either together or ruined.”
She paused. In that opening of silence, no one spoke up. No one argued. Even Jakes, fuming at the outskirts, only turned and marched up the road, hands in fists at his sides.
Lu watched him go as if watching her own rage walk away. Elazar still had her permanent magic vial as well as Teo—but a lightness filled Lu’s chest, something delicate and velvet. Something like . . . hope.
However they confronted Elazar next would be right, better, and wouldn’t leave greasy disgust on Lu’s soul.
Kari took a step back. “We have all been through an enormous horror. Think on what I have said and rest here tonight. Tomorrow morning, you make whatever decision you feel is best for your people. But I will be here, and with whoever remains, we will figure out a way to end this war and move toward a future benefiting us all.”
Kari turned—and swept Lu up in a hug.
Lu stiffened, took a breath, and settled. A moment of comfort, a brace of You are not alone. I love you.
“How are you going to get Teo back?” Vex asked from Lu’s side.
The question withered these rare gentle feelings.
Kari pulled back to brush the hair from Lu’s forehead. “Tomorrow,” she said. “We will discuss these things tomorrow. Tom knows how much Teo means to us. He will not harm him.”
“Won’t he?” Lu whispered, a single tear tumbling down her cheek.
Kari’s smile was heartbreaking. She took Lu’s head between her hands and gave her a resolute shake. “I have to believe that pieces of the man I know remain in your father. I know you don’t trust him, but trust me. We will get Teo back.”
She gave Lu a final hug and a kiss on her forehead, and left.
Lu started to follow Kari. Nayeli’d run off; Ben was talking with Gunnar up the road. Nate, Pierce, Rosalia—they were gone, too.
Vex’s chest hollowed. Where did he fit—with his cousin in Argrid; or on Grace Loray?
Or with Jakes, who had vanished from the road and taken his opinions with him?
His answer had always been with Edda and Nayeli, on the Rapid Meander, in their own little haven. That life was gone, ripped from Vex before he’d had a chance to say good-bye. It squeezed a howl from his throat, and he bowed his head to cover it.
Now that that life was dead, where should he stand?
Lu was only a pace away. Vex shot after her and draped his fingers around her wrist.
She turned—but didn’t smack him away or shout in his face. He scrambled for something innocuous to say, a joke or a flippant remark to cement this peace between them.
“Can we work on the cure again?” Vex gawked that that question had come out of his mouth. “I mean, I know there’s a lot of other stuff going on, but I just thought, maybe—”
Lu freed her hand. His heart squeezed until she lifted that hand and put it on his chest.
Vex gaped as her thumb slipped under the gap in his shirt.
The muscles in Lu’s throat constricted. “Of course. I’ll see what I can salvage.”
Vex winced. Salvage. The attack had likely destroyed most of the sanctuary’s plants.
But he nodded, struck by her hand over his heart, and how warm she felt.
“Thanks,” he said. And then, because he needed to see her smile, “Princesa.”
Lu’s gaze shot up to his. She rolled her eyes at him and smiled, a slight crook to her lips before she walked away.
Vex realized that he hadn’t trembled since she’d touched him.
25
THE RAIDER HEADS couldn’t agree on most things, but they agreed to have a vigil at midnight for everyone lost in the attack.
Most of the refugees had left by now, retreating to homes and buildings across the city, or maybe out onto the island to take their chances in another town. The rest of Port Mesi-Teab still spewed hatred whenever raiders emerged from the sanctuary, blaming the raiders for the attack and the lives lost.
Vex hated them. But he remembered that Rosalia and Nate hated them, too, and being similar to those two made him ignore his own anger.
Raiders had cleared the rubble and debris out of the sanctuary’s largest square. A pile of scraps filled the middle: pieces of canvas, blankets, torn-up sacks, all things that had covered the dead until their bodies had been moved to a boat, to be taken out for a sea burial.
Vex stood at the edge of the circle. People pressed in from the side streets; some sat on top of buildings. He spotted Rosalia across from him on the feeble-looking planks of a hut’s roof. Emerdian raiders surrounded Nate and Pierce. To Vex’s right, Kari folded her arms over her torso, orange lantern light wreathing her in flame and shadow. Lu wasn’t here—Vex had seen her slip into a hut somewhere behind him, and honestly, he’d almost not come to this, too.
Nayeli was not far from Vex, standing with a group of Tuncian raiders. He wanted to go to her. They’d lost Edda and Fatemah. They needed to—he didn’t know. Mourn together? Something. But seeing her with the Tuncian raiders . . .
Vex didn’t move. She was where she needed to be—even if it felt like he’d lost her, too.
A wash of heat came seconds ahead of Gunnar, who shouldered his way in next to Vex with Ben.
The lanterns made the cloths look like they were breathing in the undulating light.
“Your friend,” Gunnar whispered, “Edda? I am sorry you lost her. She was good-hearted.”
Vex smiled a sad smile that shot tears into his eye. “Did you meet her? She left the Mechtlands because she . . . um . . . disagreed with the whole Eye of the Sun thing.”
Gunnar gave a half smile. “Yes, I met her.”
Ben frowned down at his boots, hands in his pockets. He didn’t react to this exchange or look up at the gathered crowd. Was he praying? To whom?
They fell silent. Everyone around the square wavered in that place of grief, whispering to each other, going quiet, sniffing back tears. This vigil was a chance to mourn. Kari had said it would be cathartic. But the longer Vex stood there, his eye shifting from person to sobbing person, the more his chest filled with a crushing weight. They were just supposed to stand here, wallowing in what they’d lost? God, this was miserable—
On the roof across from him, Rosalia started to chant.
She leaned forward, hands to her chest, belting words in Grozdan that Vex could only describe as lamenting. It sounded a lot like Grozdan war cries—he’d heard enough of those from his time with her—but there was a desperate twist to her wails, and the words he caught were things about the afterlife and being heralded and glorious, glorious, over and over.
Her incantation ended, and silence reigned long enough for Vex to manage a breath.
One of Nate and Pierce’s raiders started to speak. Vex didn’t know Emerdian well enough to translate anything, but he caught the words Pious God and knew it was a prayer.
As the raider belted out words every bit as mournful as Rosalia’s, a Tuncian raider started to thump softly on an overturned crate.
Vex had heard that before—here, actually. A Tuncian funeral rite—drums to alert the gods to a soul’s departure from earth.
The crowd stood frozen, caught in the lingering wails of the Grozdan funeral chant, the continuing Emerdian prayer and Tuncian drumbeats—
Gunnar pushed ahead of Vex and Ben. He took one step outside the circle, lifted his hands, and shot a stream of fire at the pile of rags. It caught, a small smoldering flame at the very top that stayed just there, neither raging nor dying. Gunnar must have been controlling it.
Vex heard gasps of grief. The crushing weight in his chest became unbearable, and with every pounding beat from the Tuncian drummer—growing stronger now, the raider losing himself in the thudding rhythm—Vex fumbled to think. All he could see was a small, cold cell on a ship leaving Deza, and a little boy curled in the corner, the wound throbbing where his eye had been. The ship had rocked and he’d been sick in the waste bucket, but he’d whispered a song to himself. A song he’d heard at Argridian funerals over the years, a hymn he’d always hated for how it made him cry.
He didn’t like crying. He didn’t like thinking about death. But he’d sung that song in the ship’s cell, choking on the stench of bile and salt, because he knew no one would sing it for his father—and no one would sing it for him.
“Look to the depths,” Vex started under his breath now, his eye closing. “Look to the sky. Look—” He faltered. “Look to the—”
A hand slipped into his. He gripped it, grounding himself here, with Ben.
Grozda had been represented. Emerdon. Tuncay. The Mechtlands.
“Look to the Graces,” Ben picked up, “humble and high.”
The people here probably hated them for it. Vex didn’t know if the Tuncian drummer meant to drown them out. But Ben kept singing, and Vex linked his voice with his cousin’s, the two of them pushing louder, louder.
“Find me in the sun,” they sang. “Find me in the shade. This end, this triumph, this final gain—”
Edda would’ve been proud of him. To stand there, in front of the raiders of Grace Loray, and belt out an Argridian piece of his soul.
The song ended in lines about the Pious God’s mercy, his welcoming embrace, how he would make the transition to the afterlife smooth and safe. When was the last time Vex had remembered anything good about the Pious God? Elazar had warped every part of him, but the Pious God that Rodrigu had worshipped had been the one in this song—kind and compassionate.
Ben and Vex finished the hymn, and the Tuncian drummer ended, too. Silence rolled in, heavy in the rush and heave of people gasping around him.
Vex couldn’t open his eye to see how many people were glaring at him and Ben. Everyone who’d died had been killed by an Argridian defensor—how dare anyone sully their memorial with an Argridian song?
Vex squeezed Ben’s hand. “We should go,” he whispered.
Ben returned his squeeze. “I think she wants you.”
That made Vex open his eye. Ben was looking behind them, through the crowd.
Vex followed his gaze to see Lu, standing at the very back of the swaying people, her face fading in and out of the shadows.
By the time Vex got through the crowd, his whole body was trembling like a tuning fork gone to humming, but it had nothing to do with his Shaking Sickness.
