“We’re lost.” I balanced on one foot while dislodging pine needles from my shoe, my mood as prickly as my toes.

Brantley brushed tousled bangs out of his eyes. All the scuffs on his leather vest and smudges on his tunic and trousers blended into a dappled camouflage that matched our surroundings. In every direction, mottled green underbrush battled for space with spicy pines and tangled willow. “We’re not lost.” He set his jaw to emphasize his declaration. With food scarce, a new leanness enhanced the strong lines of his face. He looked trail worn, but it suited him.

He bounded over a fallen tree and reached back to help me. I scrambled up and he grabbed my waist to lower me to the ground. Inches away from him, my skin warmed with awareness.

I pulled away and dusted off my hands. “Do you know where we are?” I squinted into the distance through the crowded branches.

“No.”

“Then we’re lost.”

He growled. “Not knowing where you are is not the same thing as being lost, if you know how to get to where you’re going. And I know how to get to the rim from anywhere.”

I arched a skeptical brow his direction. “We’ve been wandering in circles.”

“I’m looking for a stream. Once we find one, we follow it seaward. Everything eventually flows to the rim.”

The opposite of all I’d been taught. Everything flowed toward the Order. Not rivers, but everything important, all the hopes and highest aspirations of our world. Everyone desired to move inland, to serve the Order. And here I was heading as far from the center ground as possible.

I sank onto a rock, stretching my legs. “How can I help?”

At my weary question, he turned a frown my direction. “That depends. Are you able to keep walking? You’re looking even scrawnier than you used to.”

“Thanks,” I said dryly. “And yes, I can keep walking, but we’ll need food soon.”

Brantley rummaged in his pack and pulled out some rope. He eyed a promising tree and, after a few tosses, was able to secure the rope and use it to climb. His boot skidded on one branch, and I held my breath as bits of bark rained down. After a short scramble, he found his footing, and with a few grunts propelled himself higher. Was he hoping to find fruit in the high branches? If so, he was looking in the wrong tree.

“Do you see anything?” I called.

He leaned out, grinning. “Yes!”

The triumph in his voice made me smile in spite of my hunger and exhaustion. He seemed so at home out here where things were wild and uncertain. He climbed down and sprang to the ground from the lowest branch. A few needles and a pinecone had caught in his hair.

I reached out and picked off the pinecone, then brushed away some of the needles. My fingers caught in a snarl of his curls.

“Ow!” He grabbed my hand and untangled me. When he stepped back, he kept his grip on my fingers. I studied the familiar ridges of his knuckles, the broken nails, the scraped skin of his hands. Hands that had comforted me, provided for me, supported me. Warmth seeped through his skin into mine. He smiled crookedly, and a bemused expression followed across his brow.

He dropped my hand and stepped back, clearing his throat. “We’ll have a chance to clean up soon. I spotted a home not far from here. And we’re not near any villages, so it should be safe to meet someone and trade for supplies.”

I blinked a few times, shaking off the awkwardness. “We’ve avoided anyone since the soldiers by the outcropping. I don’t like the idea of talking to strangers now.”

Brantley coiled his rope and stuffed it into his pack. “This far out, no one will know about the soldiers’ search.”

I nodded slowly, though I was not reassured. “Which way?”

“Follow me. And let me talk first. You’re out of your element.”

A flare of resentment added energy to my steps as I followed him. I could have reminded him that I’d kept up with him just fine, and that I was now as accustomed to living in the wilds as he was. So much for that strange connection I’d felt a moment earlier. He still dismissed me as weak and useless. I’d begun to think of him as a friend. That almost proved his belief in my foolishness.

The scent of wood smoke gave the first hint that we neared a habitation. We slowed our steps, and Brantley crouched behind a bush, beckoning me to join him.

Nearby, buried in overgrown vines, a small home hid under the trees. More shack than cottage, it was made of supple willow branches woven together. Here in the midrim, the movement of the ground was more evident than in Middlemost, and buildings clearly needed to be flexible. As if in affirmation, a wave rolled under us, and the cottage rippled with only a slight moan of protest. The surrounding garden was even more chaotic than untamed nature—if that were possible. Bits of herbs and vegetables struggled against weeds and nettles. Uneven paths wound drunkenly through the plots. If not for the smoke rising from a crumbling chimney, I wouldn’t believe anyone had lived here in ages.

“As a landkeeper,” I whispered, “it must break your heart to see a garden so untended.”

Brantley rubbed his jaw, drawing a rasping sound. “I’m not actually a landkeeper.”

I rolled my eyes. “You lied? There’s a surprise.”

He grinned. “Hey, I managed not to kill any plants while I worked at the Order garden.”

I sized him up. Soldier? Builder? Smith? I knew nothing about him. He could even have a wife and children. A tiny pang pierced my chest. “So what do you do when you aren’t sneaking and skulking?”

He chuckled. “I don’t skulk.”

I crossed my arms, waiting.

“I’m a herder.”

I wrinkled my brow. “Who’s caring for your flock while you’re sneaking and . . . sneaking.”

His eyes twinkled. “Oh, they’re fine. Perhaps I’ll introduce you when we reach the rim.”

A glimmer of warmth tickled behind my ribs. Maybe he wouldn’t drop me at the first rim village we encountered. I wanted to ask him more about himself, tried to find words to inquire about a wife or children, but he focused on the hut again, and the moment was lost.

Brantley began to rise, but the door of the shack swung open, and he ducked. At least he had the sense to observe before entrusting our lives to a stranger.

And the woman who emerged was stranger than strange.

Matted hair stormed away from her face in all directions. Wrinkles ravaged her skin. Her clothes were a parody of dancer garb—a tattered tunic and leggings that ended in torn strips. Around her neck, a green scarf stood out among the muddy colors of her garments. She muttered to herself, then stomped a bare foot on a patch of dirt. “Why don’t you listen?” she shouted.

She waved her arms, then limped in a lopsided circle. I stared at her bizarre behavior, transfixed. She moved forward and back, then hopped sideways several times. An ugly scar marred the skin of one leg.

“What’s she doing?” Brantley whispered.

Her arms painted a circle as she turned.

“It’s a pattern . . . of sorts.” Horrible, broken bits of patterns. Nausea rose in my throat. The poor creature had once trained as a dancer.

She stopped her rotation facing away from us, grabbed her head, and shook it side to side. An unearthly shriek rose from her throat, full of confusion, longing, and despair.

Beside me, Brantley sank lower. “I don’t like this.”

“I agree. Let’s keep moving.”

The woman sank to her knees, placing her palms against the dirt. “I tried to tell them, but they wouldn’t hear.” She pulled her hands away as if the ground burned her, and gripped her head again. “No, no, no, no, no. Don’t say anymore.”

I pressed a hand to my throat. She’d heard the voice, just as I had. Was she hearing it now? Perhaps she was one of the dancers that the High Saltar sent into the center ground again and again, only to have her senses overwhelmed. If not for Brantley helping me, this could have been my fate. The poor woman.

I rose to my feet. Brantley glided into the cover of the trees, but I couldn’t follow. Instead I took a step toward the woman.

Brantley returned, grabbed my arm, and hissed. “Where are you going?”

“She’s wearing a scarf of truce. She won’t hurt me.”

The woman was moving again, a few steps of lenka pattern, and then awkward jumps as she attempted star rain. Without pause she shifted to other steps that made no sense together. Bits of subsun rise with night breeze. She made clicking sounds against her teeth, keeping a semblance of rhythm.

I wrenched away from Brantley and entered the clearing. Now I recognized the middle of furrow pattern. When her steps turned in my direction, the woman’s jaw sagged open. She blinked several times, as if assuming I was an apparition.

I eased into the movements from where she’d left off, blessing her ramshackle garden with steps that beckoned rain and growth. She resumed her clicking sounds and joined me. As we finished the pattern, she gave a deep, happy sigh.

Then she glanced at my feet. “No!” she shouted. “You dance with your feet covered? How dare you?”

As if she were my saltar, I stood before her with my gaze lowered. “I heard the voice of the earth in the center ground and was overcome. I dare not touch the bare earth again.”

She giggled. “The voice. The voice. Oh, yes. Ginerva tried to warn me.”

“You knew Ginerva?”

“We all knew her. She wasn’t my attendant, but when she saw what was happening she tried to help. Too late. Too late.” She chortled.

Her laughter seemed to teeter on a thin edge of rationality, and I feared if I said the wrong things, she would spin into incoherence again. “My companion and I have traveled a long way, and we wondered if we could trade for some food.”

She tilted her head and stared at me for a long moment. Then she took a step closer and touched my face, my tunic, the hair that had pulled free of my braid, as if assuring herself I was real.

“From the Order? You came to bring me back?” Her voice turned childlike and wheedling.

“No. I’m sorry. I’m only passing through. Can you help us?”

She squinted, then poked me. “Us? How many are you?”

I signaled Brantley to advance, and he walked slowly toward us, arms outstretched as if seeking to calm an untamed pony.

She lurched backward. “Invasion!”

“No,” I soothed. “A friend. See?” I took Brantley’s hand, wishing I could make him look less alarming.

The woman limped at a run to her shack and emerged with a shovel, which she waved wildly from side to side. “Send him away.”

“I’m not leaving you with her,” Brantley told me in an undertone. “She’s dangerous.”

I squeezed his hand and released it. “I need to speak with her. Please. Go to the edge of the woods. I’ll call if I need help.”

“Are you mad?” His brow lowered, and his expression promised a lecture from him later about taking unnecessary risks.

“Please. You’re upsetting her.”

He rubbed the nape of his neck, then shook his head and strode back to the woods, muttering. A small smile tugged my lips. He truly had become protective, and if I were honest, I might admit his concern felt. . . reassuring.

The woman poked her shovel toward Brantley’s retreating figure a few times, then lowered it.

“What’s your name?” I asked her.

“Dancer Subsun.” Her chest straightened and spine lengthened in spite of her injured leg.

“It’s an honor to meet you. I’m . . . I was . . . call me Calara.”

She sniffed and tossed aside her shovel, leaning her weight on her good leg. “A castoff?”

Close enough. I nodded. “It’s hard to make a new life after the Order.”

She jabbed my chest with a gnarled finger. “The voice, the voice. It’s too big to fit inside us, isn’t it?”

My eyes widened. “Like the whole world is speaking.”

She rubbed her temples. “Not the world. The Maker. You heard Him.”

Even after so much effort by the Order, it seemed the myth wouldn’t fade. Nolana, Ginerva, and now Dancer Subsun, all spoke of a Maker as if his existence were a forgone conclusion.

“I heard something,” I said cautiously.

“It’s Him! And oh, how I long to hear again. Please can’t you take me back to the center ground? He told me something . . .” One finger twirled a gray strand of hair, and she looked upward as if trying to draw a memory from the sky. Then she gasped and grabbed my upper arms. “The letter! That’s what He said.”

Her sudden change of subject lost me. “A letter?”

“Find the letter. He told me that once.” Her face lit with eagerness. “My legs can’t take me far, but you can still walk. You have to find the Maker’s letter . . . or was it a book?”

The only books I knew were stored in the saltars’ offices, and they certainly didn’t speak of a Maker. “I wouldn’t know where to look.”

“No, no, no! You have to try.” Urgency burned in her eyes, then her spine hunched and she winced as if in pain. “Why won’t you understand?”

“I’m only trying to reach a place where I’ll be safe.” A difficult enough task.

She cackled. “Too late. You heard the voice. Nowhere is safe. Now you must seek the Maker.” For a fleeting moment, sanity cleared her troubled eyes. Her grip on me gentled. “Find the truth. He told me it’s there. Someone has to find it.”

Her plea held echoes of the sorrow I’d felt in the center ground. A world lost, a Maker forgotten, and a deep longing for restoration. I couldn’t make sense of it.

“I can ask about a letter as we travel, but what do I do if I find it?”

“You’ll know.” Madness blew across her eyes as quickly as it had left. “Promise me. Promise you’ll find the letter. Seek the Maker.” She shook me, words clawing over each other.

Brantley was right. She was deranged and dangerous. I couldn’t help her, and we certainly couldn’t get aid from her either.

“Of course. I’ll look.” I pried her fingers from my arms and patted her hands. “I’ll go now. If any soldiers come through here searching, please don’t tell them about us.”

I eased back a few steps.

A canny gleam lit her crooked smile. “Too late, too late. Soldiers have already been this way. Someone is angry.” Her laughter rose to a hysterical pitch, then broke off into a moan as she grabbed her head. Limping, she headed into her shack.

I slipped away while I had the chance, shaken more than I wanted to admit by her confusing warnings and the news that soldiers could be near.

After joining Brantley at the edge of the clearing, I told him about the conversation.

“Seek the Maker?” he scoffed. “That’s helpful advice.”

“Your niece told me she talks to the Maker.”

“Younglings talk to imaginary friends. Doesn’t make them real.”

“I wonder. The voice I heard . . . could it be . . . Someone instead of something? The Order taught the Maker is a lie and myth, but I can’t trust the Order.”

“I agree you can’t trust the Order, but that doesn’t mean you should start chasing myths.”

“But what if—”

“We need to keep moving.” He hitched up his pack, ducked under a branch, and set a new course straight into the thickest underbrush.

Just as well. I didn’t want to argue with him, especially since I didn’t know what to believe anymore.

“I’m hoping,” he tossed over his shoulder, “what she told you about soldiers was a delusion. But we still better avoid any more settlements until we reach the rim.”

I followed, my stomach knotted with hunger and my legs weary from our relentless pace. At least those were experiences that my time in the Order had taught me to endure. However, there were new problems I had no training to address: my questions about the voice, the Maker, and the letter that Dancer Subsun seemed to think would give me answers. Brantley might dismiss it all as nonsense, but I resolved that if we found people we could trust, I would ask my questions with or without his help. Release my world! the voice had told me in the center ground. A deep yearning built in me. I had to understand what I’d heard and find a way to dance on bare earth again without fear.