Sometimes the landlocked city was so hot that the air dragged through Finn's lungs with each breath and even though they were miles from water, it made him feel like he was drowning. Tonight was one of those nights, and the cloying stink of smoke from the pyres made it worse. He loosened his shirt at the neck, breathing more deeply, trying to push down the fear rising within him as he led the Mapwalkers deeper into the city.
Twisted metal lay in piles against sandbags covered in dust from destroyed buildings, the faint smell of buried corpses beneath. Trees grew in the rubble at the side of cracked roads, their leaves mottled black with disease but Finn heard the coo of a pigeon as they passed, evidence of life in the ruins. Soft voices came from one of the skeletal buildings behind it, scarred by the bombing he had only heard about. There were no guns in the Borderlands, although his father and his men spoke of them often, their voices lowered in remembrance of what they had lost during the wars that had devastated their native lands. Finn had been born here, a child of the Borderlands, so it was hard to know what was truth and what was myth in the stories they told.
He led the group into the ruins of the souk, the old market where a maze of market stalls had once stood. They followed him, footsteps echoing under the medieval stone roofs. He turned briefly to check on them, his eyes darting to the willowy young woman with titian hair. She was new, he sensed it in her curiosity, the way she couldn't stop looking around her even as she stumbled over loose bricks on the ground. There was an innocence about her, and Finn wondered what the city looked like through her eyes. She turned and looked at him. He felt a jolt inside, as if she saw right to his heart.
Finn walked on, but not before he realized that his father would want this young woman for himself. Her fragile Celtic beauty made her a prize, and he could trade her for sorely needed provisions. Together with the rest of the Mapwalkers, this group was worth a great deal, both to his father and to the Shadow Cartographers.
A worthy trade for his sister.
The young woman caught up to him, walking faster by his side. "I'm Sienna," she said, softly. "Can I ask what this place used to be?"
"The markets," Finn said, his voice gruff. "Spices, meat, vegetables, fruit. But now …" He shrugged. "We do what we can. In the daytime, people sell what they have grown and one day perhaps this place will be fully alive again."
Sienna smiled. "I hope so. I've been to the markets in Jerusalem – stalls piled high with peaches and pomegranates, the sweet smell of oranges in the air mingling with the yeast of freshly baked bread. Shoppers haggling for the best price and market traders calling out their best prices."
Finn smiled as her words brought back memories of happier times. "There are markets like those in the outer villages where they grow produce on the hills, even though the soil is poor. I go there to trade and bring back what I can."
"Can people who come over the border bring things with them?"
Finn frowned as he looked over at her. "You don't know?"
Mila caught up and took Sienna's arm, shooting her a warning look. "Sorry, she's new on our team. I haven't fully briefed her yet."
Finn raised an eyebrow. Mila blushed, and the two dropped back to walk behind him, voices low. It was the first time he'd met a Mapwalker who hadn't been superior in both attitude and knowledge, someone with a real hunger to learn about this land.
His land.
Perhaps she would answer his questions about what life was like on Earth-side, a way to verify some of his father's more outlandish claims and what he had read in books. Because books did cross the border intact, unlike anything mechanical. Ancient magic kept out any technology created after the border was put in place, but books had become a form of currency, smuggled, traded, an addiction Finn had discovered early, even though the Shadow Cartographers banned them. He led the Mapwalkers on, weaving his way around the ruins, becoming lost in his own thoughts as he traversed the familiar path.
For all his father's faults, the warlord had always encouraged Finn and his other children to read. He even kept some of the forbidden books in his citadel at the heart of Old Aleppo, seized in raids or smuggled in across the border. The smugglers knew to stop at the citadel first, or their goods would likely be seized anyway. Kosai liked fine clothes and sold much of it on at a profit but always kept the best for himself. Some would be given to his family, the women he favored at the time, and of course, to his children.
His library contained works banned and banished on Earth-side, appearing in smoldering piles where they had been burned, popping through the border as their existence was denied. There were often intact volumes under the ash, their pages still readable.
But books also brought darker knowledge. His father's favorite was Suetonius' Lives of the Caesars, and descriptions of things done to those who crossed the Emperor now found their way into Kosai's court. His father drew his sense of justice from the examples of tyrants, determined to paint himself as a demigod, as the Roman Emperors had once done.
Kosai's faith had become stronger over time, and it had shown itself in the rule of fear. For those who doubt do not slaughter in the way that true believers do. Only those who believe in an absolute idea will kill in the name of it. It had been the Shadow Cartographers who showed Kosai the way of Moloch, resurrecting the ancient god so they could benefit from the fear he evoked.
There had been a time when Finn adored his father, when they had gone on father-son hunting trips into the forests at the edge of the Borderland towards the Uncharted to find the giant boars roaming there. As a six-year-old, his father had taught him to use a knife for the first time. Finn remembered the weight of it in his hand, a bigger knife than he could handle, but his father said heavy blades would help him learn faster. Finn put his hand down, touching the pommel of his sword in a reflexive movement. Those early years had been hard, but his father had taught him well.
Finn's mother had fallen through, brought here in a slave band and favored by the warlord for a time. She had died of an infection after the birth of another child and he scarcely remembered her face, although his skin color mirrored hers, rather than his father's Middle Eastern heritage.
Growing up, Finn hadn't paid much attention to his siblings, leading his own pack of young warlord princes. Together, they raided the outer towns, patrolling the edge of the border, waiting for new people to be pushed through, then enslaving them, selling them on. His father claimed these new arrivals were not real people, that they didn't have any rights here. They had been pushed out from their home, and thus were ripe to be exploited.
Isabel had been born when Finn was twelve, and he had never seen anyone so precious. He remembered holding her in his arms and promising he would never let anything happen to his little sister. Her blonde hair and fair skin were so different to his own, but the shape of their noses, the way they used their hands when they talked, and their love for books, bonded them.
Finn would read to her in the library, smuggling pocketfuls of dried dates in, so they could both nibble on the sweetness as they read passages aloud. He had taught her to read early on and he had taught her to use a knife as well. His father didn't believe in teaching the girls, but Finn couldn't see why his sister shouldn't be able to protect herself. As she had reached her teens, he'd seen the way men looked at her. And how Kosai had looked at her too.
Then one day, they came for her.
Finn lashed out, fighting away the guards until five of them held him down. Her screams echoed as they bundled her into the back of a wagon and took her away to the castle of the Shadow Cartographers.
The Resistance had come to Finn that night, as he walked through the streets of Old Aleppo down to the ancient library where he and Isabel had always found a haven. He paced in the darkness, thumping his fists against each other, unable to contain his anger. He decided to go after her, to track the wagon at first light, then bring her back or set her free.
He had heard what happened at the castle. There were women who had come back, their eyes hollow, their bodies broken from birthing children who might have some usable magic, the Halbrasse, the half-breeds.
Back then, a woman had stepped from the shadows. "I know what happened to your sister, but you can't stop them now. You will only die in your quest. There will only be more women taken, more children sacrificed. But if you stay, you have a chance to change things. Your father trusts you. You can be the eyes and ears of the Resistance inside his camp. If you hear of a raid, we can get there before you. If you hear of who will be targeted for sacrifice, we can spirit them away. And in time, we will help you save your sister."
"I need to know when," Finn said. "I can't leave her there, knowing what will happen to her every day."
The woman put a hand on his arm. "She is strong, as I was. I have told her how to end the life that might grow inside. There are pits outside the castle walls for the bodies of the children. The unborn or those who made it into the world briefly, those too mutated or too broken to live. Secrets written out of even this history. I knelt at the pit when I left that stinking place, I cried for the life I lost, but it gave me a purpose. And if you join us, we can end the Halbrasse for good." She met his eyes.
"The Resistance is working with Mapwalkers on Earth-side. There are those who want to make peace across our borders, those who want to release the hold of the Shadow Cartographers. They want to help us build the Borderlands into a place where life is worth living. We just need to throw off the yoke of oppression."
Her words echoed inside Finn's heart. This was a quest worth joining, a cause worth championing. He couldn't be part of his father's bloody campaign any longer.
He nodded. "Tell me what you want me to do."
As Finn strode through the rubble of Old Aleppo, the team of Mapwalkers behind him, he remembered that night and the promise he would now fulfill. He was part of the Resistance, but he was going to get his sister, whatever it took.