I’d never forgive them for this.
“Open this door right now!” I pounded on the cabin door, but they’d locked me in. In with my guilt, my anger, my anguish. They were supposed to be my friends. Not even Onderaan would have done this to me.
“Let me out!”
They didn’t. I wasn’t sure if they were even out there. It was too hard to hear anyone in the hall over the creaks as the boat left the dock and bobbed on the waves. For a long while, voices shouted on deck and canvas flapped in the wind.
And still, no one opened the door.
I dropped on to the bunk when my hands were too bruised to bang on the door any longer. After a minute, a soft knock rapped from the other side.
“Have you calmed down?” Danello said.
“No.”
“Will you hurt me if I come in?”
“Yes.”
A pause. “OK. We’ll be waiting out here, so tell me when you’re ready to talk.”
Never. Not after what they’d done. I grabbed a footstool and flung it at the door.
“You made me abandon my sister!”
“I know, and we’re really sorry about that. It hurts us, too.”
I threw something else. I didn’t bother to see what it was. “Not enough if you left her there.”
“If we’d thought for a minute we could have saved her, we would have stayed in Baseer with you.”
I wanted to call him a liar. Scream it at the top of my lungs, but Danello didn’t lie. Aylin did, but not to me.
I dropped on to the bunk. Why did they do this? I had to know. I needed to see their faces, look into their eyes, and ask why they left Tali behind.
“I won’t hurt you,” I said, and was almost certain I actually meant it.
Danello must have had doubts, too, because he waited a minute before opening the door. He stuck his head in, cautious and ready to jump back.
“I can come in?”
“Yes.”
He did, shutting the door behind him. Someone else locked it again.
My anger flared, but only for a heartbeat. It hurt too much to fight any more. “Aylin’s not coming in?”
“No. She’s more afraid of you than I am.” He smiled warily. “But not by much.”
“Kidnapping me was her idea?”
He nodded.
“And you agreed?”
“I knew she was right. You’d never leave unless we forced you.” He took a tentative step closer, hands clasped in front of him. “I didn’t want to lose you.”
So we lost Tali instead.
“How could you do this to me?”
He winced, glanced away, but met my gaze again. There was sadness there. “We didn’t know what else to do.”
“So you chose leaving?” I felt the urge to throw things again.
“We had to make a choice. You or Tali. We knew we couldn’t save you both, and we knew we couldn’t save Tali. We did what you would have done.”
Breath left me.
Danello nodded slowly. “It was hard, but we made a choice for someone who couldn’t. You.”
I closed my eyes, fighting back tears. It wasn’t a choice I would have made. But you did when you chose saving Aylin and Danello first.
Soft footsteps crossed the cabin. I opened my eyes.
“What if she dies?” It would be my fault.
Danello sat next to me, still wary. “She won’t. She’s tougher than you think. You taught her how to survive, just like you taught me.”
“What if it’s not enough?”
“It will be.”
I stared at him, wanting to pound my fists against him almost as badly as I wanted to curl up in his arms.
“I am so, so sorry, Nya.”
I buried my face in his neck and sobbed. He held me, stroking my hair and telling me everything was going to be OK.
But it wasn’t. It might never be OK again.
The boat pulled up to a weather-beaten dock that looked like no one had stopped there in years, but the wood was solid and reinforced if you looked closely. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to make it look old and unused.
Six wagons were waiting for us, all with drivers and armed guards. They greeted Jeatar respectfully, the rest of us politely. We had more gear and supplies than I’d have expected, and they stowed it as we found seats. I wondered how they’d known to be there until a small cage of messenger birds was unloaded. Jeatar must have told them we were coming.
He always had an escape route planned. Probably why he was still alive.
I didn’t speak on the ride in. Aylin tried to talk to me, but I just stared at the marshes, then the fields and rolling hills. Miles of them as we rode deeper inland. After an hour, we reached a stone wall with a heavy gate, and one of Jeatar’s men let us through. The wall didn’t look old at all, but strong and fortified. It stretched as far as I could see on either side of the dirt road. Jeatar’s farm must be huge if this was the boundary to it.
“Wow,” Aylin said as we approached the farm itself. “This is amazing.”
I had to agree. The farmhouse was even bigger than the villa, two storeys tall, with huge trees in a vast courtyard. Vines of flowers wrapped around a wooden fence that enclosed the main grounds. Well-tended fields spread out for miles, with silos and barns and other buildings I didn’t recognise. I’d been to the marsh farms a few times with Mama, but not enough to know much about them.
“You could fit all of Geveg into those fields,” Aylin said.
I nodded.
Men and women came out of the farmhouse to meet us and carry the supplies inside. Halima and some of the other children raced ahead, chasing butterflies through the gardens. The Underground members scanned the area as if sizing up its defensibility. I doubted they had to worry about that, though. Jeatar seemed to have more than enough guards out here.
I stepped off the wagon. I had nothing to carry, nothing I owned any more. Birds sang, cheerful and unaware.
Tali would love it here.
Jeatar pulled open double doors and stepped inside the farmhouse. The rest of us followed. A pretty, plump woman appeared from what smelled like the kitchens and walked to Jeatar’s side. Too old to be a wife, though it had never occurred to me before that Jeatar might have a wife.
“That’s the guest wing there,” he said, pointing down one wide hall on the right. Dark wood floors shone under the light from tall windows. They were all open, and a whiff of honeysuckle blew in on the breeze. “Ouea will show you to your rooms and take care of anything you need. There’s a bath area at the end of the hall, though there are only rooms for four at a time. You’ll have to take turns. Dinner will be in a few hours, but there’s food out now if anyone’s hungry.”
Folks hesitated, torn between food, a bath, and a soft bed.
“It’ll be there no matter when you’re ready.”
Some laughed and followed Ouea down the hall. Others went for the baths and the kitchen. Jeatar caught Aylin, Danello and me before we could leave.
“Your rooms are upstairs,” he said, pointing over his shoulder. “It’s safer there, more security.”
“Thank you,” I said. Danello smiled and hurried after the twins and his sister, already heading for the food. Aylin lingered, but after a moment, she left us and walked upstairs. She stopped at halfway.
“Are we sharing a room?” she asked me, voice trembling. I hadn’t spoken to her since we left – Tali, you left Tali – Baseer, but she hadn’t stopped trying.
She’d done what I couldn’t do. I hated it, but Aylin saw things I didn’t. She figured people out better than me. She often just knew the right thing to do, no matter how complicated it all seemed.
“Yes, just one room,” I said, wanting to smile but unable to. Not yet.
Aylin did it for me, her relief as bright as her smile. “OK. I’ll get a good view, too. Best on the floor, don’t you worry.” She dashed the rest of the way up, and I heard doors opening and closing.
“She knew you’d be mad, but she did it anyway,” Jeatar said, more than a touch of awe in his voice. “I’m glad she did. I don’t think anyone else could have stopped you.”
“No, probably not.” I could have convinced Danello to let me go if it had been just him. Not that he would have attempted it in the first place. Odds were he’d have tried to talk me into leaving, then stayed with me when I didn’t. I’d have gotten us both killed. “Aylin’s right more times than not.”
He nodded, still looking sad. “I wish I could have done more.”
“A helping hand is never wasted.”
He chuckled wryly. “Saint Nya, Sister of Optimism.”
Me? A Saint? Hardly.
The wind blew the curtain, sending a sunbeam across his eyes. He squinted, annoyance wrinkling his face. For a heartbeat he looked like the Duke. He even had the same eyes.
Siekte’s voice echoed in my mind. Who cares about legitimate heirs? There’s no one from that side of the family left.
And Jeatar’s quiet whisper. Three. There were three brothers.
Maybe I wasn’t the only one with a Baseeri uncle.
“You’re—” I bit my tongue, silenced my question. It was crazy to even think it. Crazier than the idea of me being a Saint.
“I’m what?”
“You’re wealthier than I thought,” I said instead. “This farm. The villa.” That was a guess, but he’d called it his house, and even though Onderaan had appeared to be in charge, he’d deferred to Jeatar, protected him, defended him.
They defied the Duke, forced his hand. All they had to do was turn over—
Turn over what? Or more likely, who? Jeatar’s father? Jeatar had barely escaped Sorille when the Duke burned it. The Duke went after Sorille because his rival was there.
Jeatar had money, power even, though he was obviously hiding it. He cared about what happened to people and tried to make their lives better, when he clearly could hide on this farm forever and ignore it all. But he didn’t. He fought for something he believed in, no matter what the cost.
What if that cost is Tali?
I wouldn’t let that happen. Onderaan was connected to Jeatar, Grandpapa was connected to Sorille. My family was connected to his family, and though I didn’t know how, I knew why. We all wanted to stop the Duke. We were all willing to make sacrifices to do it.
“It’s family money,” he said, and the sadness was back again. “Not much left.”
“Oh.” Because he spent it to stop the Duke? Helped fund the Underground, kept them fed and armed and safe as possible?
“Come on, let’s get you fed,” he said. “I know you’re hungry.”
“I always am.” I followed him into the kitchen, sunny and bright like the rest of the farm.
My brain whirled. No, it had to be a coincidence, a trick of the light. If Jeatar was the legitimate heir, Onderaan would have known. He would have told people, used Jeatar to rally both the Underground and those who secretly opposed the Duke. He would have presented him to the High Court and exposed the Duke’s crimes.
Unless Onderaan didn’t know.
Jeatar might be hiding from all of us. Trying to do in secret what the rest of his family couldn’t – stop the Duke, restore independence to the Three Territories, and end the wars. Hiding was smart since the Duke would certainly kill him if he discovered he was still alive.
But hiding wasn’t going to work. The Duke wasn’t going to stop, and if by a Saint’s luck he had died in the flash, the wrong people would try for the throne and nothing would change but the owner of the boot against our necks.
None of us would be safe. Not me, not Tali. No one.
Jeatar handed me a plate of sliced fruit. “You have that look again,” he said as if that worried him.
Maybe it should. “I was just thinking.”
He nodded, compassion in his eyes. “We’ll go back and find Tali when it’s safe, I promise.”
“I know. I was thinking about something else.”
His eyebrows rose. “Really?”
I nodded. “Really.”
Like a future when we wouldn’t have to hide, when we could march right into Baseer, into the camps and free Tali and every Taker the Duke ever kidnapped. When the Undying would be disbanded, and no one would ever experiment on Takers again. When the people of Geveg and Verlatta and even Baseer could work and play and live in safety.
A future with Jeatar on the throne.