CHAPTER 8
WHY SIR PICKED Cordell as our meet-up spot is still a mystery. Granted, it is the closest able-bodied kingdom to our former camp. But I remember the rants Sir’s gone on about Cordell. King Noam’s a coward, hiding behind his wealth, hoarding his conduit’s power like all the other Rhythms, and on and on.
So when we aim our course northeast the next day, I have to ask. Even though I’ve already done so half a dozen times and gotten no response. But Sir and I did have a rather anger-free interlude, and he called me a soldier, so that has to be worth something.
“Why are we going to a Rhythm for help?”
Sir glances at me, his face half amused, half annoyed.
“Persistence can get you killed.”
“When sparked by torture, it can also get answers.”
Sir snorts. “Rhythm or not, Cordell is closest. And we’re in a hurry now.”
And also desperate, if Sir expects us to get help in Cordell. Nothing is ever that simple, and if I can guess the reason for Sir’s decision, something is definitely wrong.
“What’s our next move?”
Sir focuses on the horizon, the endless cream-colored waves of prairie grass and the beating sun. “Rally support,” he whispers. “Get an army. Free Winter.”
He says it like it should be easy. Just what we’ve been working toward for sixteen years.
And now, because we have half of Hannah’s conduit, it’s finally within reach. My whole life has been focused on getting the first locket half—I never really saw or questioned beyond that.
“Wait—we don’t have a whole conduit yet. Why would Noam agree to help us? And where is the other locket half, anyway?”
Sir glances at me but keeps his lips in a thin line. “It’s a risk we have to take, because of the location of the other half.” His voice is flat, and I can tell there’s something he’s not saying, but he presses on to my other question. “If you wanted to make a thing hidden, safe from the world, so you always knew where it was, where would you keep it?”
“With me, I suppose—” I flash to him. “No.”
He shrugs.
“Angra has the other half with himself? On his person?”
Sir doesn’t respond, letting me piece it together. His puzzles are a little annoying.
“So Angra kept one half constantly moving around the world so we’d have a horrific time getting it back while he had the other half around his neck all along?” I shake my head. “And here I thought getting the first half was an accomplishment.”
“It is,” Sir corrects.
One corner of my mouth quirks up and I revel in those words. It is.
“Why didn’t you go with Mather?”
The question pops out before I realize I’ve been thinking it. Not that Dendera isn’t capable of fighting alongside Mather too; despite the fact that she’d rather not be a soldier, she’s our second-best close-range fighter. But Sir is still the best, and the best should be with Mather.
“We can’t be caught together.” Sir swings his pack around and tugs it open. “Both of us are too valuable to the cause.”
He hands me a strip of jerky. I look at him, waiting for more explanation, but he sticks a square of cheese in his mouth and settles back into silence just as easily as he left it.
That’s it. Not because he cares about me, not because he wants to protect me. It has nothing to do with me. It never has.
I force down the dried beef, my hand flipping the little blue stone in my pocket. The carved surface is gritty against my fingers, and I imagine rivers of strength and fearlessness flowing from it, up my arm, and into my heart. I imagine it really is a conduit, my own source of inhuman strength tucked into my palm—both a symbol of power and a reminder of Winter.
I yank my hand out of my pocket. I don’t need made-up strength. I’m strong enough on my own—me, Meira, no magic or conduit or anything.
But . . . it would be nice. For once, to not be so weak. To not look at all we’ve done and know we still have so very far to go before we can be safe.
To be powerful.
We stop to make camp when the sun sets. By that point, the heat together with my lingering self-doubts about Sir loving me have turned me into a twitchy ball of anxiety. So when he takes the first watch, I force sleep to cleanse my thoughts. Shockingly it comes easier and more quickly than any sleep I’ve had in a long time, as if the way Sir talked to me today caused some small amount of stress to lift.
I hate how important his opinion is to me.
I close my eyes, curl into a ball in the golden waves of grass, and slide into dreams like the stars slide across the black night sky.
Cottages encircle me on a cobblestone road, fences dusted with snow and ice, windows warped with frost. A thick cloud of smoke blankets the sky, chugging from the chimneys of the industrial buildings on the edge of the city.
I’m in Jannuari.
I know these streets like I know the beat of my own heart. Scenes I built out of stories and other people’s memories, stolen images and emotions. But fear paralyzes me where I stand on the cold stone road, snaking around my limbs in violent clamps and urging my pulse faster, faster, faster. I’ve seen Jannuari in my dreams for years, listened with rapt attention to stories about it. So why am I terrified?
A wave of bodies rushes into me, surging down Jannuari’s twisting streets. We’re running, desperately running, as explosions ricochet around us.
This is the night of Winter’s fall.
“No,” I breathe. We can’t run. Angra’s herding us. He’ll take us all away, imprison us—
“NO!” I scream it over and over, clawing at the people around me. But they don’t budge, don’t hear me, terror locking them behind impenetrable walls of need.
Then I’m safe.
It happens so fast—the change—that I fall back and smack into the wall of the room I’m in now. A small, cozy study, lit by a warm fire pit on the left. The earthy musk of burning coal instantly relaxes me, the smell of memories that aren’t mine. The window across from me is open to the night, letting in the occasional snowflake.
The people in the room don’t notice me. They’re too focused on a woman standing by the door, a woman who can’t be older than thirty, with flowing waves of white hair and the softest, calmest face I’ve ever seen. Like nothing, not even Angra’s cannons, can shake her.
There’s a locket around her neck. The conduit.
Hannah.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, tears spilling over her cheeks. “I can’t tell you—”
“No!” Sir flies up. Sir. And Alysson’s next to him, and Dendera behind him, and Gregg and Crystalla. Alive. They’re all here, alive—
A scream starts to rip from my throat before a hand clasps firmly over my mouth. In the dimness Sir glares at me, his own mouth pressed into a grimace behind his white stubble. The dream leaves fogginess in its wake, and I blink in confusion, my pulse settling back to a normal beat. I’ve dreamed about Jannuari before. I’ve even dreamed about Hannah before. Everyone has, I’m sure—Winter dominates every moment of our waking lives, so why not our dreams too? This is nothing to be concerned about.
But I can’t get the uneasy feeling to leave me, especially when Sir nods to my right, drawing my attention to hoofbeats.
Horses thunder across the plains, sending vibrations running up my palms as I lie flat on the ground. Sir lowers his hand from my mouth when realization shudders through me.
Spring? I mouth.
He shakes his head. “Coming from the southwest,” he whispers. “Going northeast.”