“We wait.”
Soon a crowd of Gates of Dawn soldiers circles us. My knees knock as I rise from my seat. “This is it, Edge. I’ll go out first. You stay with Hammon and protect her for as long as you can.”
“I should go first,” he retorts.
“No. You should stay and protect your baby. I know what I’m doing.” It’s a lie.
He grits his teeth and nods. With Flannigan’s bag over my shoulder, I walk out with my hands raised. Armed soldiers shout conflicting orders at me. I walk a few feet, and then stop. “I need to talk to a man, to Flannigan Star’s man. I have an important message for him.”
“Never heard of him,” a brutish soldier replies.
The crowd of warriors begins shouting: “Kill that bloody bitch!” “It’s Roselle—The Sword’s daughter!” “Take her head off!” Mud is flung at me, striking me in the face and chest. I don’t try to wipe it off.
“I need to speak to Flannigan’s man,” I insist. “I have something for him.”
The man in front of me snarls and spits in the dirt. “I have something for you!” He swings his meaty fist at me—a left hook.
I sidestep it and try again. “Flannigan Star is female—a privateer. I need to talk to the man who will ask about her. I have a message from her. An important message!”
An ugly soldier throws an uppercut. I jump back, colliding with someone else’s fist. It knocks me sideways. My ear rings. The crowd around me cheers and laughs. My instinct is to reach for my fusionblade, but I can’t. Someone will kill me before I can get away, and then they’ll kill Hammon and Edgerton. I have to take my beating.
Fists rain down on me from every angle. I stagger and vomit, wheezing and doubling over. The blows to my kidneys are excruciating. I don’t remember hitting the ground, but the sharp edge of a boot in my sternum leaves me seeing spots, and then nothing.
My head feels solid. I can’t see anything except a red light. I try to open my eyes but my eyelids won’t move. “Hey, you. Wake up!” Someone slaps my cheek.
“For your sake, don’t hit her again!” a man roars. “The next person who hits her is dead! Do you understand? If she dies, I’ll slaughter every last one of you stupid, filthy animals!”
“You weren’t delirious, Reykin,” another voice says. “Roselle St. Sismode really did save your miserable life. Look at her hand!”
“I can see it!” the first man barks.
I retch again, my body wracking with dry heaves. An arm behind my shoulder and another behind my knees pick me up. I moan. My head slumps against a solid chest. “I know it hurts,” a low voice says. “I’m not going to let them near you again. Get her bag, Danny, and take it to him. Tell him she’s with me in triage.”
I smell like blood, pee, and vomit, but mostly pee. I try to open my eyes, but something slimy covers them. I try to pull it off, but someone grasps my hand and holds it gently in his own. “Don’t touch them. The leeches will fall off on their own.” A man’s voice.
“Medieval . . . torture . . .” My voice doesn’t sound like mine.
“The leeches will take the swelling down so that you can open your eyes. Do you know where you are?”
“Stars . . .” I rasp. “Dawn.”
“That’s right—a Gates of Dawn base. Do you know who I am?”
“Flannigan’s . . . man . . .”
“No. I’m not Flannigan’s man.”
I growl in despair. “Need him.”
I feel his thumb trace the scar on my palm. “I’m a friend . . . and a friend sticketh closer than a brother, even to a black-hearted angel.”
I lick my lips. “You.”
“Me.”
“Hurts . . .”
“I know. You can sleep now.” Something sharp jabs into my arm.
I jerk awake, groaning with a half sob. I’m in a bed in a beautiful room, but I feel as if I’m lying on embers. I’ve been in pain before, but never like this. Everything aches. My eyelids feel thick and heavy. My head throbs. Focus, I tell myself.
Mahogany wainscoting lines the walls. Snowy-white curtains drape over the large windows. I see a high ceiling with decorative molding and bright chandeliers above me. Maybe this is what death is like.
My hand moves over the blankets. The bedding is masculine, but no less gorgeous for that, soft sheets like those at the Sword Palace. As I turn my head on the plump pillow, my neck muscles revolt. I wince and moan.
The man has aquamarine eyes and dark hair shaved close on the sides, but the top is longer, like Gabriel’s fashionable style. He looks to be around twenty-four or twenty-five, a year older than when I last saw him on the battlefield. “Winterstrom.”
“You know my name,” he replies in the deep voice that I sometimes hear in my dreams. I lift my right palm out to him so that he can see his crest burned into it. “Why didn’t you get it removed?” he asks.
I drop my hand, mostly because holding it up hurts so much. “I would’ve had to tell the physician how I got it. They make a point of reporting wounds like this. They would’ve researched the crest, like I did, and then Census agents would’ve been dispatched here to find you.” I look down at myself. I’m clean. Someone bathed me. I hope it wasn’t him.
“So you protected me yet again. Why?”
“I wanted to find you myself and tell you what a stupid move it was to bring your family fusionblade to a war.”
“Really?” He leans forward, forearms on his knees. His shoulder doesn’t seem to be troubling him. His right collarbone is straight under his fashionable dress shirt.
“No,” I reply. “Not really. I never thought I’d see you again.” I touch my head. It’s wrapped in a bandage, which I begin unwinding.
Winterstrom sits down on the mattress next to me. He tries to stay my hand. “What are you doing? You have a concussion.” The bandage is bloody by my temple. I probe the wound. It’s deep.
“I need you to stop fixing me! I need every single bruise and contusion your soldiers gave me. My Fate needs to see my wounds so that they don’t accuse me of being a traitor.”
“You plan to go back? You’re going to have to explain yourself.”
“My friends—the ones I came with—are they here, too?”
“Yes.”
“Are they hurt?”
“The male is. The female was untouched.”
“How bad is he?” I ask.
“Better than you,” he says grimly. “They’re safe.”
I exhale in relief. “Flannigan’s man?”
“He’s here as well. He’s waiting to speak to you.”
“I need to meet with him now. I don’t have a lot of time.” I inch toward the far side of the big bed. Every move is a struggle. The metal apparatus attached to my right arm slides a little as I straighten my elbow with a small stab of pain. I yank its needle out and scoot to the edge of the mattress.
Winterstrom rises to his feet. “You’re in no condition to move. You’re weak. You’ve been sedated for two days.”
“Two days!” I breathe hard with fear. I stand and immediately regret it. A disorienting rush of blood to my head almost knocks me to the floor. I catch myself with both my hands, and Winterstrom helps me back into the bed. I realize that the only thing I have on is an oversize shirt, and by the smell of it—a soft scent of lemongrass—it belongs to him. “How is it that they haven’t found me yet?”
“We’ve been jamming your signals since you entered our airspace—that includes your moniker. No one knows you’re here. Why did you come?” he asks. “Are you seeking asylum, like your friends?”
“I have to make a deal—with Flannigan’s man. Do you have my bag?”
“I gave it to him.”
“Did you see what was in it?”
“State-of-the-art moniker chips, thousands of them. Moncalate. Profile programmer. Worth a fortune.”
“Flannigan died for it. Was it worth her life?”
“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask him.”