CHAPTER 19
I SPRING TO MY feet, loading my bow with an arrow even before it’s readied in my hand. I search in all directions, but see no one. Like a fool, I’ve left myself completely exposed while whoever is trying to shoot me hides in the dark.
I don’t wait. I run to an outcropping of trees. We’re on my land now, and I know the best hiding places. But another arrow comes out of nowhere and plunks into the stump beside my head.
From behind a trunk, I squint into the night. They’re likely not Trackers—they’d have guns. Could be Magnates on a hunting party, like the one that caught me. He’d used a spear on Bian. Maybe these Magnates carry bows.
From the darkness comes a whinny and the clatter of shod hooves over rock. Dell’s spooked, and for a moment, I consider going after her. She is my only means of escape. But another arrow comes, this one skidding through the dirt on the opposite side of the tree.
I’m stuck. The only way out is up.
I loose one arrow in the general direction I think they’re hiding and jump for the lowest branch, still high above my head. I reach it on the second try, but have to swing hard to pull my legs up. A cry tears from my throat; my heels grab, but the bark breaks free and my fingers are slipping.
At the scurrying sound below, panic pumps into my veins. My attackers are in the open. I’ve got to get up now. Then I’ll be hidden in the brush, able to pick them off one by one.
But something hooks around my hip. For an excruciating second I think it’s a wire, but no burn comes. It doesn’t rip through my clothes. It’s just a rope; enough to throw off my balance. I bite down hard, and hear the strain echo from my throat. My legs fall from the branch, and I hoist them up again, arching my back with all my strength to stay as far away from the ground as possible.
A whoosh of breath. Another rope striking my back, and this time it does sting. Then a hand fisting around the slack at the back of my pants, yanking me down. I fall in a heap, the air fleeing from my lungs.
I open my eyes to a metallic arrowhead, aimed right at my face.
Breath suspended, my gaze travels down the narrow wooden shaft to the weathered knuckles holding it, to the gray beard peppered with leaf crumbles, to the long, stringy silver hair, and the faint scar, running from chin to collarbone, glowing a pale blue in the moonlight.
He drops the bow as though it is burning his hands, and stumbles backwards in silent surprise.
“Lorcan?”
His mouth is open now, and my mind fills with a sudden memory of the first night Kiran crossed the poisoned stream into the solitary yard to give me the broken knife handle. He’d wanted to talk to me, it had been so clear on his face.
One dirty hand rubs absently at his scar. I know that feeling. The knot-stuck-in-the-throat feeling. It strikes me that I haven’t seen Lorcan in years. He’s so much older now than he was the last time we traded. His skin is pulled too thin over his face. He hasn’t bathed in some time either; I can smell him ten paces away.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
He looks behind him, to my fallen tent, and suddenly I’m furious.
“Tell me!” I demand. “I know you can talk!”
His eyes widen. A long beat passes, then he touches his throat. Just one finger down that long, straight scar. My ma used to tell me he had his voicemaker taken out because it was broken. I’m not so sure that was true now.
“You promise you can’t? Don’t lie,” I say. I’ve had enough of that.
He touches his scar again and opens his mouth. Just a breath of air.
I don’t know why, but I believe him.
“Salma and the twins, are they alive?”
He nods slowly.
“Did they move on?”
Hesitation. Nod. I sigh, relieved that they are still safe.
“You’ll take me to them,” I say. “But first I need you to take me to the Driver camp.”
Lorcan’s mouth drops open. He shakes his head adamantly.
“It’s okay!” I tell him. “I know a Driver who’s sick. He needs a doctor.”
Another vigorous no. He points to the scar on his neck, his eyes wide with warning.
I stand too, now that my legs have regained their strength. “If you mean that they can’t help him because they couldn’t help you…”
He grabs my arms so hard I yelp. When he releases me, he points again to the remnants of his injury.
At first I don’t know what he’s trying to say, but slowly it dawns on me.
“There are rules,” Kiran had said. “If my people knew I’d broken them, there’d be consequences.”
“It was your people that did that to you?” I ask Lorcan.
He nods. And the stone-cold look in his eyes tells me they’ll do the same to Kiran.
“I’ll make them see. They can trust me, just like he trusts me. They wouldn’t let him die, would they?”
Lorcan says nothing, and it hits me with one cold blow: They would not save him if they knew what he had done.
The Drivers can’t help us. It’s up to me. A chill travels down my body, and I’m sickened because I know I’m not enough of a healer to save him.
I do not understand these people. They hide in the shadows and slice their own members’ throats in the name of protection. Kiran is not that way. I would trust him with my life.
Just as he is trusting me now.
“I have to go back,” I say. There is no more time to waste.
Lorcan taps his chest twice, then points to me. Looks like he’s coming, too.