Halo (Blood and Fire Series (A Young Adult Dystopian Series)) (29 page)

“Figured you’d know how to handle that,” Callum says, his eyes watching me as I spin it.

I pull my cheek to one side, half a smile. “So you aren’t of the opinion that women shouldn’t touch weaponry?” Ryka would probably have a fit if he saw me now, touching a knife in public, attitude adjustment or no. Callum doesn’t seem fazed one bit.

“James thinks women should have the right to fight if they want to. Everyone else argues that the population would suffer too greatly if women were dying all over the place.”

“What, even more than if it was a guy dying in the pits?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, one guy can get a lot of women pregnant, y’know? Women can only bear one child a year, realistically. That’s how some people look at it: hard figures.”

“And what do you think?”

“About women fighting? I don’t see how it would be a bad thing, so long as they fight other women. It wouldn’t be fair otherwise.” A short snort of laughter tells Callum what I think of that statement. His blue eyes cloud over. “I mean, it makes sense. Men are so much stronger than women. We’re supposed to be hunters. Fighters.”

“Doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference whether you’re male or female when you’ve been trained with one of these properly,” I tell him, holding up his knife. Doesn’t matter if you’ve been trained for twelve years in the art of killing. The smallest of women can bring down the most monstrous of men in the blink of an eye. I should know, after all.

I take a closer look at Callum’s work, noticing that his signature is a soft engraving into the metal of the blades. It’s pretty really, decorative, but that doesn’t mean the equipment is just for show. The edges are honed and bitingly sharp.

“I may have to buy one of these from you,” I tell him. The empty sheaths on my knife belt are irritating, and it would be nice to feel them full again. “How much for this one?”

A little pride peppers Callum’s tone. “I don’t think any of these are the right knives for you, Kit. Give me a week. I’ve been working on something I think would be perfect. And we can discuss price later.”

Gratitude floods me. Not only is Callum not trying to remove my knives from my hands, he’s actually willing to give me more. Grinning, I know I’ll pretty much pay him anything for the weapon he makes me. The quality of the blade will be excellent, but Callum’s given me something more than a knife. He’s given me respect enough to believe I could use it. Even if he somehow thinks it should only be against other women. I smirk and toss the stiletto one last time before placing it back on the folded cloth.

“Nice work, Cal.” The voice takes Callum by surprise, but honestly, I’ve kind of been expecting
him
to show up. Waiting to see his face, or maybe I’ve been hoping? I turn and Ryka’s leaning against the stall, absentmindedly prodding the tip of his index finger with his own knife. The author of his weaponry is the same as the daggers I wear on my hips: August.

“Sold much?” Ryka steps forward to take a look at what remains on the table.

“Nearly all of it,” Callum replies, another swell of pride in his voice. “All my best pieces are gone. These are just what’s left.”

“Then the others must have been amazing.” Ryka tests the same stiletto I held a minute ago. His dark eyes focus on the tilt of the knife as he weighs it in his hand. “I’ll take this one.”

Callum beams. No bells exchange hands, but Ryka and I walk away from the stall under the understanding that Ryka is now in for a twenty-five hour trade in labour with Callum. “What on earth would Callum need you to do for twenty-five hours for him?” I ask. Our shoulders bump together as we move through the jostling crowd, and the contact makes me feel slightly disorientated.

“He can ask me to help him with anything. Usually, trade and craftsmen get their buyers to take their places on their shifts out in the fields. Every man in Freetown gets allotted them, regardless of their business. If a customer works the allocated time they’re supposed to be tending to the crops, the craftsmen are free to work at their trade. It happens a lot. That’s why there are men who spend most of their time labouring, and you never see bakers or carpenters or smiths with a till in their hands.”

“Huh.” I am still yet to see these fields, a mile out past the Keep, further than I’ve dared explore outside Freetown’s limits.

“It was nice of you to buy the knife, anyway,” I tell him. It really
was
nice of him. It’s clear Max and his brother look up to Ryka, and that one sale is probably worth more to Callum than all the others combined. Ryka drags his hair back out of his eyes and gives me a look. Nervous? Does he look nervous?

“Here.” He quickly holds out the stiletto to me. “You can have it.”

For five paces I stare dumbly at the flashing silver weapon he’s offering me, not sure which is more shocking: Ryka giving me a gift, or the fact that the gift is actually a knife.

He sucks his bottom lip into his mouth and exhales through his nose. “Look, you don’t have to take it if you don’t want it. It probably doesn’t match your daggers or something. Girls worry about that, right? I can always
―
”

I snatch it out of his hands before he can even think of rescinding his offer. “You’re giving this to me?” I raise an eyebrow at him.

He scowls, but he doesn’t mean it. I can tell. “I heard you ask how much it was. I thought you wanted it.”

A strange prickle chases across my cheeks. “I did. I
do
,” I say.

“Good. Now put it away before anyone notices.”

That’s more like it; he’s not entirely on board with me arming myself while others can see. I smirk as I tuck the stiletto into my knife belt, drawing my shirt back over it to keep it from view. “You didn’t need to do that, y’know. Olivia gave me
―
well, I think I’d struggle to walk under the weight of all the bells she gave me. I probably could have afforded that without you needing to sweat it out for twenty-five hours.” A flat look passes over Ryka’s face and somehow, strangely, I know I’ve hurt him. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate the gesture. I
―
”

“It’s okay,” he says quietly. “Manual labour’s a good workout.” He clenches his jaw and we walk through the market without saying much of anything else for a while. It’s only when we reach the huge bonfire at the far end of the market that Ryka breathes out a curse and pauses.

“What is it?” I follow his gaze and struggle to pick out what could have put him on edge. The bright flames of the fire steal my ability to differentiate much in the surrounding darkness.

“There,” he points. “Olivia. And Max.”

Sure enough, Olivia’s bright blonde hair gleams like a beacon in the shadows. Max is bent close to her ear, talking hurriedly. Olivia shakes her head, one arm wrapped around her stomach, the other hanging listlessly down at her side. An uncomfortable groan clues me in to the fact that Ryka’s just as conflicted as I am right now.

“Should we go over?” he asks.

“I have no idea. I don’t think so.”

Ryka sighs. “He would have been good for her. Everyone’s thought they were going to be together since they were kids.”

“You don’t think she’ll change her mind? About going to the priestesses?”

Ryka shakes his head. “She can barely remember our parents. Liv’s always been happy enough, but there’s been this hole in her life that our mother should have filled. Until she finally figures out that our mother isn’t in that Keep, she’s going to be immoveable. They’re going to wind that red cloth around her body and then she’s going to discover she was wrong after all. But by then
―
” His voice goes stiff.

“It will be too late to leave?”

He bites his lip. Nods. “Way too late.”

We’re still watching them when Simone approaches. The girl with the cornflower blue eyes has a timid way about her as she slowly makes her presence known. I hold my breath. From the way Ryka stills at my side, he’s holding his breath, too. Pain flashes across Max’s face
―
I am getting too good at recognising that emotion
―
and Olivia’s shoulders sag. I’ve seen women here in Freetown argue. Their heated, high-pitched voices resonate around the campfires after dark. It would be out of character for Olivia to start shouting, but something tells me that with feelings like this, people are liable to surprise you with how they act.

Olivia proves me wrong. She rushes the slender girl, whose eyes round out to twice their normal size. Where some women might have slapped or attacked, Olivia pulls Simone into a fierce hug. A burning sensation ignites at the back of my throat.

“Oh.”

“I know.” Ryka breathes. Then he does something that makes my throat close up entirely: he takes me hand. He’s done it before, but this is different. He’s so incredibly gentle, conscious of what he’s doing. “Come on,” he says, “I can’t watch her do this to herself.”

Neither can I. Freetown blurs past us, a carousel of laughing, ruddy faces flashing one after the other, as Ryka guides us away from the melee of the night markets and the weapons and his sister’s broken heart.

“Where are we going?”

“Somewhere quiet,” he replies, gently urging me along behind him. It’s nice not being dragged for once. Feels like my presence is being requested instead of demanded.

It takes ten minutes to find our way to the beach, the one the Tamjis train on in the mornings. Ryka is soundless as he pulls his boots off at the edge of the sand. I follow suit and discard my own boots alongside his so that they sit side by side underneath a gnarled oak tree.

“I feel so trapped back there sometimes,” he tells me. Blond hair gets tucked behind his ears again. “Everyone knows everything about everyone else. It’s like a thousand people are watching Olivia and Max like they’d watch a fight. People’s private lives should be just that
―
private.” His hand closes around mine again, naturally, and the contact makes my head swim.

“Why do people care so much?” I ask.

Ryka hitches up a shoulder in half a shrug. We walk onto the cool sand, and it feels pretty amazing on my bare feet. I see why Ryka walks around like this half the time. “Perhaps,” he says, after a while, “they’re all so interested because, aside from the fights, there’s not much happening here. Freetown’s small. We don’t welcome trade from other towns all that often. It’s not safe. So we look to our own for entertainment. Isn’t it that way in Lockdown?”

Entertainment is a moot point in the Sanctuary. “Not really. Curiosity isn’t something that’s encouraged. We have roles to perform. Most of us go about our day without wondering what anyone else is doing.”

“But what about your parents? They have emotions, right? What do they do all day?”

“They—I—I really don’t know.” How have I never realised that I know so little about Lowrence and Miranda? Any other True for that matter. My lack of knowledge is stunning, considering that I lived for sixteen years in the Kitsch Household. I never once wondered what was going on above my own head. “Sometimes we’d hear running footsteps. The children, I think,” I tell Ryka. “Laughter, too. It sounded like my father was laughing with his children.”

“That didn’t make you sad?”

I feel cold inside when I say, “No. Nothing made me sad.” Ryka’s silence tells me a lot; he feels sorry for me. “It’s not like it mattered, though. I mean, I didn’t know any better,” I add.

“And now? What did it feel like to have the halo control you, now that you know what it’s like to live without it?”

I think about the metal ring, hammered roughly into shape, back in my tent. Think about its cool, indifferent grasp around my neck. “Hollow,” I say. “It felt hollow.” Do I want to feel hollow again? The night terrors I suffer, that stomach churning sickness in my core when I wake, would have me saying yes in a heartbeat. If it weren’t for this glimmer of something else I feel now as Ryka holds my hand. Now, I just don’t know.

I don’t want to talk about me. About the halo. We find our way over to the smooth slab of rock Olivia and I sat on the first time we came here, and Ryka and I watch the river pass us by. Even as we sit there, breathing evenly together in the darkness, that water is rushing over the rock Matthew carved his family’s names into, wearing them away. It passed by the Kitsch Household, too, at some point earlier in the day.

“Do you think your mother is still alive?” I whisper, not sure if I’m breaking this fragile bond I now share with the boy sitting next to me. He doesn’t react, doesn’t tense up. Doesn’t say anything for a while. I barely hear him when he says, “Sometimes. She just walked off into the forest one morning. There are a hundred ways to die out there. But there are plenty of ways to survive, too.”

I know it instinctively
―
that that’s what Ryka’s doing all those times he goes out into the forest on his own. His absences from Freetown, though confusing to everyone else, make perfect sense to me. Ryka and Olivia are both still looking for their mother. They’re just looking in different places.

FIGHT

The air smells different. Braced against the heavy sky, the emerald flush of the tree line struggles to hold up the weight of the impending horizon this morning. Maybe because things felt different when I woke. Maybe because the steel colour of the clouds promises a mighty storm and there’s electricity vibrating in my lungs with every breath I take. But maybe…maybe it’s because today is a fight day.