On the Meldon Plain (The Fourline Trilogy Book 2) (14 page)

“Sister Natalie can make her own decisions, Soris,” Estos said, giving her a respectful nod.

Nat felt as if the room were about to explode. She took a deep breath. “There’s another thing you should know,” she said, breaking the angry silence between Soris and Estos. She pressed her thumbnail into her index finger. “She was emaciated, and I saw lots of bruises and puncture marks on her skin.”

Nat heard a sharp intake of breath from the corner of the room. Rory stepped into the light, her face ashen.

Estos stood slowly and walked to the canvas flap of the tent. He stared into the night. “Andris, I respect your opinion, but my mind is made up,” he finally said. “You will lead a band into Rustbrook. Our other plans will have to wait.”

Andris gave a quick nod of assent, all argument gone from his expression. “I’ll assemble a team and leave in the morning.”

“I have in mind who will accompany you.” Estos held his hands behind his back. “Annin, you know the Sisters’ tunnels in and around the castle better than anyone except Sister Barba. They’ll be of use sneaking around the castle. But if you can’t tolerate Benedict, I won’t send you.”

“Don’t worry, Your Royalness, I’m going. Someone has to keep an eye on the pig.”

Estos’ jaw tensed. “Annin.”

“I’m going.” Her eyes flashed in the lamplight.

“Fine.” He looked at Nat, his expression weary. “Andris, Annin, Oberfisk, Benedict, Soris, and you, Natalie. We’ve all asked too much of you, but . . .”

Andris let out a low groan.

“I know where the Chemist’s quarters are as well as she does. Like you said, we’ve asked too much of her.” Soris kept up his argument as he stood behind Nat. His fingers tightened protectively around her shoulder.

“Yes, we have,” Estos agreed. “But she is a Warrior Sister, and if Andris needs someone to anonymously move around the castle, she’s the one to do it.”

“No one recognized me when we were there months ago,” Soris protested.

“Yes, but now—”

“Now you’re like me.” Annin linked her arm through Soris’ and shot Estos a contemptuous look.

Nat eased out of her chair. “I’ve already decided. I’m going,” she said.

“Thank you, Natalie.” Estos tipped his chin toward his chest, then stared thoughtfully at the map in front of him.

“Estos.” Nat approached the young king. “Soris, Annin, and I have something else we need to discuss with you.” He looked up. Nat nervously cleared her throat. “We need to talk about what’s happening to the duozi.”

Soris gave her an encouraging nod, the look of irritation gone from his face. She continued, “Mudug’s guards are kidnapping children and taking them to the Nala to be slaves. Annin and I think they may be using them to regenerate somehow.”

“How do you know this, Natalie?” Estos asked, focusing on her as if she were the only other person in the tent.

Annin spoke up. “A few of the children we rescued from the den gave us information that suggests the dead Nala use remnant to regenerate. We found the body of a young duozi girl as well.”

Estos glanced at Annin. “Thank you for that information. Rory, join me for a moment, please.” He walked to a shadowy corner. Rory eased herself next to him, and the two spoke in hushed tones.
That’s not the end of the conversation, Estos,
Nat thought as she glanced at Annin. Her eyes were like little slits as she followed Estos’ movements.
Definitely not the end.

Andris brought another map to the table. Oberfisk joined him, and a loud discussion about the route to Rustbrook filled the room. Soris strode away from the group with a downcast expression. Nat followed him.

“Can I talk to you outside?” she asked. His mouth seemed stuck in a permanent frown when he looked at her, but he joined her as she stepped into the cool night past the Sister guarding the tent.

“Why did you argue with Estos about my joining the mission? I’m not changing my mind,” she said the moment they were out of earshot of the Sister.

His cocked his head and leaned toward her. “This isn’t your fight.”

“What about all those duozi children we saved from the Nala den? You know as well as I do that Mudug’s guards turned them over to the Nala. If finding Emilia means Estos and the rebellion have a better chance of ending Mudug’s rule, then I’m in. And I . . .” Nat stopped, holding back. If going meant she could keep Soris safe from another Nala attack or Mudug’s guards, then there was no chance she’d go home now.

“You’re going to do what Estos asks regardless of what I say.” He pressed his lips together.

“If Andris asked me to go, I would. It doesn’t make a difference who’s asking,” she argued.

“Why do you have to be so stubborn? You could be safe at home right now.” He crossed his arms, but the corner of his mouth twitched upward.

“Am I really that bad to be around?” She offered a weak smile.

“Yes, definitely,” he said, but the hard look in his eyes momentarily softened. He stepped back into the light spilling out from the tent. “Andris is going to make your life miserable, you know that, don’t you?”

“When has he not?” she replied, annoyed that he was again trying to convince her to change her mind. “I’d start to worry if he treated me like something other than a doormat.”

His brow creased.

“Look, how would you feel if Estos ordered you to stay here?” Nat asked him.

“Wouldn’t happen.”

“That’s not an answer. How would you feel?”

He examined her face for a moment and then looked up at the stars. “Useless. I’d feel useless.”

“Useless is only a fraction of what I’d feel if I returned home now.”

“Is feeling useless truly worse than getting hurt for a cause that isn’t your own?” He stood so close she could see his neck muscles tighten.

“I don’t plan on getting hurt.”
And after what happened to you, helping you will always be my cause,
she thought.

“And I never planned on turning into a duozi.” He took a step away from her. Nat’s body tensed and a flush rushed into her cheeks. An awkward silence settled between them. She stared at the ground, feeling cold guilt wrap around her. Soris touched her chin and lifted her face to meet his gaze.

“I only meant that what we hope will happen rarely does.” He gave her a sad smile, dropped his hand, and disappeared into the night.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Nat closed the leather-bound book Ethet had given her and flopped down on the woven mat on the hard floor of the Sisters’ tent. She was tired but couldn’t seem to fall asleep like the slumbering Sisters around her. The tiny images in the book didn’t help settle her mind. She’d found illustrations of the Nala and Nalaide, but the script was small and made no sense. She gave up and tucked the book into her satchel.

She glanced nervously at Cassandra, who sat across the tattered tent from her. Her dreadlocks hung down to her legs and her head rested against the canvas at a crooked angle. She looked at Nat contemptuously with her one open eye, her chest rising and falling rhythmically.
How does she sleep with one eye open?
Nat wondered. Overcome by weariness, she closed her eyes and fell into a fitful sleep.

The bars of light bordering her dream space flickered. Nat lifted her head from a woven hammock and focused on them. Burnt pine trees creaked and groaned on the horizon beyond the now solidified beams. She shuddered, thankful she had chosen to avoid her dreams for the night even if it meant she’d be exhausted in the morning.

“Hey!” Annin’s face appeared on the other side of the ledge. She clung to the tip of a charred tree. “Are you going to let me in?”

The lights dipped, and Annin hopped over. A chair appeared at her side. “Nice upholstery,” she said, fingering the polka-dotted cushion.

“My sister has that chair in her room. I go with what I know.” Nat flopped back into the hammock. Her braid caught on the steel loop holding the woven bed to the metal frame. She twisted around, untangling herself. Annin collapsed into the round puffy chair and frowned.

“Well, you’re pleasant company,” Nat said, yanking her hair free.

“Why aren’t you dreaming?” Annin asked, folding her legs under her.

“I had a feeling someone or something would encourage me to go to my dream space tonight, so I got a head start. I didn’t think it would be you.”

“Who did you think it would be? Soris?” Annin cocked her head to the side.

Nat nestled into the hammock. “I don’t know,” she mumbled.

“I just left Soris’ space. He’s not coming here tonight.”

“Thanks for the update.”

“He doesn’t need a babysitter, you know.”

“Neither do I.” Nat’s retort was sharp.

A satisfied look spread over Annin’s face as if she knew she’d hit on what was occupying Nat’s thoughts. “He’s a duozi. Accept it. I believe what you say about wanting to end Mudug’s deal with the Nala and helping the duozi, but you’re also hanging around to make sure nothing else bad happens to Soris, am I right?”

“So what if I am? It’s my choice,” she said.

“Guess what, Natalie—you can’t undo a duozi. Sticking around doesn’t help him.”

“It can’t hurt. Besides, I can’t go back home now.” She looked beyond the beams of light to the blackened forest. “I’d go crazy,” she admitted.

“Too late for that.” Annin smiled. “Just do me a favor. As one duozi speaking on behalf of another, the sooner you start treating Soris like he’s Soris instead of someone who needs to be saved, the better off he’ll be.”

Nat fumed. “What are you doing here, anyway? You’ve got other people you could harass besides me.”

“If you really must know, I’m avoiding Estos. He’s waiting in my dream space, and I have no intention of conversing with him.” Annin kicked the floor.

“Because of Benedict?”

Annin glared at Nat.

“Estos must have a good reason for wanting Benedict to come along,” Nat said, remembering Annin and Estos’ argument in the tent.

“He thinks Benedict can help save his sister because he’s the Chemist’s twin. But Estos has no idea what a rat that old man is.”

“Then I’d think you’d want him where you can keep an eye on him.” She thought of Neas and how Benedict had exposed what he was to the villagers. “As long as he’s with us, he’s not sneaking around causing problems, right?”

Annin twisted her lips to the side. “Maybe. But I doubt his loyalty to Estos or Emilia—if she’s alive—is stronger than his hatred of the duozi. He’s got to have an inkling of Estos’ plan for them. This mission will be like traveling with a viper.”

“What plan?” Annin had Nat’s full attention, but her leg involuntarily jerked forward, and she tumbled to the ground.

“Someone’s trying to wake you, and not gently.” Annin hopped out of the chair.

Nat dropped the lights and grasped the ledge, pulling herself up. Her leg buckled again. “You can stay here if you want,” she offered and climbed onto the ledge. Her leg involuntarily shot out again.

“No, never let someone stay in your dream space when you’re not there. They can get into your private thoughts.” Annin lightly touched the ledge and jumped up, straddling the rough stone.

“I thought you said Estos was in your dream space?” Nat raised an eyebrow.

“That’s different.”

“How?”

“We have a certain mutual trust,” Annin said right before she slid off the ledge down into the burnt forest.

Trust?
Nat tumbled after her, diving into the ruined woods of her dreams.

“Wake up, Sister.” Rory kicked Nat’s thigh. “Guard duty.” An orb hung irritatingly in front of Nat’s face. She sat up, knocking into the hard sphere with her nose. Rory dangled Nat’s belt above her and then released the leather strap. It fell into Nat’s lap with a clank. She rubbed her thigh and climbed out of the bedroll.

“Does she always sleep like that?” Nat suppressed a yawn and gestured toward Cassandra. Her open eye seemed to follow Nat when she stepped over the sleeping Sisters.

“No.” Rory splashed cold water on her face from a rough wooden basin next to the tent flap. “Sometimes she sleeps with the other eye open.”

Nat dipped her hands into the icy water. A subtle grassy smell enveloped her. She felt suddenly refreshed and alert. She peered into the bowl, examining the clear water.

“Coming?” Rory asked from the other side of the tent flap.

The night air stung Nat’s wet cheeks, instantly sapping away any remaining sleepiness. She looked around the camp. Other than a dim orange light seeping out from the base of a small tent, the camp was dark.

Moonlight reflected off the light-colored stones scattered over the ground. She followed Rory, keeping pace with her long strides as she crested the top of the ridge overlooking the camp. The blue of the night was thick and inky, but Nat could make out the dry riverbed and tributaries spreading below them like gnarled fingers.

A hooded Sister approached Rory. Cracked lips and the tip of a rounded nose were all Nat could see of her. Rory motioned to the side, and she and the guard spoke in low voices. The hooded Sister nodded. She climbed a small outcropping and flattened her body against the rock.

“You’ll take Sister Mertan’s post after I’m done asking questions.” Rory placed a firm hand on Nat’s arm and gestured to a flat-topped rock. Nat sat on the edge overlooking the riverbed. Rory pulled a leg tight to her chest, letting the other one dangle from the boulder.

“When you made your orb—the one you have now, not the one some fool of a Sister let you borrow,” she clarified. Nat thought back to her first encounter with Rory along the riverbank outside Rustbrook when she had Barba’s orb. “How did you imbue it?”

Rory’s question brought her back to the present. “I used a combination of breath and cartilage, then completed the connection by bringing it into my dreams.” She touched the notched curve of her ear.

Rory nodded. “Common combination. Not so intrusive, but enough . . .”

“Enough to make it feel and understand me.” Nat finished her thought.

“Did your Sisters teach you about imbuing orbs with only memory?”

“No.” Nat drew her cloak tighter against the chill. The process of making an orb was still puzzling to her, even after completing her own. Rory looked out over the canyons surrounding the riverbed. A sliver of gray light broke on the eastern horizon.

“Many Houses ago, Sisters attempted to create orbs using only memory as the link. They hoped to eliminate some of the physical pain involved in the process and provide each orb with a deeper understanding of its maker.”

“Did it work?”

“Not well. The orbs rarely connected with the maker. They continued to absorb more and more memories if the maker persisted in attempting to establish a connection.”

“I don’t understand, Sister.”

“They latched onto the subject of the memory, not the Sister. If a Sister’s memory concerned a person, the orb would only respond when she visualized other memories of that person. They were worthless from what I understand. Odd colors, small in size, terrible at following commands . . . Sound familiar?”

Nat thought of the colored orbs surrounding the Chemist’s map. “You think the Chemist’s orbs were some kind of memory orb?”

“I do, but modified to track the person who was the focus of the memory.”

“Wouldn’t he need the help of a Sister who knows how to make such orbs?” The idea that any Sister would help Mudug and the Chemist was anathema to what the Sisters stood for. Mudug had killed or driven away so many of them.

“Emilia trained with each House before becoming regent,” Rory cut in. “She apprenticed in my Warrior House and the other Houses as well. Because of her position as future regent, her training in each House was deep and extensive. It’s unlikely she learned how to create the core of an orb like a Head Sister, but it is possible. The Chemist may have used her to figure out how to make the orbs and then forced Emilia’s memories from her to imbue them.”

Nat thread her fingers through the loop attaching her dagger to her belt. Her stomach twisted and the muscles in her back tightened. “You think Emilia is helping the Chemist?”

“Not voluntarily, no.” An owl with a mouse dangling from its beak glided past and landed gracefully on a rocky ledge below their feet. It turned its moonlike eyes toward Nat, then efficiently swallowed the small rodent.

Rory looked in the direction of the sunrise. “If the Chemist used Emilia’s memories to imbue orbs, she won’t be the same person she was before. When the Sisters experimented with imbuing orbs that way, they discovered unpleasant side effects. It created memory holes. In some extreme cases, the Sisters became irrational and even delusional. Finding Emilia may be the easy part of your mission, Sister.” Rory’s expression was guarded as she watched Nat for some reaction. “Emilia may have no memory of the others traveling with you. She may act . . . violently. Do you understand how that may impact others who knew her personally?”

Nat nodded, imagining what it would be like if her parents, Marie Claire, or even Cal took her for a stranger. A few moments passed. The sounds below them ceased, and the owl flew away from the narrow ledge.

“Should I go to my post now?” Nat asked. Morning was burning away the night sky. She wanted time alone to think about what Rory had told her.

“Yes, but one more thing. When I met you, the only thing that kept me from killing you were the markings on your arm.”

Nat’s heartbeat quickened.

“It was clear you weren’t a Sister, despite your fringe claim and the borrowed orb.” She unfolded her legs and stood up. “Generations have come and gone since those markings covered a Sister’s forearm. Yours are the markings of the first Warrior Sisters, the first Sisters to purposely seek out and kill the Nala.” A smile crept over her lips. “Whoever drew those on you intended to send the Nala quite a message.”

“What message is that?” Nat’s voice quivered.

“That the Predictions of the First Sisters are true. The time for the annihilation of the Nala has finally arrived.”