Promised (11 page)

“
Emily
,” Gaia said, her voice hushed.

Emily managed two more steps and then spun around again. With her cheeks flushed and her poise gone, she looked once more like the girl Gaia remembered. “How dare you judge me? How dare you accuse me of selling my child? You left. You went off into the wasteland with your sister. If I had known what was going to happen, I'd have taken my family and gone with you. But I didn't. And I've had to survive just as much as you have.”

“I'm sorry,” Gaia said. “I heard how the Protectorat took your son, and I heard about Kyle. I miss him, too.”

Emily took a step nearer, dropping her voice.

“I don't want to hear you say his name,” Emily said.

“No. I won't. I'm sorry.”

“And I don't want your pity, either.”

Gaia felt an awful burst of emotion rising through her. She couldn't stand to be fighting with her oldest friend. It felt like the last good thing from her childhood was exploding in her face. “Please don't be like this,” Gaia pleaded.

Emily's expression turned dismissive. “You were always so immature.”

 

CHAPTER 8

cameras

E
MILY PUSHED OPEN THE
door to the office, and the guard hurried to catch it and hold it wide for Gaia. Gaia stood riveted to the carpet, stuck between shame and hurt. The guard made a soft humming noise, and she glanced up. He'd obviously heard her entire exchange with Emily, but his expression was impassive.

“What?” she said quietly.

“You might tell Leon that Marquez says hello. That's all,” he said. “After you, Masister.”

His calm voice and kindness gave her just the reprieve she needed to regain some of her composure. She inhaled deeply. “Thanks,” she whispered, and stepped into the room after Emily.

The Protectorat and Mabrother Iris were standing together over the desk, discussing something, but they looked up as Gaia entered.

“Your people know better than to attack, don't they?” the Protectorat asked.

Gaia moved forward, alarmed. “What do you see?”

She didn't think they'd attack without her, not this quickly, but she realized she had no idea. Who was running things out there? Will? Leon? The Protectorat tapped an enlarged screen on the desktop, and the quad before the Tvaltar came into startlingly clear view. Will, Peter, and Dinah were huddled in a tight conference with Derek Vlatir and several other leaders from Wharfton. Two dozen of the female archers from New Sylum were poised on the Tvaltar steps, and a rough-looking lot from Wharfton had gathered with shovels, pickaxes, and clubs.

Gaia scanned each face for Leon, but couldn't find him.
Something's wrong
, her gut told her.
He should be with them
.

“Call up reinforcements for the wall guard,” the Protectorat said. “They're not getting anywhere with arrows, but keep an eye on them.”

At that moment, the door opened forcefully, and Genevieve, the Protectorat's wife, charged into the room. “Miles!” she began, then stopped as her gaze met Gaia. “You!” she exclaimed. “Do you know where my daughter is?”

“I don't have the slightest idea,” Gaia said.

Genevieve flew to her husband. “Evelyn's gone! I sent a girl to look for her an hour ago, and it turns out no one's seen her. She's nowhere to be found.”

“Iris?” the Protectorat said.

“I'm looking,” Mabrother Iris said, typing rapidly. “South gate? Did Masister Evelyn pass through today?”

Genevieve braced both of her hands on the computer desk, leaning over it as she peered closely at the screen. Her white dress reflected in the black glass, and when her golden hair slipped forward over her shoulder, she shoved it back with distraught fingers.

A crackle came from a speaker in the desk, and then a man's voice. “Yes, she passed through about two hours ago. She hasn't returned. You want us to go looking for her?”

“If they hurt one hair of her head, you're dead,” the Protectorat said to Gaia.

“Find her! Please, Miles, we have to find her! What if these new people have kidnapped her?” Genevieve said, then spun toward Gaia. “You must know something.”

“How could we possibly kidnap her?” Gaia said. “She saw me being arrested. That's all I know. I asked for her help, and she said she would talk to you.”

Genevieve frowned. “Arrested?” she asked, and turned to the Protectorat. “Isn't she the leader of the new people?”

“She's more like collateral at this point,” he answered. “If they have Evelyn, we'll get her back.”

“Please, Masister,” Genevieve pleaded, approaching Gaia. “Did Evelyn say anything else? Anything at all? She never came to see me. Do you have any clue why she'd go outside the wall?”

Gaia glanced at Emily, who was remaining silently observant in the background. “She probably went out to see her brother,” Gaia said.

Genevieve went still. “Leon's back?” she asked, her voice suddenly quiet. After her frenetic worry, she now turned deliberately toward her husband. “How long have you known this?”

“Since yesterday,” the Protectorat said. “One of Masister Stone's scouts saw fit to mention it.”

The tension between him and his wife became a live thing that Gaia could sense, coiled between them like an invisible snake. Genevieve gave a nearly imperceptible shake of her head, and the Protectorat pushed his coat back to prop a fist on his hip.

“I think you should see this, Mabrother,” Mabrother Iris said, gazing down at the desktop.

The Protectorat stepped nearer to the screen, and then gestured to Gaia. “Get over here.”

Across the slick surface, a row of new rectangles showed different views from security cameras. With a brush of his fingertips, Mabrother Iris expanded a dozen of the rectangles: the quad by the Tvaltar again, plus the approaches to the south gate, the paths to the six water spigots, the fields, the shoreline ridge of the unlake, and several key roads. The surveillance in Wharfton was even more pervasive than she'd realized before.

One of the rectangles went black, and only then did Gaia notice there were four other screens already dark, too. Next, two other screens went black almost simultaneously.

“Mabrother Iris,” came the voice over the speaker. “Are you seeing this?”

Mabrother Iris brushed his fingertips again, and a dozen more screens appeared showing shots of the wall, and a close-up of a guard's face with the south gate behind him.

“I'm here,” Mabrother Iris said.

“They're shooting out the cameras with arrows,” the guard said. “Fine shots they are, too.”

The Protectorat nodded wordlessly to Mabrother Iris.

“Take them out,” Mabrother Iris said.

There was motion as the soldiers on the wall took aim.

“No,” Gaia said. “You can't kill them. They're not hurting anybody.”

“Enclave security is not negotiable,” the Protectorat said. “Pick them off.”

“Yes, Mabrother,” the guard said, and stepped out of the rectangle.

“Don't!” Gaia called.

She rapidly scanned the other screens. Her ears were primed to hear the sound of rifle shots either from the speakers or in the distance. A fraught silence stretched out for a long moment. Another one of the views went dead, and then, slowly, three more. She nearly laughed with relief. Her archers knew how to avoid exposing themselves. Despite a flurry of activity along the top of the wall where the guards were aiming their rifles, screen after screen was being eliminated until there were only three of Wharfton left, then two, and finally only one.

The last view was an angle she'd seen once before: a stretch of dry shore by the unlake, directly downhill from the south gate. The Protectorat had ordered the shooting of a raven in just that place, demonstrating the reach of his power to Gaia. Now a man and a woman were walking into the frame of the picture.

“Hold your fire,” the Protectorat said. He skimmed his fingertips over the desktop, and the rectangle enlarged to fill the screen. “See there, Genevieve. There's your precious boy.”

Leon and his stepsister Evelyn stopped mid-screen, turning forward, and Leon raised an arm to point out the camera until Evelyn nodded to indicate she saw it, too. He had to know that he was now standing within easy range of the rifles on the wall. It was a ridiculous risk.

Gaia glanced quickly up at the Protectorat. “You wouldn't shoot him,” she said.

“I'll see what he has to say first.” The Protectorat was staring at the screen as if fascinated, a look of merciless concentration transforming his features into a hard mask.

Emily slipped nearer to Gaia and looked over her shoulder. Gaia shifted to allow Emily a better view and heard the soft intake of Emily's breath. On the day the raven was shot, Emily had stood only a meter away from the bird, and Gaia guessed she was remembering it, too.

In her filmy white dress, Evelyn looked as fresh and delicate as a gardenia bloom, while Leon was still covered in the grime of the trail, unshaven and darkly strong. Evelyn casually put her arm around Leon's waist, smiling. Leon ruffled the top of her hair and then slung an arm around her neck, rocking her in a kidding, brotherly way.

As he looked up again at the camera, his arm tightened a notch farther so that he was mock strangling her for an instant, and his smile didn't reach his eyes.

Leon had looked that cold in Gaia's earliest days of knowing him, and then again for a brief time after he'd been released from prison in Sylum, but she'd thought that side of him was gone. Now she was shocked at how passionlessly ruthless he appeared. If she didn't really know him, she might think he was capable of anything.

Genevieve made a gulping noise. “Oh, Miles! I'm so sorry.”

“Don't talk to me,” the Protectorat said.

Mikey came running into the shot, looking more gangly than he did in person. Leon took a paper out of his pocket, handed it to Mikey, and pointed toward the south gate. Then he looked back at the camera and said something to Evelyn that made her laugh. Together, brother and sister blew kisses to the camera, and then, holding hands, they descended rapidly into the unlake and vanished.

Across the desktop, the Protectorat's gaze grew hard. “You think you're running New Sylum?” he asked Gaia, his voice cutting. “Who's running you?”

Leon is not running me
, she thought.

“We just need water,” she said. “We just want to survive.”

“Is that your ransom for my daughter?”

“It's just the truth.”

“I don't bargain with animals. Tie her up and take her back to V cell,” the Protectorat ordered Marquez. “Mabrother Iris, call up the captains. We're getting Evelyn back and eradicating the refugees. Now.”

“You can't!” Gaia protested, her eyes darting to Mabrother Iris.

“Miles, you cannot put this girl in V cell,” Genevieve said.

“Stay out of this. It's your fault he's even alive,” the Protectorat said to his wife.

Genevieve clicked her nails sharply on the desktop. “I will not stay out of this. Let me remind you that I have saved your political neck more than once.
They have Evelyn
. Would you get that through your thick head? Where's your diplomacy?” She gestured to Gaia. “You need to start treating this girl properly.”

“Wrong,” he said. “There's no need to pretend any compassion for her whatsoever. We can move forward immediately, consent be damned.”

“Have you forgotten the consortium entirely?” Genevieve said.

“I am thinking of them. Rhodeski will be delighted.”

“
Miles!
He will
not!
” Genevieve said, shock and disapproval blatant in her voice.

The Protectorat controlled himself with visible effort.

“He had his hands on her,” the Protectorat said quietly.

“I know,” Genevieve said, dropping her voice, too. “I saw. It's going to be all right. It won't happen again.”

The Protectorat clenched his hand into a fist, and Genevieve moved slowly closer to him.

“It'll be all right. We'll get her back,” she added soothingly.

Leon's move with Evelyn was a mistake. Gaia could see that. It had escalated the Protectorat's animosity in a way that could only make things worse. She traced the fading red lines on her wrists again, and knew Marquez was hovering behind her with the strap. She glanced at Emily, who stood patiently, regarding the scene as if it hardly concerned her.

“Do you still want me to call up the captains, Mabrother?” Iris asked.

“Hold that order,” the Protectorat said. “We'll see what his note says.”

“Should I bind her, Mabrother?” Marquez asked.

The Protectorat glanced at his wife. “Hold that, too.”

“Mabrother, you can hardly want me here,” Emily said.

“You're excused, of course. Thank you, Masister,” the Protectorat said, and Emily slipped out without another glance at Gaia.

“What do you want from me?” Gaia asked. “Why don't you just tell me?”

She looked from the Protectorat to Mabrother Iris, and then to Genevieve, who was regarding her husband intently. When he moved toward the desk and began talking curtly to Mabrother Iris in low tones, Genevieve turned to Gaia.

“It's a delicate offer and we're not going into it while Evelyn's safety is uncertain,” Genevieve said, and then hesitated. “You won't be forced into anything,” she added, and turned to join the others.

Gaia was far from reassured. She strode to the window to watch for the arrival of Leon's note, and the square of the Bastion spread out below with fan patterns in the pavers. The gallows, she saw, had been disassembled and removed. White-clad people congregated near the Bastion, talking earnestly in twos and threes. More colorful groups of merchants and workers gathered farther out, naturally segregating into the hierarchy of the Enclave, like pieces on a game board. Though the adults appeared tense, children played marbles at the base of the obelisk, and a boy rode by with a basket of bread on the back of his bike, weaving sharply around a toddler with a red ball.