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“Here we are.” Danello pushed open a gate to a low-walled garden. Cool green shade greeted us, smelling of honeysuckle and white ginger. It was beautiful, but my uneasiness was rising like the tide.
“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” I said. With all the new folks on the farm, one or two could be spies – or worse, trackers – for the Duke. He finally had control of Baseer again, and that was making everyone nervous. We should be preparing to fight back, defend ourselves if needed, not enjoying the sunshine.
“Nya, it’s OK. It’s quiet here, no one will bother us.” Danello squeezed my hand and rubbed his thumb across my knuckles. I took a deep breath and nodded. He was right. Until we knew what the Duke was doing, there wasn’t anything to prepare for.
We followed a stone path that curved among bright yellow flowers and trees with white bark and circled around a small pond. Danello stopped and pulled a blanket out of the basket. He shook it open and spread it out by the water.
“Breakfast is served,” he said with a flourish.
I sat, scanning the bushes while he rummaged through the basket. Leaves rustled in the wind like footsteps crunching through dry grass, but I didn’t see anyone around.
“Do you want fish cakes or stuffed peppers?” He held both up and wiggled them as if that made them more appealing. Didn’t help the food, but it did make him look adorable. His warm brown eyes. The cute little scar above his lip.
I was a fool. A romantic picnic with Danello and all I could think about was what the Duke was up to? Danello deserved better.
“What’s the pepper stuffed with?” I asked, scooting closer.
“Um…” He poked a finger into the breading. “Looks like fish.”
“The same fish?”
“Maybe, if it was a big fish.” He grinned.
I chuckled, the first laugh I’d had in, Saints, I couldn’t remember. It felt good. This was good. Me, him, together all alone for once, with no one trying to kill either of us. I needed more of this – lots more. “I meant the same kind of fish.”
“I know, but it made you smile.” He set the pepper on a plate and grabbed a knife from the basket. “We’ll split both. That way you won’t have to choose.”
Like I chose to leave Tali behind? My grin faltered. I hadn’t meant to think it, hadn’t wanted to think it. Shouldn’t have thought it, not with the sun and flowers and a cute boy bringing me food.
A sweet scent drifted past on the breeze. White ginger. Tali’s scent. No wonder I’d thought of her.
Danello looked at me, uncertain. “You OK?”
I nodded and he resumed cutting.
It hadn’t been my choice to leave her. Danello and Aylin had kidnapped me, carried me screamingout of Baseer, thrown me on Jeatar’s boat, and locked me in a cabin until we were far enough away that I couldn’t swim back.
That’s not the choice you regret.
No, it was the one I’d made my first night in Baseer, when I could have saved Tali from the tracker Vyand and kept her out of the Duke’s clutches. But Danello and Aylin had been captured, too, imprisoned in a Baseeri jail and facing execution. Their certain deaths had weighed against Tali’s life.
And I’d chosen them.
Tali had been in trouble for sure, but Danello and Aylin would have been killed in just a few hours. I’d thought I’d have time to go back for her. Thought I could save them all, but I’d been wrong. I’d left her in a city tearing itself apart with a man who wanted to turn her into a weapon and force her to kill.
“Here you go.” Danello handed me a plate, a smile on his face but worry in his eyes. “One half of a mystery-fish-stuffed pepper and one full fish cake.”
I took my food. The first bite tasted like rock, but I kept eating. He’d gone to so much trouble, and all for me.
Footsteps thumped over stone and I tensed. Another couple appeared but kept walking around the pond. They didn’t even look at us. Maybe we were far enough outside the farmhouse grounds that people didn’t recognise me. My name was a lot more famous than my face.
“It’s OK, Nya, you’re safe here,” Danello said softly. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
He wouldn’t, either. He’d face any soldiers the Duke sent after me. Watch my back no matter what I tried to do. Even when he disagreed with it.
“Thank you,” I said. I should have said more, but the words wouldn’t come. I looked at him, hoping he’d know how I felt anyway. Eyes say more than lips ever could. Danello had nice lips. I smiled.
He smiled back nervously and leaned towards me, just a little, as if waiting to see what I’d do. I leaned in as well, my heart pounding. Hoping he’d come closer, so I could go closer and—
“Excuse me?” a woman called, stepping out from under the trees.
Danello blew out a sigh and turned around. I frowned at her. She looked too nicely dressed for a refugee. A Baseeri merchant perhaps. A man stepped out next, his face scarred, three scratches on one side, forehead to chin, like a giant bird had clawed him. He looked more like a soldier.
“Yes?” Danello asked.
The woman smiled at us. “Have you heard about the Great Flash?”
“Great Flash?”
She nodded. “It happened in Baseer. A flash bright as the sun, caused by a girl who channelled the Saints’ power to crush the Duke’s palace.”
I shivered. She had it all wrong.
“Um, that’s not what happened,” I said. “It was a pynvium weapon that overloaded and flashed.”
Danello grabbed my hand. “Don’t say anything else,” he whispered.
“The Saints sing of this girl,” the woman continued. She glanced at the scarred man. “They gave her the power of Their light so she could save us from the darkness.”
I couldn’t even save my sister. How did they expect me to save them?
“She sounds, uh, great, but we need to go.” Danello inched away, tugging me with him. He kept one hand near the rapier at his hip.
“Were you there?” the man asked. His desperate gaze bored into mine. He reminded me of some soldiers I’d seen at the end of the first war – the ones who gave up fighting and sat inside the Sanctuary all day, praying for salvation and begging everyone around them to pray, too. Ones who were lost, angry, wanting help and blame in equal measures.
“Will you tell us what you saw?” he asked. “Share your story with us and others who believe as we do?”
My story was being shared quite enough already. “Sorry, I didn’t see anything.”
The woman and the scarred man frowned but nodded. “Truth is a hard stone to swallow,” he said. “If you want to share, you can find us in the east camp. Look for a red carriage with gold stars.”
Carriage? Maybe they weren’t merchants if they could afford a carriage. But they didn’t look like aristocrats.
“Thanks, we’ll keep that in mind,” said Danello. We backed away, ready to run if they so much as stepped towards us, but they left and headed deeper into the garden. I heard the woman speak again, probably to the other couple we’d seen earlier.
“What in Saea’s name was that all about?” I kept my voice low until we passed through the gate and into the safety of the open courtyard. If we needed them, three guards were within shouting distance.
“I’m not sure it was in Saea’s name at all. They sounded like those sainters who hassle people in the park by the Sanctuary.”
“The ones who think the stars are going to go out?” I’d seen them too, shouting to all who’d listen that the stars would go black and the dark would fall, but one light would shine bright enough to, oh, I don’t know, chase away the shadows or something. I never listened for long. Their rants always brought soldiers, and soldiers brought trouble.
“Yeah. Maybe Baseer has its own sainters,” Danello said.
“Who are ranting about me.” It was worse than the gossip and the whispers. What I’d done wasn’t a sign from the Saints. It had been an accident. I’d only been trying to stop the Duke’s weapon and keep it from killing half of Baseer.
“It’s not you personally. They’re just trying to fit their crazy beliefs on to what happened. They did the same thing with that lightning storm last summer, remember? The one that set all those villas on fire?”
“True. Fingers of the Saints or something.” No one had listened to them, and some had even laughed. It was a pretty silly name.
We reached the farmhouse and pushed open the kitchen door. Ouea, Jeatar’s housemistress, sat at the table, peeling mangoes. Two girls sat on either side of her, smaller baskets of gold peppers in front of them. They twisted off the stems one by one.
Ouea looked up. “Nya, what happened? You’re white as salt.”
“A bunch of refugees think I’m the eighth saint.”
“They think what?”
Danello smiled. “Nya’s exaggerating, but there are some sainters out there talking about the flash in Baseer like it’s a sign from the Saints.”
Ouea tucked a greying strand of hair behind an ear. “People turn to faith when they’re frightened. I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.”
“Probably not.” Especially when there was enough in my worry bowl already. “Maybe Jeatar knows where they came from.”
“Could be.” Ouea nodded.
“Can you ask him tomorrow?” Danello said. “I was hoping we could spend the day together. Fun, remember? You’ve been working so hard lately.”
With nothing to show for it. Three times we’d sneaked out to Baseer – or as close as we could get – to search for Tali. But the rumours had been false, and the leads had led nowhere.
Ouea cleared her throat. “Danello? Where’s my picnic basket?”
“Um.” He winced. “In the garden.”
“You weren’t going to leave it there, were you?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Then go get it.”
Danello looked at me, then at the door. Ouea kept staring at him over the basket of mangoes. Her two young helpers kept their eyes on the peppers, but both girls were trying hard not to giggle.
“Wait for me in the kitchen garden?” he asked. “We still have a picnic to finish.”
I smiled. “Definitely.”
Danello dashed out, and Ouea went back to peeling mangoes. “He’s a good boy, that one is. Even if he is a bit forgetful at times.”
“Yeah, he’s great.” I glanced towards the door to the rest of the farmhouse. It would take Danello a while to run all the way out to the pond and back. Surely I had time to see if there was any news about Tali or those sainters. I’d be in the kitchen garden before him. “Jeatar in the library?”
“Last I checked.”
Hope and dread tugged at my heart. Maybe today I’d find out where Tali was. Or maybe I’d learn there was no reason to look for her any more.
And Saints help me, I wasn’t sure which would be worse.
Chapter Two (#ulink_dc922425-a5ce-52dd-9fe3-d374f1b0217e)
The library door was open but I knocked anyway. Onderaan and Jeatar looked up in unison. One smiled, one didn’t.
I frowned. “What happened?”
“Forget about going to Baseer,” Jeatar said, stone-faced as always.
“Why?” Please don’t say Tali’s dead. Please don’t.
“There’s massive troop movement along the river, and transport ships are being moved into the harbour. Looks like the Duke is mobilising his army.”
“Do you know where?”
“Not yet, but from the number of ships, it looks like an invasion.”
My chest tightened. “Geveg?”
“Or Verlatta, the mining towns, any of the river provinces.”
“If not all of them.” Onderaan shook his head and sighed deeply, for a moment looking so much like Papa I had to look away. It was still hard to believe he was my uncle. That I even had an uncle, let alone a Baseeri one. “This could be the start of a major campaign.”
I’d seen one of those before, five years ago when the Duke invaded Geveg and killed my parents. My Grannyma. When he burned the city of Sorille to the ground to kill his brothers – rivals for the throne.
“Any news from Geveg?” Last we’d heard, there were still riots, though it hadn’t turned into a full uprising yet. Information was sparse, since Jeatar had sent most of his spies and scouts to Baseer, but he had a few Gevegian contacts left.
Jeatar hesitated, glancing at Onderaan. Not a good sign. “Unconfirmed rumours say the Governor-General is dead.”
“Seriously?” A surprise, but it didn’t bother me none if he was. He’d been appointed by the Duke and treated Gevegians like we were trash. “Who’s in charge now? Another Baseeri or a Gevegian?”
“I’m waiting to hear from my contacts there, but so far, nothing.”
“If Geveg’s in full rebellion,” Onderaan said, “then the Duke would certainly want to end it before it inspired anyone else to fight back.”
I nodded. “Like the mining towns.” The Duke invaded us the first time for our pynvium, and he had to need more of it. I’d destroyed his foundry, stolen some, and ruined the rest of his supply of the raw metal. When Baseer revolted, he would have needed more weapons to subdue his own people, more healing bricks for his troops, using up the little pynvium he’d had left. He had to be running low by now.
Was he also running low on Healers?
He’d been kidnapping and experimenting on them for months, but with all the fighting, he had to be using them to heal his troops.
“Do you think Tali is with him?”
Jeatar didn’t hesitate this time. “Yes.”
