“Would you have stepped out of line?”
“Never before,” he answered quickly. “But recently . . . recently someone I met has me asking questions about integrity and what it’s worth.”
“What is it worth?”
“A great deal.”
“So now you’re questioning him, but he has a means of controlling you . . . and that’s me?”
Loran shook his head. “You misunderstood. I’m not questioning him. I’ve always known who he is. What I’m questioning, thanks to a girl with a tooth-rattling kick, is who I am.”
She hugged her knees, unsure what to say. She’d hoped that finding her father would lead to her knowing herself better. She’d never considered it might also happen the other way around. “So . . . who are you?”
His gaze fell to his boots. “I don’t know where to start, Aria. This is new to me. I want to tell you so much, but I don’t want to burden you with more than you want to know.”
“I want to know everything.”
He lifted his eyes, and Aria saw a change in them. She thought it was surprise at first. Then she realized it was tenderness.
“My family,” he began, “and yours, has been in the service of the Horn Blood Lords for generations. We are soldiers and advisers who hold the highest military positions. It’s the life I was born to, the one I knew I’d lead eventually, but twenty years ago, when I was close to your age, I wanted nothing to do with it. When I asked my father for a few years to be on my own, he granted me one. It was more than I had expected.”
Loran had music in his voice. It was beautiful.
“I’d only been traveling a month when a Hover chased me down on the edge of the Shield Valley. I found myself inside a Dweller Pod, a place I’d only ever heard about in rumors.”
Loran glanced behind him, out to the beach. “There is no forgiveness in the north. We do things a certain way, as you know by now. So when I was taken captive, I expected something along the lines of what happened to Peregrine. Your mother was the first person I saw when I came to. She did not look frightening.” He smiled to himself then, lost in an image of Lumina that Aria wished she could share. “She promised I wouldn’t be mistreated. She told me I would go home one day. I heard sincerity in her voice. I heard kindness. I believed her.”
As he spoke, Aria felt like she was wearing a Smarteye. Part of her listening to Loran. Part of her in a Realm in which Lumina was a young researcher, fascinated by an Outsider.
“From that moment on, I didn’t worry. I had left Rim to see what was different from what I knew.” He lifted his shoulders. “I couldn’t have landed in a better place.
“Her studies dealt with adaptations to stress. Dwellers, she explained, had less resilience to it than we do. Sometimes she’d put me into simulations in the Realms, but most of the time she asked me questions about the Outside. Eventually, she was answering my questions.” He ran a hand over his jaw. “I don’t know the exact moment that I fell in love with her, but I will never forget the moment she told me she was with child.
“As much as I cared for her, Aria, and I did, very deeply, I realized I would never be accepted into her world. Her people would never be mine. She couldn’t come to the outside with me, either. I knew that, but I still asked her a thousand times. But she wanted our child to grow up in safety. In the end, we both agreed the Pod would be the best place for you.”
Aria bit her lip until it stung. Our child. For a few seconds, the words flapped around her mind like bats. “So you left?”
Loran nodded. “I had to. When I returned to Rim, I’d been gone exactly a year. Leaving her was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
A sense of unreality seeped through her as she stared at him. Her eyes filled, and her lungs felt like they were going to explode.
“What is it, Aria?”
“I lost my mother, and I lost Perry. If I started to care . . .”
Her tears came like a torrent. They came so violently, with such an eruption, that she could only yield to them, letting the pain shake her, unravel her piece by piece.
After a long while, her grief shaped into something different.
Surprise.
Loran’s arms wrapped around her, holding her. When she looked up, she saw concern on his face—intense concern— and a flicker of something else.
“I’m sorry you’re hurting,” he said, answering her unspoken question, “but this is my first act as your father. At least it feels that way to me. And it’s . . . very fulfilling.”
She brushed her fingers over her eyes. “I want to try. I want to give us a chance too.”
They weren’t the prettiest words she’d ever spoken, but they were a start. And judging by Loran’s smile, they were enough.
They turned toward the open hatch at the same time, following the sound that carried from outside. Drums pounding in the distance.
“We’d better go,” Loran said.
Sable’s party had begun.
The clearing in the woods was much larger than the one at the heart of the Tides’ compound. It was bordered on one side by a river that stepped down the hill as it wove around smooth boulders. Lush foliage decorated the banks, and trees bowed low, trailing their branches in the burbling water. It couldn’t have been more unlike the deadly cold and stark alpine shores of the Snake River.
Around the area, torchlight wavered. Night was falling, the deep blue sky pierced by the stars that flickered to life one by one. Aria heard music. Two drums beating a rhythm, and strings as well. A few instruments had survived the crossing, then.
Sable was right. This place was beautiful. This land had promise. But she couldn’t separate the suffering of the people from the beauty of the place.
Across the field, the Tides gathered in subdued groups, standing, sitting in circles. Her eyes moved over them, her stomach twisting with anger. They didn’t look like guests at a party or like proud founders of a new settlement. They looked like what they were: captives.
Her gaze landed on Hyde. He was so easy to spot, tall as he was. Hayden and Straggler were scattered elsewhere, one close, the other across the field, near Twig. The remaining members of the Six looked lost without Reef, Gren, and Perry. Without one another.
Aria located Marron with a circle of children around him and saw Molly and Bear there too.
Sable’s people stood like watchdogs, strategically placed around the clearing, imposing with their weapons and black uniforms, horns twisting in sinister patterns on their chests.
“Great party,” she said.
Beside her, Loran said nothing.
As they walked toward the center of the clearing, where a table sat up on a dais, she spotted Caleb and Rune with a few other Dwellers. Of the thousand or so people in the clearing, the Dwellers made up a fraction. So much for their supposed superiority over Outsiders.
“Aria!”
Talon ran over, Willow on his heels. He wrapped his arms around Aria’s waist.
“Hey, Talon.” She held him for a second, feeling better than she had since she’d left the cave. And keeping him close meant keeping Perry close in some way too.
Not far off, a few of Sable’s men watched them.
“We don’t know where Roar is,” Willow said. “No one’s telling us anything.”
Her eyes were puffy and scared. She didn’t look like herself. No one looked like themselves.
“He’s fine,” Aria said. “I’m sure he’s fine.”
“What if he’s not!” Several people looked over at Willow’s raised voice. “What if they shot him?”
“They didn’t.”
“How do you know? They shot Reef and Gren. They shoot everybody!”
A low growl drew Aria’s attention to Flea.
“I will have that dog shot as well, if you can’t control him,” Sable said as he walked up. He spoke evenly, like he was stating a fact.
“I hate you!” Willow yelled.
“You can’t do that!” Talon yelled. Flea’s barks became grittier and louder. Hyde came over, drawing Talon and Willow away. Hayden picked Flea up and carried him off.
Aria couldn’t believe that only the children would stand up to Sable. This place, which should have meant survival and freedom, was a prison.
Sable’s gaze fell on her. He smiled and held out his hand. “Join me? I have a special place set up for us.”
She took his cold grip, only one thought in her mind.
Sable needed to die.
50
PEREGRINE
From his hidden spot in the darkness, Perry watched Aria take Sable’s hand.
“I can’t be the only one who feels sick,” Soren said.
“You’re not,” replied Roar.
Perry didn’t feel ill. He felt focused. He was on the hunt; this was what he did best.
He settled onto a knee behind a stand of broad-leafed shrubs and considered the situation. Roar and Soren crouched at his sides.
They hadn’t expected to find a feast. This would change things.
Tides and Dwellers sat in groups strewn across the clearing, but Sable had erected a platform at the center, where a table decorated with candles and arrangements of lush foliage and colorful flowers had been set up. Sable led Aria there, joining a few of his men and a handful of Guardians.
Perry noticed that his own fighters were scattered. Sable had wisely broken them apart to keep them in check.
“I guess taking him out in secret is no longer an option,” Roar said.
Perry shook his head. “He couldn’t be in a worse position for me to get to him.”
The platform sat at the center of hundreds of people, half of them Horns. Perry knew the second he stepped out into the open, if he wasn’t shot on the spot, he’d likely incite an outright revolt. As subdued as the crowd seemed, the tempers wafting his way seethed with rage. The Tides weren’t defeated. They were dry kindling, just waiting for a spark.
Talon’s position was the only thing he liked about this situation. His nephew sat between Hyde and Molly, Marron and Bear only a few feet away.
Perry knew that was no accident. Believing him to be dead, the Tides had claimed Talon as their own, protecting him. Seeing that made his heart ache.
“Can you get a shot at Sable from here?” Roar asked.
Perry thought it over. He didn’t have his bow, but maybe they could snatch one of the pistols worn by the Horns guarding the clearing. The shot was a good hundred yards—easy when he was using his own gear. But he was less familiar with the Dweller guns.
“Aria’s right next to him,” he said finally. “I can’t risk it. Not with a weapon I don’t know well.”
Sable had seated her to his right. Aria’s father sat on his other side.
“Can’t you make a bow?” Soren asked.
Roar glanced at Perry, rolling his eyes. “Sure, Soren. Let’s come back in a few days.”
Perry turned back to the clearing. Approaching Sable like this wasn’t ideal, but enough people had died, and the look in Aria’s eyes worried him. Instinct told him it was time.
He thought through every scenario a few times, then explained what he needed to Soren and Roar.