I glanced over at him, deep in conversation with his soldiers. “I’ll tell him before we leave. He has more important things to worry about right now.”
“I want to go with you,” said Lanelle, cornering me in the dry-goods storeroom.
“Go with me where?” I’d been running around like everyone else on the farm, gathering supplies. I’d sent Quenji after a horse and wagon, since he was the most likely person to actually find one. I did warn him against stealing it from someone who needed one, though.
“To Geveg.”
I nearly dropped a bag of goat jerky. “You do know it’s about to be invaded?”
“They’ll need Healers.”
Even ones who’d betrayed them? Maybe Lanelle saw this as her chance to redeem herself.
“I’m sorry, but—”
“Please, Nya.” She grabbed my free hand. I fought the urge to yank it away. “I can help, I really can. I know people, and I know things about the League you don’t. The Elders talked around me, even about things they shouldn’t have.”
Because she’d helped them. But she did have a point.
“You’re not going to get over there and join the other side?”
She actually looked hurt. “No, swear to Saint Erlice I won’t. Baseeri lie – I know that now.”
Not all of them, but it was a step over the right bridge.
“Please, Nya?”
I sighed. Aylin was going to kill me. “OK, you can come.”
The heat from the forge wrapped around me as soon as I turned the corner. Hammer strikes of metal on metal rang out, mixed with duller thuds and some impressive swearing. I still hadn’t come up with a story as to why I needed pynvium, but since I’d stolen it in the first place, I figured some of it was mine.
Smiths banged away, no doubt trying to get the last of something made before we had to leave. Weapons maybe, or tools. Maybe just metal ingots that would be easier to carry. Onderaan worked in one corner off to the side. I cringed. I’d really hoped he wouldn’t be here.
“Onderaan?”
He turned, frustration on his face. He seemed surprised to see me. “You shouldn’t be wandering around alone.”
The forge was on the farm grounds, but it wasn’t connected to the house.
“I know but I, uh, needed some pynvium.”
“I think the weapons have already been packed, but I’ll see what’s here. There might be some pain-filled scraps left.”
“Any healing bricks?”
“Bricks? Why would you need – oh, Nya.” He sighed, rubbed his eyes. “What are you going to do?”
“Warn Geveg. I know it’s dangerous, but I—”
“You sound like your father.”
“I do?”
“Not the warning part,” he continued, “but the going-where-it’s-dangerous part. Going to Geveg where it’s dangerous, specifically.” He sighed and sat on a corner of the unfinished forge. “But you need to go, just like he needed to go.”
“He went to Geveg?” I’d always thought he’d been born there. I should have known that wasn’t true as soon as I’d learned he was Baseeri.
Onderaan nodded. “When he was nineteen. Our grandfather was governor then, and his ore finders had just discovered a huge pynvium vein in the mountains. Geveg needed enchanters to smelt it, and Peleven wanted to go help. I asked him not to leave, but he didn’t listen.”
“Why didn’t you want him to go?” Geveg was safe back then – no Baseeri soldiers on the streets, no Duke telling them what to do.
“It was a lot of pynvium. Mountains of it, and Verraad was already making a fuss out of claiming it for Baseer, trying to get his family to listen.”
Verraad. The Duke, before he was Duke. Was that when he first started thinking about killing his father and brothers?
“It made Bespaar nervous, and when he was nervous, our father was nervous. Bespaar knew too much about what his family argued over, how different their politics were. Your father should have been nervous too.”
“Who’s Bespaar?”
“The heir.”
I glanced around. The other smiths were out of earshot, the bellows and hammering drowning out anything we’d say.
“You mean Jeatar’s father?” It was a guess, a risk, but I needed to know who the man who should have been duke was.
Onderaan’s eyes widened. “Who told you?”
So it was true.
“No one. Jeatar has the Duke’s eyes and lots of money, and he keeps trying to help people without anyone knowing he’s doing it.” I’d figured that out not long after we’d left Baseer. “And I saw his burn scars when he pulled me out of the Luminary’s office. He was in Sorille when the Duke burned it, wasn’t he? Plus little things he’s said and done. It all filled the same bucket.”
Onderaan smiled at me the way Papa had when I’d done something well. “You have a way of seeing what no one else does.”
My face warmed and I looked away. It wasn’t anything special, just what you had to do to survive. “Does anyone else know?”
“Ouea. She’s been with his family since he was your age. A few others, loyal supporters of his father’s, but they’re all over the Territories now.”
“Causing rebellions?”
“Gathering support for when the time is right to move against the Duke.”
“But that’s now!”
He shook his head. “No, it isn’t. We have no army, no defensible base.”
“So we’ll tell everyone who Jeatar is and we’ll get their support. We build the army, we march back to Baseer and take over, save Tali, then free Geveg and Verlatta. It’s a good plan.”
Onderaan looked at me, a sad smile on his face. “Nya, that’s not a plan, it’s a wish.”
“Maybe not.”
We could do it. How hard could it be to raise an army? The Duke did it, and no one even liked him.
“Nya, one day we will stop the Duke, but not now.” Onderaan stood and looked around the room. “Let me get you what pynvium I can. No bricks, but I think there are some orbs left.”
“What about Jeatar?”
“I’ll tell him you’re leaving after you’ve gone. He won’t be happy about it, but he’ll understand. Once we get the refugees settled in Veilig, I’ll come meet you in Geveg.”
“How will I find you?”
He paused. “Be in Analov Park at sunset in six days. Right under Grandpa’s statue.”
We decided to leave at night. The man who’d attacked me still hadn’t been found, and we agreed it was safer to travel when no one was watching. Quenji found a horse and wagon – which I suspected Onderaan had something to do with by the way the wagon was stocked – and had it tucked away at the edge of the woods down the road.
“Why can’t we come with you?” Jovan asked. His twin brother, Bahari, had been the one asking all afternoon, but he’d given up. Or they were taking turns.
“Because it’s not safe,” Danello answered,