I followed the others to the farmhouse, fresh dread churning my stomach.
* * *
Ellis and Copli took the thieves to the barracks. The rest of us went to the room Jeatar had set aside for an infirmary. We’d had more Healers when we’d fled Baseer, but most of them had left, returning to their families or just running further away to where the Duke couldn’t get them again. Only two remained – Lanelle and Tussen. I’d saved both from the Duke and his weapon.
Lanelle was on duty. Aylin immediately turned around.
“We’ll meet you after, OK?” she said, dragging Quenji out.
Lanelle looked hurt for a moment but covered it fast. I couldn’t blame Aylin for not wanting to be here. I’d have preferred it if Tussen had been on today. Lanelle had helped the Duke with his experiments, “taking care” of Tali and the other apprentices who’d been locked in the spire room and filled with pain.
Lanelle had been part of his next experiment, too, but this time as a victim, one of the Takers he’d chained to the weapon. It had surprised me when she’d volunteered to stay on the farm and help heal the refugees, but she probably didn’t have anywhere else to go.
“Is that your blood?” she asked, rising from a chair. She set down the book she’d been reading.
“No, a guard got stabbed in one of the camps.”
“He’s OK?”
“Yes.”
She glanced at Danello, standing stone-still behind me, then held out her hands. I took them. A faint tingle ran up my arms and swirled around my middle, and the pain was gone.
Lanelle made a face. “More than just a stabbing. You could have warned me.”
“Sorry, it was only a few flashes.”
She walked over to a cabinet and pulled a key from around her neck. “To you maybe, but for us regular Healers, that hurts just the same.” She unlocked the cabinet and pulled out a battlefield brick of pynvium. Pure metal, and worth a lot more than anything those aristocrats had in their camp.
She placed one hand on it, pushing the pain into the metal. She usually gave me a sly grin when she did it, taunting me that she could sense pynvium when I couldn’t, but not today. Maybe she was finally getting bored with it. I might not be a “regular Healer”, but that didn’t bother me nearly as much as it once had.
“There are some folks hurt in the outer camp,” I said. Probably some in Little ’Crat City, too, but I wasn’t worried about them. They’d march right up to the farmhouse and demand healing if they needed it. “They might need some looking after.”
Lanelle nodded. “I’ll head over when Tussen comes in.”
“Make sure you take some guards.”
“Always do.” She put the pynvium brick back into its cabinet and relocked it. “You hear about Geveg?”
She couldn’t mean the Gov-Gen. Jeatar hadn’t confirmed that, and even if he had, I doubt he’d tell Lanelle about it. “Hear what?”
“They’re chasing out the Baseeri.” She shrugged. “At least, that’s what I heard.”
“From who?” Danello asked. He sounded suspicious.
“People in the camps. They do talk to me, you know.”
“There’s a lot of talk in the camps,” I said, “but you can’t believe half of it.” Still, if Gevegians really were chasing the Baseeri out, maybe the Gov-Gen rumour was true.
Lanelle huffed. “All I know is that there’s a lot of homeless Baseeri around, and not all of them are from Baseer. They want to go home as badly as we do.”
Strange to hear Lanelle say she wanted to go home.
“Anyway,” she said, rubbing her eyes. I hadn’t noticed the circles under them before. “I’ll take care of the people in the camps.”
“Thanks.” We left Lanelle alone in a room of cots. I shivered, picturing the last room she’d overseen. The cots there had all been occupied. A room filled with suffering.
I sighed. “When did everything go so wrong?”
Danello paused. “The day you helped me.”
“What?” Did he blame me?
“No! I didn’t mean it like that,” he said quickly. “It wasn’t you, it was just that day. The ferry accident. All those people hurt. That’s when it started.”
I exhaled, but my heart was still racing. “OK. That’s when we found out about the Duke’s experiments, but you know, I think it started before that.” I looked at him, and understanding flickered in his eyes. Sadness, too.
“Five years.”
I nodded. “Five years.”
When the Duke took over and invaded our homes. And until he was gone, nothing would ever be right again.
“Nya,” Aylin whispered sometime in the hours before dawn. “You awake?”
“Yes.” The wind had woken me a while back, gusting against the farmhouse like waves on rocks. No forests or mountains to stop it, I guess. Just open farmland.
I missed waves. And water. The caw of lake gulls riding the wind.
Aylin shook me. “Are you listening?”
“I’m sorry. What?”
She blew out a sigh. “I asked how long you were going to look for Tali.”
“Until I find her.”
“What if you don’t?”
I didn’t want to think about that. Or talk about it. Silence stretched in the darkness.
“I’m not trying to be heartless or anything,” she continued, “but if the rumours are true, if Geveg belongs to Gevegians again, well, going home would be a good thing, wouldn’t it?”
I swallowed, but my mouth was dry. “Yes.”
“And I know Danello wants to, though he’d never tell you that. He worries about his father. So do Halima and the twins. They really miss him.”
“Maybe you should go without me.” It hurt to say, but how could I keep them all here, knowing they wanted to go home?
She snorted and thumped me on the arm. “I’m not saying that. I’m just saying, maybe you should start thinking of ways to find Tali that don’t involve putting yourself in danger all the time.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. Hire a tracker? I hear Vyand is good.”
I swatted her with my pillow. “Aylin! How could you even suggest—”
Something thunked against the outside wall, harder than just wind. Aylin popped up.
“What was that?” she whispered.
I slipped out of bed, careful not to rustle the covers or squeak the frame. Jeatar had good furniture, so it rarely made a sound. I was equally quiet on the carpet as I made my way to the balcony doors.
Another thunk, then scraping like metal on wood.
I tugged back the curtains just enough to peek out. Moonlight lit the balcony, reflecting off… a grappling hook?
A hand slapped the railing, then a leg. I turned to Aylin.
“Someone’s there,” I said. “Get out of—”
Glass shattered behind me, then hot pain pierced my back.