Floodpath Read online

  Without thinking, I fling the twisted pile of dry yucca fibers. Lark cuts her gaze away to watch the shapeless bundle land on her nearly-dead pile of ashy tinder. The cabin of sticks collapses. A tiny tongue of flames shoots up and licks the yucca, and then my doomed coil bursts into flames. The surrounding sticks flare with light.

  We watch the growing fire for a moment.

  “It was about to die,” I say, feeling absurdly as if I have to offer an excuse.

  Lark grunts, and feeds a few sticks into the fire. “At least it was good for something.”

  Lark

  Early in the morning, the water scrape is not particularly dry. The drooping yellow grasses are thick with dew, soaking us up to our knees. We use our handkerchiefs to sop up water from the stems as we walk before wringing them into our mouths. Mine consistently tastes like dirt and sweat, but I expect Veran’s tastes like blade polish. He doesn’t seem to care, though—he was absolutely delighted by this innovative water-harvesting technique, one that Rose and I used to do every morning when the cows had mucked up the river.

  Rose . . .

  I’m empty inside—the billowing anger that fueled me yesterday is all dried up, and I can’t summon the energy to feel much of anything. I just want to get across the water scrape, though I don’t know what I plan to do on the far side. I could easily leave Veran to find Tamsin and Iano himself, and I do want to meet back up with my campmates as soon as possible. But a trip clear across the Ferinno is going to take planning, supplies, transport—things I’m going to have to steal or work to earn, made fifty times harder by the fact that Pasul and the road are now crawling with soldiers looking precisely for us.

  I’m tired.

  We’ve said nothing since breakfast, which was more purslane and a few wild rosehips. My deadfall traps were all empty, but it’s a mixed blessing—game would have meant hanging around to skin, clean, and cook it, and we’d have lost the cool morning. Instead we walk, occasionally scaring grouse into flight. Pronghorn lift their heads, watching our progress from under their stubby black horns. A ferret summits a rock to scream angrily at our invasion of its intense privacy. A dry breeze wicks the sweat off my skin, already stealing my water.

  I’m not sure what we’ll do come the afternoon. Anyone used to traveling the Ferinno knows the desert is at its most dangerous past noon, and doubly so if you happen to be without water, food, and shade. Heat, dehydration, sun blindness, thunderstorms, rattlesnakes . . . normally it’s not worth the risk. But I hate the thought of all that time slipping by with no progress to show for it, lengthening the days we’ll be stuck out here. Traveling at night has its own problems. Even with moonlight, the ground becomes a treacherous maze—a bad step and a sprained ankle could doom us out here.

  Death by sun? Death by moon? I can’t decide which one to risk.

  I’m conflicted, too, about how quickly to move. So far, I’ve been walking in front of Veran, with Rat loping along between us. I’d like to take off, space out, put the sun over my left shoulder and just fall into a stride. But I worry too much about leaving Veran behind. What if he collapses, and I don’t realize it? What if he calls out, and I’m too far away to hear? For the hundredth time, I muse bitterly on the fact that he’s somehow made me hate him and care about his well-being at the same time. I strike an unsatisfactory balance—walking just far ahead and fast enough to discourage casual conversation, but close enough that I’ll hear if he falls into the crackling grass.

  Because I don’t trust that he’s going to keep his silence, if given the chance. I don’t trust that he won’t start spouting stories and snippets that keep nudging my hazy brain. I don’t trust that he’s not going to hide that knowing smirk when I drop some thoughtless phrase, as if my words are an insight into who he thinks I am.

  The morning crawls on.

  I focus on water. The thunderstorm that roared through Pasul and the southern route toward Three Lines two nights ago must not have stretched this far. The grasses are shriveled and bent—these are the dog days of summer. As August wears on into September, the rains will come back, but for now, the sky is bright and bold with lack of moisture. I alter our course now and then to weave toward low dips where brushy thickets of catclaw and greasewood stand out dark against the grass, but they’re hardly productive. We find one rock shaded by yucca that has a little collection of dew in a crack—I point it out to Veran.

  “If you lie down, you can sip some of that up.”

  He crouches down. “What about you?”

  “There’s a little more over here.” It’s mostly just a damp patch in the rock, nothing I can drink. I pull Rat down toward it, and he licks the rock. I use my bandanna instead to sop up the last bits of dew held in the spines of the yucca. It amounts to only a few drips.

  Veran sits back on his heels, wiping his mouth. “Better than nothing, I guess. Did you get enough?”

  “No,” I say.

  “No,” he agrees. He looks up at the sky. “How far do you suppose we’ve come?”

  “I don’t know, a few miles.”

  “And this whole place—it’s just more of the same?”

  “Not as glamorous as you thought?”

  He frowns. “I never expected it to be glamorous. I’m just wondering how we know what kind of progress we’re making.”

  I look northwest across the flats. “The land will rise for a while, and then this afternoon we’ll get into some of the boulder fields. We can climb some to try to find pockets, but they don’t hold onto water like the ridges farther south. Eventually we’ll be able to see the River Tell to the north.”

  He looks back down at me. “There’s a river?”

  “Two dozen miles north, out of the way. It forms a wash you can see from a distance.”

  “But we’re heading north—I mean, eventually. Why go west and then north fifty miles if there’s water twenty miles away?”

  “Most folk are trying to get to Pasul.”

  “Well yeah, if you’re in a carriage. But we’re not, Lark. Why are we staying south of the river? Wouldn’t it be smarter to cut toward it and follow it into Moqouia? That cuts the distance without water in half.”

  “Because we can’t. Come on, let’s keep going.”

  But he doesn’t get up. He squints at me. “No, you’ve piqued my curiosity now. Why would Lark the Sunshield Bandit, expert desert survivalist, not want to head toward ready water?”

  I flick my right arm—the hem of my sleeve twitches up my wrist, over the circular brand.

  “Take a wild guess,” I snap.

  His face changes, his eyebrows sliding upward. “Oh, the River Tell. Which, obviously, is the location of Tellman’s Ditch. Where you spent—how many years as a slave?”

  “Before you get all soppy and sympathetic,” I say, “let me explain this isn’t about bad memories. It’s a dangerous route to take if you’re not a slaver. The quarry spans almost a mile along the river, and the rest of the way upstream to Moquoia is lined with mule tracks for the barge tows. It’s not a river we could just walk along. If we were to cut north now, we’d hit the Tell downstream of the quarry, where it’s just slurry and sludge. Upstream we’ll run into the biggest slaving operation outside Tolukum Palace. Make sense?”

  “Perfect sense,” he says.

  “Good,” I say, turning away.

  “Mules, though,” he says.

  I roll my eyes and turn back to the west. “Come on.”

  I don’t miss his sigh, but I ignore it and continue out into the scratchy grass.

  The sun climbs. The air hazes with the buzzing of grasshoppers and drumming of grouse. Rat catches a ground squirrel. We eat some of the purslane in Veran’s belt, sucking the green liquid out of the leaves. We find a small barrel cactus—with some difficulty I cut through the tough rind and show Veran how to put the pulp in his bandanna and wring the juice out of it. Our short knives aren’t suited for the task, though, and I can get only so much out without earning a hand full of spines
. I wring out a final trickle into my mouth and pass it to Veran.

  “Finish it,” I say.

  “Did you get enough?”

  “No. Stop asking that question, it’s a stupid question.”

  “I just want to be sure you’re taking enough.”

  “I am. More, though, I don’t want you to keel over. I don’t feel like carrying you.” I glance out at the western sky—the sun is just starting to edge beyond its peak overhead. Soon it will be hanging in front of us. “On that note, here.”

  While he drinks the rest of the liquid in the cactus pulp, I shake out my grubby bandanna. I fold it in half and lift it toward his head.

  “What are you doing?” he asks.

  “Hold still. The sun’s going to be in front of us soon. If you cover your forehead and pull it down over your eyebrows, it’ll give you a little bit of shade.”

  He waits while I tie it behind his head. “If I didn’t know any better, it would feel like you’re watching out for me.”

  “I told you, I don’t want to carry you.”

  “How far to the River Tell? Fifteen miles?”

  “What does it matter?” I ask.

  He shrugs. “Just curious.”

  I’m not in the mood for his jokes, and I don’t feel like thinking about Tellman’s Ditch getting nearer. I hitch up my sleeve again. “Listen. You know about the slavers’ brand?”

  His face becomes guarded, and his gaze flicks from my wrist back up to my face. “The concentric circle?”

  “That’s the incomplete brand. When your bond is up, they set a vertical line through the circles to show you’re done and not, say, a runaway. Guess what I don’t have?”

  He looks again at my wrist, where the tattoo of my longsword punctures the scarred circles, a make-believe release line.

  “It’s not a curiosity, Veran,” I say. “If we went poking around the river and were caught, and they saw my incomplete brand, guess where I get to go? And if you think any of your notions about who I really am would matter at all . . .”

  He tosses up his hands. “I didn’t say anything.”

  “No, but you were thinking it.”

  “Not until you brought it up.”

  “Like being related to the right people is all it takes to be above the system.” My fists clench. “Like having an imaginary title before your name gets you out of anything and everything.”

  “Don’t get mad, Lark,” he says, spreading his arms. “You’re getting mad at me for something I didn’t say—something I didn’t even think. You’re just . . . mad.”

  “I’m just mad,” I repeat, enjoying the kick of emotional energy I had yesterday. My head blurs with the beginnings of a headache. “I’m mad at you.”

  “But I didn’t do anything. I mean—I know!” He waves emphatically. “I know I made mistakes, all right? Believe me, I know. But you’re acting like I schemed this whole thing, like I purposefully fooled you into trusting me so I could toss you into the arms of your emotional long-lost father and deathly ill twin sister. I didn’t know, okay, Lark? I wish you’d stop treating me like I’m out to intentionally ruin your life. I didn’t know you’re Moira.”

  I hate—I hate—hearing that name. It stings more and more each time I hear it, a scar reopened and then prodded over and over. I turn on my heel, digging up a clump of sod, and storm away from him. He calls after me, but I don’t stop. Screw staying close together—he can keep pace for all I care. Rat springs after me, his tongue lolling from his mouth. Around us, the grasslands shimmer.

  I know Veran’s following me because he calls out every so often, his voice indignant and distant. I don’t slow down. The land slopes gently uphill, forcing me to swing my arms to keep my fast pace. The sun edges downward, burning with full force on my unshaded forehead and cheeks. I consider stripping off my vest and fixing it around my head, but I’m in a stride now. I don’t want to stop, driven by anger that started out feeling justified but now just feels mean.

  I’m mean, I’m heartless. I’m stupid.

  My head hurts.

  When did I last have a drink?

  The trickles from this morning don’t count.

  The water pocket yesterday, back home in Three Lines. But it wasn’t a long drink, tailed by those Moquoian soldiers. And before that, there was the race from Pasul, and the race to Pasul, and the swordfight that killed Dirtwater Dob, and the fight before that wrenched my shoulder, and the burning building in Utzibor—Rose—and carrying Veran down the sandstone ridge before summiting again to fetch more water—there. The water pocket on top of the sandstone ridge, just before he collapsed in a seizure. That was a good drink—cold water, clean water, no cows, no dirt.

  The sky’s too bright—the grass is too bright. The sun is straight ahead, white and wide.

  I lift my hands, aiming to clamp them over my eyes and stumble on blind, just for some relief, but I’m surprised by how heavy they are. Lifting them from my waist takes a huge amount of effort, and once I get them up, I can’t hold them there—they drop like cast iron back toward the ground.

  I’ve felt this before, just before that juniper tree not so very far from here, when I crawled through the sawgrass away from the slave wagon, when I walked, and walked, and walked with an unfinished circle burned on my arm . . .

  The sun bleeds into the sky.

  The grass turns white.

  I tilt and disappear.

  Tamsin

  I love my friend Soe Urkett for a lot of reasons—not the least of which was how we kept each other sane when we realized what we’d gotten ourselves into working for the black-market slavers—but I don’t think I ever fully appreciated her unflappability before. When she opens the door and sees the prince of Moquoia and me—swaying and nearly unrecognizable—on her doorstep, she doesn’t gawk or exclaim. After quickly securing our horses’ reins to her front porch, she clamps a hand on both of our shoulders, steers us inside her cabin, and practically pushes us into seats at her kitchen table.

  The deep, nutty aroma of toasted walnuts envelops us. When Soe and I worked for the slavers, she was the cook, but now she makes her money pressing oils and wines. She has the only three presses in Giantess Township, and her days are filled with crushing salal berries for tul and walnuts for oil. A basket of half-hulled nuts sits on the kitchen table; she sweeps it aside as I sit down.

  “I knew it wasn’t true,” she says, slamming her hands on the tabletop. Her long black braid swings over her shoulder, the curly ends brushing the wood. “I knew the rumors were wrong. I had my doubts when I heard all the fuss about the bandit attack out by Vittenta, but when people started throwing around news that the prince had defected, I knew you’d never died, Tamsin.”

  “They’re saying I’ve defected?” Iano asks, taken aback. “To whom? The East?”

  “That’s just one of the stories in town,” she says. “I heard it last week. I’m Soe.”

  “Iano,” he says.

  She nods and pushes back from the table. “How do you take your tea?”

  “Uh, strong, please.”

  As she turns to a cupboard, Iano looks at me. I gesture pointedly at Soe’s back.

  He clears his throat. “Soe, before we start on anything, you should know—Tamsin was attacked outside Vittenta. They cut her tongue. She’s having some difficulty speaking.”

  Soe stops rummaging in the cupboard. The clatter of crockery goes silent. Slowly, she turns, a glazed mug in each hand, and fixes her gaze on me. Her eyes are two different colors—one dark brown, like mine, the other a pale, crystalline blue, her iris startling in comparison. I rest my cheek resignedly against my fist, returning her look.

  Without warning, she slams the two mugs down on the table. Iano and I both jump, my fist dropping in surprise. Flinging a dish towel over her shoulder, she rounds the table and puts her thumb on my chin. I tilt it at her touch and open my mouth.

  When Iano first saw, there was only anguish in his face. But Soe’s tightens with anger
, her lips pursing in a close-lipped snarl. Her thumb remains gentle on my chin, however, her fingers soft. When she speaks, her voice is quiet.

  “Tamsin with the words,” she says, tilting my face a little more toward the lantern light. “Tamsin with the lyrics, Tamsin with the voice. Tamsin with all the answers to all the world’s problems. Oh, my friend.”

  Maybe I was too tired to cry when I first reunited with Iano, or maybe I just let his own tears stand in for mine, but under her gaze, faced with this burst of genuine anger on my behalf, my eyes begin to burn. A string of memories I thought I’d forgotten trickles back—us together in the little room over the warehouse where the illegal slave ring had operated, the click of the lock every night. Soe’s stoic tenacity when we realized we had essentially signed ourselves up for three months of voluntary prison. Her cajoling me into reciting poetry or passages from the texts I used to copy to pass the brief time we spent not working. Her showing me the fingerings on her dulcimer with the thought that it might stretch my arthritic scribe’s wrist. Her feigning interest when I went on one of my political tirades, me storming around the tiny room, she musing over a deck of cards, encouraging me with an occasional “mm-hm.”

  I blink, and a tear rolls down my cheek. She brushes it away and cups my chin, easing my mouth closed. She kisses the top of my fuzzy head. With a sigh, she releases me and goes back to making tea.

  “Fill me in on the story later, if you want,” she says. “For now I’m more interested in the present.” She opens the window and draws a jar of milk out of the water bucket on the sill. “What is going on up at the palace, why have you arrived on my particular doorstep, and what exactly are we doing about it?”

  Iano looks sideways at me. I wipe away my tears and wave at him to go ahead. I’m hardly going to sit and write out responses all night.

  “Unfortunately, we don’t have many answers,” he says. “Tamsin was attacked outside Vittenta back in July and held captive by two unfamiliar guards out in the Ferinno Desert. One of them was a Hire—she had the tattoo.”