Out For Blood

Mother and Father are making the announcement tomorrow, but I don’t see the need for it. Everyone knows they will crown Darren. Angus has been very quiet lately. I hope he isn’t too upset; Commander of the Guards is an excellent position, and he’s much more a soldier than a diplomat.

The scars were itching again. Cara scoffed. Again. As if they ever stopped. When she’d woken up the day before, the searing, aching pain seemed to radiate through every inch of her body and she’d blacked out again instantly. She’d floated in and out of consciousness for hours, preferring the dark nothingness to the agony that came each time she opened her eyes.

Everything hurt. Just taking a breath caused her back to burn, and tugged at the scar that ran along her face, from her hairline above her ear to just beneath her chin. When the healers first offered her some herbs, she’d refused; nothing, she believed, was worth the acute pain she felt when she moved her jaw.

One woman managed to force some into her, though, and for that she was grateful. The herbs worked, and the pain was minimal. Now she just itched. The healers were threatening to cover her hands if she couldn’t refrain from scratching, but Cara dared them to go through with it. They warned her that scratching would make the scars worse, but she couldn’t care less how they looked.

Cara moved gingerly on the cushioned bed. Her head sunk deep into her pillow and she shifted, unaccustomed to such luxuries. She hadn’t had a bed so comfortable since she’d left home. Sleeping on hard rock, with a thin sheet and a pillow stuffed with straw, would have been unthinkable back in Starmont, the stuff of torture found in dungeons. In the Underground City, that was life, except in the infirmary. Cara and Leolin had traded a month’s worth of vegetables for the mattresses, and Leolin had grumbled, and grumbled more when a guard nearly caught them dragging one in through the exit nearest the river, but Cara understood now why the healers had insisted.

She yawned, then cursed herself for yawning. She hated being sedentary, and wished to the Wanderer that the healer would let her leave. For as long as she could remember, she’d been moving. As a little girl in the capital, she’d run errands for her parents around town, or she’d tailed Torrin or Isolde as they wandered. She’d been a common face in Starmont, and the townspeople would give her treats for delivering messages from one end of the city to the other.

That was a lifetime ago, though. Now, she had someone to deliver messages for her. She’d seen Leah once, the day before, as she lingered somewhere between awake and asleep. Cara wondered if the girl had any news for her. She probably did. There was lots of news to be heard. Of all the damn times to get injured… Her stupid brother.

Cara rolled over, her eyes scanning the infirmary, and propped herself up gently on her elbows. Even that small bit of movement took her breath away. This is why sick people are so weak, she decided. Because they’re kept in bed all the time. There were six beds in the infirmary, and never in the rebellion’s history had they all been filled. Her one companion, Moira, lay asleep in the bed directly across from her.

The healers were nowhere in sight. That didn’t mean they weren’t there; the flimsy curtains to her left hid their work station. They could be lurking behind, just waiting for an opportunity to stuff some new herb down her throat or spread something slimy on her face. She imagined them, all on their hands and knees, peeking beneath the curtain, watching for her bare feet to hit the ground, and she grimaced.

To her right was the exit. The door wasn’t even shut.

Carefully, Cara sat up fully, wincing but determined. She felt a tug at her back and told herself it was nothing, just an ache, not any of the stitches coming undone. She shivered when her feet touched the cold, smooth floor and wrapped her arms around her. Her clothes, she knew, were probably stuffed beneath the bed, but bending to retrieve them would tear the stitches for sure. The clothes were probably ruined anyway. Pity. She’d liked that shirt.

She took a small step and swayed on her feet. The room spun before her eyes and a wave of nausea washed over her so strong that she had no choice but to collapse back on the bed and double over. Something warm trickled down her back and she groaned. Resigned, she lay back down on her side, still clutching her stomach, squeezing her eyes shut and willing the sick feeling to go away.

“You okay?”

Cara groaned again. Of course he was here. She heard a faint scratching as he dragged a chair up beside her bed. “Spiffing,” she muttered.

Leolin laughed lightly. “You’ll have to dumb it down for me; I don’t speak Capital. Does that mean bad? Or were you swearing at me?” She opened her eyes to glare at him. “Ah. You’re fine.”

Cara scoffed. “You don’t speak Capital,” she mocked. “You’re more Capital than anyone who lives in that city.”

He pretended to look offended. Or maybe he really was. She couldn’t be sure. Leolin’s feelings towards Starmont and its inhabitants fluctuated daily. He was like a spurned lover who couldn’t decide whether or not he wanted to be taken back. Except, unlike Cara, he couldn’t be taken back. He’d never belonged to the city to begin with.

Cara had wondered before if theirs was a unique friendship, if there was even one other instance of a villager and capital citizen befriending one another during Angus’ reign. Intermingling of any sort was forbidden, her parents told her each week, before heading to the cathedral at the river junction. The river was the unofficial boundary in Donegal, between Starmont and everywhere else, separating the rich from the poor, yet everyone used the old cathedral there. They all attended on the same day, at the same time, and divided the cathedral right down the middle. Her friends and family would complain afterwards about having to share the cathedral with the commoners. The one time Cara had asked why they didn’t just build one of their own, no one answered her.

The cathedral was where she’d met Leolin. Or, at least, it was the reason they’d met. As a child, Cara had dreaded going to the cathedral. That week, she remembered, the service had been particularly dull; she’d fallen asleep more than once, only waking when Torrin tugged at her hair.

She’d been fourteen years old, and had chores to do, and she was angry with her mother for making her wear shoes that hurt her feet. Three-year-old Isolde had had a tantrum in the hallway after the service and Torrin was complaining that he was hungry. Their father had seen an old friend and wanted to stay, so their mother told Cara to take the kids home. She’d refused, crossed her arms and turned her back, and her mother had sighed and picked up Isolde, who was crying, and yelled to Torrin, who was running off, and Cara had simply walked away. She didn’t go right, back to Starmont, or left, into the villages, but kicked off her tight shoes and walked straight into the forest. No one even saw her leave.

She’d lingered on the outskirts of the trees, just out of sight. She hadn’t really wanted to go in. One of boys from the city told stories about creatures as tall as the trees and as thin as a blade of grass that stole the shadows of people who ventured too far into the forest. Cara didn’t believe him, but there were miphlers somewhere in there.

From her hiding place in the bushes, she’d watched as her mother shushed the still crying Isolde and made her way back to the capital. Torrin lagged behind, looking around, until Mother turned around and urged him on. Cara sat there, dragging her feet back and forth in the dirt, not sure whether to be angry, hurt, or offended that they’d gone on without noticing her absence. I won’t go home, she’d thought. Not until morning.

As she moved deeper into the forest, though, she realized that she might not go home ever. The sun was fading fast, and suddenly the tree seemed to grow thicker and taller, all so similar that she’d wondered if she was walking in circles. Cara stumbled over roots and rocks, and wished that she hadn’t kicked off her shoes. Then something had touched her arm.

She’d reeled instinctively and lashed out, punching whatever it was that had come near her. That was her first glimpse of Leolin: him stumbling back, clutching a bloody nose. As he cursed, wiping the blood on his sleeve, she’d taken a moment to study him. Even slouching, he towered over her, and the stubble along his chin told her that he was a few years older too. His brown hair was long back then, nearly brushing his chin before she cut it. He was covered in dirt, dressed like a villager in a simple white shirt and brown trousers, his huge boots the only item out of the ordinary. He was handsome, she’d thought, more handsome than any of the boys in the capital, and she’d blushed when he caught her staring.

He’d laughed. “Well, there’s a nice ego check. I came here thinking I was going to be a big hero, pulling you out of the woods, and you deck me. Geez,” he’d wiped more blood from his nose but it kept coming. “You’ve got a good arm for a ten-year-old.”

“I’m fourteen,” she’d told him defensively. “I’m just short.”

“Yeah, you are,” he agreed. “Where are your shoes?”

She shrugged, trying to seem mature. “They were bothering me. I like yours better.”

“Do you? I can get you a pair. My neighbor’s a cobbler; he made them.”

She’d followed him back to his village, and met the cobbler who fitted her for a pair of sturdy boots. “I can’t wear them home. My parents would ask questions,” she told Leolin inside his house, as his mother prepared a simple supper of beet stew and rye bread. He’d raised an eyebrow and she’d blanched. “I’m…I’m from the city.”

Leolin scowled. Although she later knew this to be an instinctual reaction whenever the capital was mentioned, at the time, Cara found herself inexplicably terrified that this near-stranger would reject her.

“I know that,” he’d grumbled. “I’ve seen you in the cathedral.” Cara didn’t respond. “Leave them in the woods. In the bushes. Or with me, and I’ll bring them next week.”

“Why would I need them next week?”

“Because I’m sick of exploring the woods on my own, and anyone crazy enough to wander in there alone without shoes on is probably crazy enough to go back.” He’d cocked his head at her, a challenge in his eyes. “Don’t you get bored?”

Cara blinked. “I…” She was never idle. She helped her mother at work, though she was no good with needles and loathed dresses. She tended to Isolde day after day as the child picked flowers outside the gates, beneath the watchful eyes of the guards. Every night she searched for Torrin, who ran around the city doing Wanderer knew what, and usually ended up on a rooftop or in a sewage pipe or a feeding trough.

Sometimes she joined the town boys when they sparred with sticks, pretending to be knights, but they didn’t like it when she played because she beat them. Other times she’d listen to the girls gossip about the latest castle ball but Cait and Senga had been angry with her since she’d told them that they were more likely to end up carrying dishes in the castle basement than marrying any of the visiting princes. That was fine. Cara didn’t care much for their daydreams.

“I’ll meet you in the woods,” she said, and he’d nodded.

Weekly cathedral services, once the most dreaded hour of her week, were suddenly the most highly anticipated. Cara would stand on her tiptoes and search for her new friend across the room, making faces at him once she found him in the crowd and sneaking away afterwards to scour a new section of the Clearapple Woods. She always had an excuse ready for her parents, and Leolin always had her boots waiting for her in the bushes.

They’d found the city entrance together. It wasn’t in the woods, but in the fields near his village, where they’d gone to pick sugar canes for her brother and sister. Cara and Leolin had been racing, and she’d stumbled, her knees banging up against a wooden plank buried beneath the dirt. He dropped through the entrance first, and helped her because her feet didn’t reach the ground. She’d missed supper that day. Her parents had been furious, she remembered, but she’d smiled through their lecture. She’d found a secret labyrinth beneath the ground, and nothing could spoil that.

Too impatient to wait a week, Cara began sneaking out of the capital. She’d loosen stones in the gate and crawl through after her parents were asleep. Leolin would meet her at the river juncture, and together they’d spend hours wandering the underground city, making maps and slowly building up a storage of food and supplies. They explored the city nightly for weeks. It was Cara who suggested hiding villagers in the caves. It was Leolin who wanted to start a revolt.

It had been eight years. Cara blinked, her eyes flickering to his big, ugly boots, then back up to his face.

“Seriously, though, how are you doing?” Cara scowled at the pity in his voice and avoided his eyes. He’d been in and out of the infirmary since he’d carried her down there after the attack. The healers tried to keep him out, but he wouldn’t listen. Apparently he’d refused to leave even as they stitched her up, and she cringed at the thought of him standing there as she bled out on the bed, unconscious.

“I’m fine, Leolin.” She pushed herself up just to show him how fine she was, and he frowned. He looked pointedly at the spot she’d just risen from, and Cara followed his gaze. The white cushions were speckled lightly in blood. Wanderer, the healers would give her hell for tearing another stitch.

His eyes returned to her face. No. To her scars. “You should be more careful,” he said. He reached out and lightly ran his fingers over her bandaged cheek.

She shook him off. “You sound like the healers. Did they send you here to spy on me?”

His hand stayed raised, a few inches from her face. “Your spy fascination is a little disconcerting,” he said without a smile. “Should I get the healers for your back?”

“No!” She threw her hand up in exasperation and received a stab of pain as reward for her theatrics. “I want out of this damn infirmary. Too much is happening right now for me to be lying here useless. Do you have any new reports from the castle? What about Mallygar – have they officially they declared with Tunway and Cigoc yet? When are–”

He shook his head, his voice level. “You’ll be informed, Cara. On everything. But you don’t need to worry about that right-”

“Don’t do that,” she snapped, her eyes narrowing. This was the logical Leolin, the Just Trust Me, I’m In Charge Leolin. She hated that Leolin. “Don’t treat me like an invalid.”

He sighed and looked at one of the empty beds. “Remember when we found this room, and I wanted it to be the dining hall?”

She rolled her eyes. “Because we found some food stashed in here.”

“Good thing I listened to you, huh? We’d never get everyone fed in this place.” He ran a hand over his face and sighed. “I never dreamed the rebellion would get so big.”

“Yes, you did.”

His lips twitched. “Okay, yeah, I did.” He drummed his fingers together, then said, “Tomorrow.”

“What?”

“You were going to ask when we leave for Halifax. Tomorrow. We’ve postponed the mission long enough; it would be reckless to wait any longer.”

Cara felt her stomach drop. “Right,” she said. “I’ll talk to the healers and-”

“You’re not coming, Cara,” he interrupted.

Her mouth went dry. “Excuse me?”

“You were attacked by a miphler three days ago. You can’t move without ripping open your back. You have to stay in the City.”

“The hell I do.” She made a move to rise from her bed, but Leolin placed a hand on her shoulder. She jerked away. “You can’t make decisions like that, Leolin. We’re a team. If you want to discuss delaying the mission, then-“

“We can’t delay the mission, and you know it,” he snapped. “We have a limited amount of time before Halifax is approached with a better offer than an undermanned, undersupplied, and underfed rebellion, and we can’t wait for you to heal. This isn’t my call, Cara; the healers-“

“The healers don’t know what’s at stake! I can make the journey, Leolin, you know I can.”

Leolin shook his head, his eyes full of pity once more. He made a move to take her hand, hesitated, and changed his mind. “Cara…”

Her face hardened. “Who’s going?” She asked. She kept her voice professional, her tone curt, even though she knew he didn’t want to talk as leaders of the rebellion right now.

Leolin leaned back in his chair. “Essentially the same core group. Neva. Kean. Kearney. I’ve asked Lili to go in your place.”

“And you and Evelyn,” Cara added bitterly.

“And me and Evelyn.”

Cara could hardly disagree with the group, especially since she’d handpicked most of the members with him. She didn’t worry about Leolin; he knew Halifax almost as well as he knew Donegal, and was second only to Carrell as a swordsman. Neva may have seemed an unusual choice, given that she was only a messenger, but she was deadly with a bow and arrow and the best tracker Cara had ever met. Kean ran missions above ground regularly. Kearney was a guard, and muscle was never undesirable. He had served as a member of Angus’ royal guard before joining the rebellion and knew the terrain as well as several guards in Halifax. Lili…Cara held her tongue. Lili’s in intelligence. They need someone like her with them.

“I still don’t understand why you’re bringing her along,” Cara muttered.

“Because we’re going to Halifax. It’s convenient.”

“It’s not convenient,” Cara retorted. “Leolin, this is a diplomatic mission. If you want Dilys to meet her, take her separately; the trip is shorter. Dragging her through the entire country… It’s reckless, and it doesn’t make much sense.”

“I didn’t realize you were so concerned for Evelyn’s safety.”

“I didn’t realize you weren’t.” She cleared her throat. “If for no other reason, it’s risky to bring her to the meeting with the Holts. A strange girl who’s not from here…who knows what she could say, or do. Her presence could jeopardize a potential alliance.”

Leolin smiled to himself, as if he knew something she didn’t. “It won’t.” She didn’t reply. “Trust me.”

“You keep saying that.”

The look of disgust on Evelyn’s face when she’d confronted them about the prisoner exchange haunted Cara. The second time she confronted us, Cara remembered. The time she had proof that we’d lied. For a girl who spent most of her time with her nose in a book, she’d looked awfully dangerous that morning. Or maybe it was just her words that had hurt, when sh’de called them liars, and said she didn’t believe them anymore, because Cara knew that she was right.

Thinking about the prisoner exchange only made her feel worse. She still didn’t quite understand it. Leolin’s reasoning, usually so sound, had been flimsy.

“We need to get Moira back,” he’d insisted. “Velius isn’t giving us any information we don’t already have.”

“Because we’ve hardly spoken to him!” Cara had argued. “How are you going to send this girl back to her home if he doesn’t tell us?”

“We don’t need Velius to get her back,” Leolin assured her. “We’ve got Dilys.”

Maybe he was right. If that were true, though, she didn’t know why they’d needed to lie to Evelyn about the exchange.

Or about the necklace. She knew Leolin hadn’t found it on the ground, as he’d told Evelyn; she’d seen him take it from Velius after they’d apprehended the man. When he’d lied to Evelyn, he’d also to lied to Cara, and he didn’t know that Cara knew.

She guessed he was lying about more. Every time they spoke about Evelyn, something in his entire demeanor changed, and Cara knew that, for once, she was being kept out of the loop. That stung more than she cared to admit.

Leolin stretched his arms above his head and she heard his shoulders pop. He grimaced a little. He needed to get out of the City; they both did. It was tearing her apart that he would be above ground in less than a day and she’d still be stuck in this bed, however comfortable it might be. “I thought you’d be pleased she’s leaving,” he said. “It separates her and Torrin for a bit.”

He practically spit out her brother’s name and she glared. Apparently Leolin’s fury hadn’t diminished since she’d seen him last. Torrin was lucky that Leolin had been distracted by her injury that first day, otherwise he might have hunted her brother down while she was unconscious. Anyone else might have been cast out of the rebellion for all the trouble Torrin had caused, and it was all Cara could do to keep him out of gaol. In the end, his punishment was ration cuts, which was no punishment at all given Torrin’s friendliness with the cooks.

That, and Evelyn was still leaving. It’s not meant to hurt him, but he’ll be angry with me all the same. “Because nothing makes me happier than upsetting my brother,” she snapped.

Leolin’s mouth tightened to a hard line. “That’s not what I meant,” he said. “They’ve gotten close, though, and she won’t be staying forever.”

“Won’t she?” Cara asked.

Leolin opened his mouth to argue, but then shook her head. “I don’t want to get into this right now.” He sighed. “I do feel bad about breaking them apart, Cara. It’s hard, when you care about someone like that…” His eyes softened and he started, very slowly, to reach out again.

She stiffened, and slipped her hand beneath the blanket. “Is there anything I should be aware of that I’ve missed while I’ve been out? Before you go?”

Leolin winced slightly. “No. There have been no major developments on any front. Leah is up-to-date on everything. Except,” he hesitated. “There’s an incident going on in Sunhaven. I’m not sure if it’s settled or not, but if a message arrives, just tell them that nothing has changed on our end.”

“What’s happening?” Cara asked, leaning back gently onto the pillows behind her. The herbs were wearing off, and the pain was starting to overtake the itchiness again.

“Just some personnel issues. Keep quiet about it, though – there are a few people from Sunhaven down here, I think…uh…”

“Declan, Tad, Glenna, and Keefe,” Cara provided. Her cheek stung when she spoke.

“Right. They have family up there; don’t want to worry them.”

“Nothing has changed on our end. Got it.” She nodded and closed her eyes.

Leolin’s chair scratched across the floor as he stood. “I’ll come say goodbye before we leave.”

“Might as well say it now,” she said. “It’s a bit of a walk just to say goodbye.”

He was quiet. Then, “I’ll come say goodbye before we leave.”