The kicks kept coming, landing on his back and arms and head. They came from everywhere. Perry felt them dimly, shadows of pain. He didn’t stop Braids. This was the easy way. Staying down. Perry’s head rocked forward as a kick came from behind. The blackness came again, softening the edges of his vision. He willed it to come. Maybe it would make more sense if he felt on the surface as he did inside.
“You’re weak.”
He was wrong. Perry wasn’t weak. That had never been the problem. The problem was that he couldn’t help them all. No matter what he did, people he loved would still suffer and die and leave. But Perry couldn’t do it. He couldn’t stay down. He didn’t know how to give up.
He swept his legs beneath him and sprang to his feet. Braids leaped back at his sudden movement, jumping out of the way, but Perry caught him by the collar. He yanked Braids toward him, the movement whipping his head backward. Perry jammed his elbow into his nose. Blood burst from his nostrils. Perry twisted the blade from Braids’s grip, dodging a punch and driving a fist into his stomach. Braids folded, dropping onto one knee. Perry wrapped an arm around his neck and wrestled him to the dirt.
Perry snatched up the serrated blade from the ground and laid it against the man’s throat. Braids stared up at him, blood pouring from his nose. Perry knew this was the moment he should demand an oath. Pledge to me or die.
He inhaled deeply. Braids’s temper was red fury, all directed at Perry. He’d never submit. Braids would choose death, just as he’d have done.
“You owe me a bottle of Luster,” Perry said.
Then he stood, reeling. The other men had gathered around. He breathed in their tempers, the scents both right and wrong. He looked for the next man who might challenge him. No one came forward.
A sudden twist in his gut had him vomiting right there in front of them. He held on to the knife in case any of them wanted to take a shot while he was heaving, like Braids had. They didn’t. Everything came up at once. He straightened.
“Probably don’t need any more Luster.”
He tossed the knife aside and stumbled into the darkness. He didn’t know where he was going. It didn’t matter.
He wanted to hear her voice. He wanted to hear her tell him he was good. All he heard was the sound of his feet chasing the dark.
Morning came. His head felt like a door slammed closed on it, over and over. His body felt worse. Perry peeled off the shoddy dressing he’d tied around his arm. The cut was jagged and deep. Perry washed it, growing light-headed as it bled freshly.
He ripped a strip off his shirt and tried to bandage it again. His fingers were too shaky. Still too clumsy with drink. He lay back on the gravel and closed his eyes because it was too bright. Because darkness was better.
He woke to a tugging on his arm and shot upright. Braids crouched beside him. His nose was swollen, his eyes red with bruising. The other men stood behind him.
Perry looked down at his arm. The wound was well bandaged, tied off neatly.
“You didn’t ask me to pledge to you,” Braids said.
“You’d have said no.”
Braids nodded once. “I would have.” He took Talon’s knife from his belt and held it out. “I’m guessing you want this back.”
Chapter 43
ARIA
Aria pulled her knees up. She’d woken hours ago in a cramped chamber, an acrid taste coating her tongue. A glove lay discarded in the corner. She’d watched the smudges of blood on the fingers fade from red to rust.
Her eye socket throbbed. They had taken her Smarteye while she was unconscious.
Aria didn’t care.
The wall in front of her had a thick black screen nearly as wide as the room itself. Aria waited for it to open. She knew who she’d see on the other side when it did, but she wasn’t afraid.
She’d survived the outside. She’d survived the Aether and cannibals and wolves. She knew how to love now, and how to let go. Whatever came next, she would survive it, too.
A soft crackling sound broke the room’s silence. Small speakers by the black screen buzzed softly. Aria shot to her feet, her hand aching for the weight of Talon’s knife. The screen parted, revealing a room behind thick glass. There were two men on the other side.
“Hello, Aria,” Consul Hess said, his small eyes pinching in amusement. “You can’t imagine how surprised I am to see you.” He dwarfed the chair on which he sat. Ward stood quiet and serious at his side, his brow wrinkled.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” said Consul Hess.
His words carried no tone of sympathy. She would never believe him anyway. He’d put her out to die.
“We viewed the ‘Songbird’ message from your mother,” he continued. He held her Smarteye in his palm. “You know, I was unaware of your unique genetic makeup when I put you outside? Lumina kept that hidden from all of us.”
Aria’s gaze snapped to the glass. She understood. They saw her as a diseased Savage. They didn’t want to breathe the same air she did.
“You have the Smarteye,” she said. “What do you want from me?”
Hess smiled. “I’ll get to that. You know what happened here in Bliss, don’t you? You saw it in your mother’s file.” He paused. “You had a taste of it yourself in Ag 6.”
She saw no point in lying. “An Aether strike and DLS,” she said.
“Yes, that’s right. A dual attack. External first. A storm weakens the Pod. Then internal, as the disease manifests. Your mother was among the first to study DLS. She was working toward a cure, along with many other scientists. But as you can see by what happened here, we don’t have an answer. And we may run out of time before we do.”