Survival is a Language
TALIA
The fluxlines are structural. STRUCTURAL. I have so many questions. What made the network collapse? Does the grid cross all of Valta? If this is how power moved, where did it come from? How could it work at this scale? The answers have to be in Valrotala, I know it.
Someone was slapping Talia’s leg, and she rolled over to see Dawn crouched above her in the shadowy tent.
“Time to move,” was all Dawn said before disappearing back through the tent flaps.
The second Talia sat up, pain jolted up her legs, her back, her core. She had never ridden that hard or long before, and she’d definitely never slept on the ground. Everything hurt.
Outside, horses stamped and gear clinked. She slipped on her blouse and skirt as quickly as she could and struggled to pull her boots up over her swollen feet.
The easy mood from last night was gone. The horses were tacked and saddled, the camp packed. By the time she turned around, Holloway was folding her tent.
“Sorry,” she said, feeling flustered. “I thought we had more time.”
The landscape was eerily quiet. There weren’t even birds singing.
“The caravan’s moving,” Dawn said, wrapping their remaining flux crystals in cloth. “Every hour counts if we’re gonna catch them.”
After a full day with no sign of a limp, Holloway gave Jonquil the all-clear. Talia swung into the saddle and let out a sigh. It would be nice to get a break from Holloway’s emotions.
The sun climbed quickly. Dust lifted from the horses’ hooves and hung in the still air. She tried not to think about Riven, but when she closed her eyes, she kept seeing the cluster of enforcers swarming over him.
She focused on the landscape instead. It was hilly country, nearly colorless, all sage and rust-colored rocks.
Crumbled foundations peeked from the dry grass like sun-bleached bones.
These plains must have been thick with cities.
An entire civilization with advanced language, culture, technology.
Then hundreds of years ago they’d vanished.
Everyone referred to them as “fae” because Valta was discovered across the Green Sea, exactly like the Lost Continent in the faerie stories. The label was misleading. Talia knew that the people who lived here, who’d died here, were just people.
She’d waited so long to get into the field, and the landscape was flying by too fast to see anything. But she’d already made them late; she couldn’t ask to stop. Holloway pulled up alongside her.
“You good?” he asked.
“Yes.” She forced a smile. Had he ever noticed she always answered yes to that question? She wasn’t good. Nothing made her more uncomfortable than feeling like a burden.
“Your pack’s slipping,” he said. He reached over and started adjusting the strap.
“I can do it myself,” she snapped, pushing his hand away.
“I was just—” His voice went quiet. “Sorry.”
His hurt came through when their hands touched, and she pulled back. Damn it, Talia, he is just trying to help. She didn’t want to need help, but that wasn’t his fault.
“Actually, I do have a question.”
He pulled up beside her, careful to keep more distance. “Yeah?”
“It’s about Riven.” Her voice dropped. Saying his name hurt. “Do you know why he did it? Why he stayed and fought those enforcers when he could’ve run?”
Holloway frowned. “I suppose he saw it as his job to protect you. And you know, it’s possible he survived. My boys would want to question him, if they could.”
The gentleness in his voice was the worst, like he thought she was too fragile to handle the truth. She knew Riven was most likely gone. She nodded and clenched her teeth. Holloway had been treating her like a breakable object all her life. She didn’t know why she expected honest answers from him.
She faced forward and decided not to ask for help again.
The creek was deeper than it looked, pooling and thrashing around a cluster of rocks. Dawn and Holloway rode through, but Lore paused at the bank, glancing back at Talia.
“Follow my line,” he said. “Current looks stronger on the right.”
She tried to mimic his approach and his posture, but Jonquil was shorter than the other horses. The water rose faster than Talia expected, clear up to her knees. The current grabbed her legs, and she braced, tightened her grip on the reins, looked down at the swirling brown water—
Jonquil spooked sideways, and Talia fell. Cold water shocked the air from her lungs, and her waterlogged boots dragged her to her knees. She flailed for the bank, fingers slipping in mud.
Holloway’s hand closed on her elbow and hauled her up.
“You all right?”
She nodded and gasped for air. Everyone was staring at her.
“What did I do wrong?”
“Nothing.” He squeezed water from his sleeve. “The ford was too deep for your little mare; we should have stopped. You did tense up, though. Try and stay loose next time.”
Nothing she could do, except stop screwing up. She heard him loud and clear. She wanted real feedback, instructions, something she could practice. But he was already moving away.
Her legs were raw where they’d chafed against the saddle, and now the wet fabric was sticking to them.
It burned at every point where cloth touched skin, and tugged with every step.
She set her jaw and focused on walking up the sludgy bank, slipping half a step back for each step she took. Then her toe hit something solid.
She reached down to brush silt away from a perfectly square stone buried in the muck. It was vibrating faintly.
“Part of an old foundation,” she murmured.
Foundation. She recalled the passage from the journal: Flux channeling was the foundation of civilization. She’d taken it as a metaphor. It made sense that way. She reached back down and felt the stone hum under her hand. What if it wasn’t?
She wasn’t sure what she was looking for until she spotted a faint blue line connecting the stone to another one, like some kind of conduit. She followed it. Ahead, Holloway whistled, pulling the group to a stop.
He circled back. “What is it, Tally?”
She traced the conduit through the mud until she reached a cornerstone with a blue crystal embedded in the center.
A flux crystal. She pressed her thumb against the crystal, and it clicked free from its casing.
As soon as it came away from the cornerstone, the entire conduit line flickered and went dark.
The horses crowded in, their shadows cooling her wet clothes. Talia held the flux crystal up for them to see.
Dawn gave a low whistle. “Nice catch. We need more of those.”
Warmth spread through her chest, and she slipped the crystal into Riven’s coat. She might be slow and soaking wet, but she was the only person here who’d noticed the fluxline. Maybe she wasn’t incompetent after all.
Pickler’s Junction finally appeared on the horizon, a cluster of gray buildings. The town seemed empty, no sign of a caravan.
“They must be late,” Talia said, fighting to keep her voice level, but her unease only sharpened as they pulled into town.
“Look around,” Dawn said. “What do you see?”
She slid off Jonquil carefully, her shredded thighs screaming in protest.
It looked like any other town. A dusty road. A few scraggly buildings. Then she saw a door, smashed, half hanging from its hinges in two separate pieces. It swung a little in the wind, the only movement on the whole empty place.
Holloway stalked the perimeter, rifle in hand. Lore sat motionless on his horse, eyes tracking something in the dust that Talia couldn’t see. There was no one else. It was a small way station, but there should have been someone in the saloon. On the street. In a window.
A sign creaked.
“Mount back up,” Dawn said sharply.
“What happened here?” Talia asked.
“Don’t know.” Dawn was already turning Brimstone’s head. “And we’re not staying to find out.”
Talia’s heart hammered against her ribs as she climbed back onto Jonquil’s back. Where would they go next? If the caravan wasn’t here, how would they find it? Dawn pulled off the road and started riding north into the hills.
The sun climbed higher, pressing down as they rode. Talia tried to focus on the ruins they passed. Tried to catalog architectural styles, notice patterns. But every part of her hurt, her skin rubbed raw after just a few days in the saddle. Her thoughts kept scattering.
She was tired of never having answers. She kicked Jonquil into a canter, caught up with Dawn at the front.
“I need to know something,” she said.
Brimstone was easily a head taller than Jonquil, and Talia had to look up into the sun. She felt like a child begging for attention, and she hated it.
“Why did Riven do it? He could’ve run. Or come with us. Why did he stay?”
Dawn’s jaw tightened. “I don’t know.”
Talia reached over and brushed Dawn’s knee. Anguish radiated off her, thick enough to choke on. But underneath it, that same twinge of guilt that Holloway had carried. They were both hiding something.
“You do know,” Talia said, dropping her hand. “Tell me.”
“That warrant had your name on it, Talia. Maybe he wanted to give them a bigger target.”
“What does that mean?”
“He’s gone.” Dawn’s voice cracked. “Just leave it.”
Dawn pulled ahead to catch up with Holloway, who had dismounted and was looking at something on the ground. Talia reined in, throat burning. Lore’s stallion, Vesper, drifted up beside her, and Lore leaned over so she could hear.
“She’s broken in her own way,” he said quietly. “Grief makes people guard what hurts.”
Talia blinked, fighting the sting behind her eyes. “I just want to understand why he did it.”
Lore looked straight at her. “He didn’t die for the wrong person, Talent.”
But what if he had? What if he’d died for her? She was the last person who deserved that kind of sacrifice.
“It feels like I’m the only one here who wasn’t built for this.” She couldn’t meet his eyes. “I’m weak, and I’m holding you back.”
“You’re not weak,” he murmured. “You’re new at this.”
She swallowed hard and blinked the tears away. Talia had always been good at things. She didn’t know who she was if that wasn’t true.
Lore kept his tone low and steady. “Survival is just another language, and you’re already learning it. Fording the creek. Finding that flux. You notice details that carry significance. You have remarkable potential. That’s more interesting than perfection.”
She wanted that to be true, badly, but she also wondered why Lore was the only one bolstering her as Holloway and Dawn rode ahead. What did he want?
The afternoon dragged. Behind her, Holloway and Dawn spoke in low voices. She caught fragments.
“—tracks back there…”
“—four, maybe five…”
“—since the Junction…”
Something had been shadowing them. That must’ve been what they were looking at on the ground earlier, some kind of tracks. They all knew, and she’d been oblivious. She twisted in the saddle, scanning the ridges behind them. Saw nothing but scrub and rock.
“Eyes forward,” Dawn called.
Talia faced forward, but the skin prickled at the back of her neck. Now that she knew something was circling them, she heard noises everywhere. Footfalls. Twigs cracking. She jumped every time, twisting in her saddle to scan the brushy hills around them, but she saw nothing.
When the sun started to drop and Dawn called for them to stop, Talia thought she might fall off her horse with relief.
It took a while to make camp. The others moved through their tasks efficiently.
Talia collapsed onto a log, gingerly sticking her legs out in front of her.
She almost couldn’t move through the pain.
Dawn was tending the horses. As she lifted Jonquil’s saddle, she paused.
“Talia. Come over here.”
Something about Dawn’s tone made Talia’s stomach drop. She forced herself to stand and stumbled over.
Dawn angled the saddle. Dried blood streaked the leather.
Heat crawled up Talia’s neck. “It’s fine. I’m dealing with it.”
Dawn’s eyes tracked down to Talia’s legs. She was wearing skirts over riding pants, so there wasn’t much to see, but Dawn sniffed the air and frowned.
“This isn’t your monthly blood. You’re hurt. Show me.”
There was no point arguing. Talia pulled her skirts up around her waist and started to tug her pants down. Every time the cloth moved, it ripped raw flesh. The saddle burn was worse than Talia thought.
Dawn sucked in a breath. “You didn’t say anything.”
“It wasn’t important.”
“Bullshit,” Dawn said. “You’re not out here alone.” Then, softer, “I’m getting help. That okay?”
Talia nodded, and Dawn called Lore over quietly. He knelt next to her and carefully lifted her skirts to inspect the wound. She tensed up, but he was careful not to touch her.
“Hold still,” he murmured. A flux crystal glowed in his hand. “This will only heal the surface, but that should do.”
She stared up at the sky, trying to pretend this wasn’t happening. Prickling heat washed over her raw skin, and she was extremely aware of how exposed she was. When the sensation faded, her thighs were still pink, but the bleeding had stopped.
Lore stood, the crystal now dim and cloudy in his hand. He tossed it aside.
“Nine left,” Dawn said quietly.
Nine. Because of her. She felt her shoulders curl inward. She just wanted to disappear, but Lore made a soft tsk sound and shook his head.
“Not wasted,” he said quietly. “And not negotiable. We’ll all need to ride hard tomorrow to catch that caravan.”
She forced herself to meet his eyes. “Thank you, but I’m fine.”
She pulled her pants back into place, straightened her skirts, and walked back to the fire. She wasn’t fine, but she was capable. She could learn this survival language. She had to.