Chapter 64
I blink. Sit up. It’s evening. My wrists are restrained, but rope has replaced the shackles. My ankles are bound as well. I’m somewhere in the forest, a chubby moon climbing to the ceiling of the sky. I think I hear the creek singing nearby, accompanied by the chirp of crickets.
I’m alone except for Gryphon. He’s standing guard, but he glances over when I rouse.
I rub at a sore spot near the base of my neck. He’d used the same nerve lock on me that his father had, only he’d gone deeper, jamming so hard I passed out. Traitor. “You’ll have to teach me that move,” I say. “Either that, or I’m going to start wearing a metal collar.”
Gryphon steps closer. He’s so tall, outlined by the moon. I can’t read his expression.
I hold up my restrained hands. “Like father, like son?” It’s a low blow, but he’s earned it.
He drops to his haunches. I can finally see his face. His eyes are aching. “If you’re free, you’ll run back to the village to fight. If you fight, you’ll die. The Guardians were regaining control.”
“That wasn’t your call to make, Gryphon!
” Despair sinks its claws deep into my chest. We’ve left the others behind.
I’ve left them, and not for the first time.
Meryl, Oscar, Sal, Eero, even Lozen. Where were Uncle Richard and Aunt Florence in the crowd?
Are they still alive? “Whatever happened to letting me make my own choices?”
He doesn’t respond to my verbal strike, but I know it registers. “We can still save the Valley, Rose,” he says simply.
“Not tied up, I can’t.” I try to make my voice light, as if I’m willing to concede to him, but the truth is I’m desperate to break free so I can help my friends and family.
I have no illusion that I can stop a well-trained Guardian holding a sword, but neither can I hide out in the woods while Jarek kills those I love.
“I know there’s no hope for my father,” he says. “I accept it.”
My heart breaks for him, but now isn’t the time. “We have to get back and help our friends, Gryphon.”
He shakes his head. “The others are meeting us here, if they’re still alive.”
I make an angry noise. “You could’ve said that.”
“We regroup,” he continues as if I hadn’t spoken. “And decide together what to do next.”
I hold up my hands. “If we’re ambushed, I’m dead.”
He narrows his eyes. He wants to argue, but he knows I’m right.
With a grunt of frustration, he cuts the rope binding my hands and then my feet.
I stand slowly, massaging my wrists. Gryphon stands, too.
I’m considering attempting a nerve lock on him.
I study his neck, stalling to get my bearings.
Which way lies the village? I don’t want to hurt him, don’t think I can, but I can’t understand why he’s keeping me here. We have to help the others.
“It must be terrible to give up on your father,” I say. Do I hear a clash of metal from the east? See a lighter swath of sky? “But I’m glad you chose the Valley.”
“I didn’t choose the Valley, Rose.”
The intensity in his voice draws my gaze. I look into his obsidian eyes. They’re full of heat…and something tender. “I chose you,” he says simply.
“About time you were honest about that,” Lozen says, gliding as quiet as a ghost from between two trees. One of her eyes is swollen shut.
“A little late, if you ask me.” This from Augustus, who follows her, the front of his tunic drenched with blood.
“Seconded,” Sal says, limping from the other direction.
I run over and hug her. “You’re alive!”
“For the moment.” She pulls away from my embrace and steps to the side.
Albert appears from behind her. My rage surges and then almost immediately dampens. His face is so warped with grief that he’s nearly unrecognizable.
“Update,” Gryphon demands of the new arrivals.
“We might have gotten the balance to shift toward our cause,” Augustus says. “Until Jarek decided to make an example of the others.”
“What others?” I ask. I don’t want the answer.
He looks at me mournfully. “He executed Richard.”
My knees buckle. Gryphon catches me, holding me tight.
Sweet Uncle Richard with the perennial dusting of carrot-colored hair across his cheek because his razor always missed. I hadn’t gone a day in my entire life without seeing him, not until I was moved to the Tzu cottage.
And now he’s dead.
Augustus continues. “He tied Meryl, Eero, and Oscar to the whipping posts again.” He rubs the back of his head, clearly uncomfortable.
“And your grandmother and Florence alongside them. He said they’re all traitors, but that it’s your fault.
” His eyes grow flinty. “Because you’re the one to blame, he says, he’ll trade you for them.
Either you surrender, or they’re Harvested. ”
Sal’s blinking away tears. “They all knew what they were agreeing to,” she says, trying to give me a brave face. “They knew tonight might go this way. It was a risk they chose to take.”
I shake my head. No. I cannot hide out here while they die.
“Don’t turn yourself in, Rose,” Gryphon says, reading my mind. “We only need a little more time. My father’s weapons are gone. All that’s left is to destroy the tablet, the basket, and the Verdant Beast.”
“I can destroy the tablet if I can only get my hands on it,” I say. I’m thinking as quickly as I can. “I’ll tell Jarek I think there’s more information on there to kill the Verdant Beast.”
“He’s already looked at it every which way,” Gryphon says. “Him and the Record Keeper. Any information on there, they know of.”
My brain is working frantically. “Then I’ll tell him I need to talk to him privately, away from the others. That there’s something my mother told me that I need to tell him. He’ll follow me! And then I can drug him.”
“How?” Sal asks.
“Will this help?” Albert rolls over to me.
He hands me the medical kit I had to give up when I moved to the Tzu house.
I have no idea how he got his hands on it, but I’m deeply moved.
I slide the kit’s strap over my head, peeking inside at the syringes, salves, tinctures, and medications.
I feel the familiar weight of it pressed against my shoulder and exhale.
Reclaiming this piece of me is a comfort beyond measure.
“Thank you,” I say to him.
“I’m so sorry, Rose.” He looks unbearably sad.
“When I followed you through the village that day, when you first led me to the caves. Did you shoot over my head?” I thought it was a stone from the sky at the time. That was before I saw the weapon that tore a hole through Jarek’s arm.
He nods. “I was just playing.”
“And you told Jarek you’d help him to make more herbicide?”
Albert nods again. “It’s not just Jarek, though. He thinks he’s the one in charge, but the Record Keeper is the real mastermind. He’s been working behind the scenes this whole time.”
I look to the others. “It’s true. David Seingalt admitted as much onstage.” I watch them wrestle with this before turning my attention back to Albert. I go absolutely still. “And the Record Keeper ordered you to use that same weapon you fired over my head to kill my mother?”
I hear the whisper of Gryphon’s steel—this is the first he’s heard of Albert’s treachery—but it’s far too late for that.
Albert’s voice comes out as a moan. “He said she was poisoning the Valley, and that if I didn’t do something, Marina would die.
I trusted him because he helped me upgrade my chair.
And I just had to pull a trigger. He said it wouldn’t even feel real.
” He swallows a sob. “I made a terrible mistake, Rose. One that cost us both our moms. I’m so sorry. ”
I have nothing to say to that. It’s the truth, and he’s going to have to live with it.
“Let me get all this straight.” Lozen is tossing her knife in the air, catching it.
Tossing it in the air, catching it, never missing even though she only has one functioning eye.
“The Record Keeper is the original traitor—he’s really the one behind Jarek and the Guardian army he’s created, who are—all but me—gathered in the village square right now.
And Jarek has the tablet. You’re going to do what, Rose?
Sashay over to him, flash your eyes, and tell him you need just a private moment of his time to share a secret your mother told you, and he’s going to believe you because you resemble the only woman he’s ever loved?
Gross, by the way. Then, once you have him far enough away, you’re going to plunge a syringe in his neck, grab the tablet, and smash it against the nearest rock? ”
I nod.
“Easy peasy.” Lozen rolls her eyes. “Best plan ever.”
“I refuse to allow this,” Gryphon says. The moonlight is strong enough to reveal the agony etched on his face.
“What’s the alternative?” I say, exasperated.
“I hide out in the woods for the rest of my life? There’s only two thousand acres against over three dozen Guardians.
They’ll find me eventually, and in the meantime, they’ll torture and kill everyone I love, not to mention people will still be Harvested if not outright killed by the Verdant Beast.” I throw my hands in the air.
“At least with my plan, our families live another night.”
Gryphon’s words are measured. Dangerous. “I need a moment alone with Rose.”
The others stand their ground.
“Now!” he barks.
When I don’t react, everyone shuffles back into the forest, Lozen glaring at Gryphon before she goes. He waits until they’re out of sight and then spins on me. “You can stop pretending. I know what you intend to do.”