Chapter 45 #2
My eyes swept over the roving band of refugees and saw nothing but wonder and fear in their eyes.
No one spoke, no one uttered a word. They simply filed forward in a single line, led on by Gryfon's many warriors, eyes sliding back and forth through the camp in awe.
They seemed gaunt, haggard, lifeless, and stunned.
Something was wrong. They hadn't been that way before. Had they?
"I just need to talk to who's in charge!" the scream sounded again and my gaze whipped in it's direction to find a man with unruly brown curls and bright blue clothes straining against the arms of two brawny warriors who held him in place. "Please, you don't understand. It's urgent. It's—"
"Milo?" I asked, striding forward.
The heir to House Avus had drawn more attention than mine and I wasn't the only one approaching him now. I saw Gryfon storming forward out of the corner of my eye.
"Apologies, general," one of the warriors holding him back said. "This one's a bit overexcited. I'll have him sent to Esher. Maybe she can calm him down."
"No!" Milo screamed and I saw the fear in his expression, the desperation. "Please! You have to listen to me! You don't understand! They knew you were coming. They wanted you to drop the wards. They're after the amulet! They—"
"What did you just say?" Gryfon snapped, his attention fully on the screaming scholar now.
Milo balked at the intensity of the general's full attention for a brief moment, staring back at those icy blue eyes with shock and fear, but then his gaze slid behind him to the cots on the ground and the men upon them.
"He killed them," he whispered, turning a ghostly pale. "He killed all of them."
"Stay with me, boy," Gryfon spat. "What did you say about the wards? About an amulet?"
Milo's gaze snapped back to the general.
"Cosmo came for it but I'd already…he couldn't get to it so he slaughtered them, all of them, my whole…
but then he started laughing, said it didn't matter anyway because Deimos was on his way and, by then, the wards would have fallen and he'd be able to…
he'd get it himself. I didn't—I don't—I'm sorry.
I tried. Forgive me, my ancestors, but I tried. "
Milo's voice cracked at the last and his head dropped into his hands with a sob. He fell to the sand below, both warriors stepping back in shock as he broke before them.
Gryfon's jaw was so tense I thought his teeth might shatter. But then, shoulders set and lips pursed in a grim frown, he began striding forward, against the tide of refugees, toward Sanctuary.
"Sir?" one of the warriors questioned, dragging his stunned gaze from the weeping First Ringer to his general. "Should we act on this information? If it's a real threat we should—"
"Keep to your tasks, Tamim," Gryfon replied and in his tone there was nothing but cold, grim determination. "Get the refugees to safety, report back to Prima, guard Adrian. Those are your priorities. Mero is in charge while I'm gone. Relay my instructions to him."
The warrior, Tamim, blinked at him in shock.
"You don't intend to go alone," he said, gaping.
"This dance between Deimos and I began long ago," Gryfon muttered, hardly loud enough to be heard over the thousands of shuffling feet striding in a line nearby. "It's time we finished it."
Then he walked forward in the sand, weapons strapped to his back, silver hair blowing around his shoulders in the afternoon breeze. He disappeared from sight moments later, lost in the dust rising with the wind around us.
***
We were moving within hours.
With a storm rising in the sands not caused by our own Zver and their riders, we had hardly any time at all to vacate the premises.
More and more citizens moved away from their home city with wide eyes and pale, terrified faces.
I looked away from them the moment I could, the moment the general was gone and Milo was taken to this Esher woman for settling.
I shut myself inside the wagon with Adrian in avoidance.
Because that was precisely what this was: avoidance.
I didn't want to see my mother. I didn't want to see my grandfather or my cousins.
And I didn't want them to see the man I'd become. Not yet.
So I shut myself in the dark wagon and watched Adrian as she slept peacefully on the rickety table before me.
We'd tied her down so she wouldn’t slide off but the general's strange companion had informed me that the restraints might cause her to panic if she woke while we moved.
I was here to calm her if that happened.
I thought it best not to tell the man my presence would be anything but calming for Adrian.
Luckily, she didn’t wake.
Not for weeks.
She didn’t wake when the wagon rocked back and forth on uneven desert ground.
She didn’t wake when one of the general's warriors pulled the door open every time we stopped to make sure she was still breathing and I hadn’t finished her off.
She didn’t wake even when Pavosian scouts caught up with us twice and we had to kill them so as not to risk word getting back to their masters about our location despite the fact that they hadn’t engaged us in the slightest, knowing better than to try when they were so vastly outnumbered.
I was beginning to think Adrian would sleep all the way back to Archí when we began to cross the river and she stirred.
“Adrian,” I said her name, leaning forward in the darkness.
She jerked against her restraints and her eyes flew open, panicked.
“Don’t panic,” I tried but that was obviously the wrong thing to say.
“What have you done?” she cried, tossing back and forth. My fingers fell to the rope that bound her, working to loosen the knots even as she pulled against them. “Where are we? Why am I tied down?”
“We’re moving,” I informed her. “We’re going back to Archí. We tied you to the table so you wouldn’t fall in transport. You’re safe, Adrian. You’re with us.”
Her eyes narrowed and I didn’t have to hear her voice in my head to know what she thought. She would never feel safe with me again.
“Sanctuary,” she spat.
“Freed,” I told her. “They’re with us now, walking across the desert at a snail’s pace. It’s been over two weeks, Adrian.”
She blinked at me once, the only show of surprise at how long she'd slept.
“And the Underground?” she asked.
“Freed as well. Both totally emptied.”
“Chassina?”
“Got away. Ksenia went after her but we haven’t heard.”
She nodded, glancing around at her surroundings for the first time. Her gaze took in the various instruments and books strewn about and I knew she was thinking the same thing I had. Who would bring all this to a war?
“Gryfon…” she started, throat tight, refusing to look at me.
I frowned. Locked in this wagon with her as I'd been, I didn't actually know the status of the general. I hadn't seen him since he'd disappeared in the sands on his way back to Sanctuary but I hadn't seen much of anyone else either.
“I know you don’t trust me, Adrian," I started, slowly.
No matter where the general was, despite what he meant to her, I couldn't forget what I'd seen him do in that battle. She had a right to know. "I don’t expect you to after…everything. But there are things about the general you don’t know. Have you never noticed—”
The door to the wagon flew open to reveal a smiling Prima standing just outside.
“She lives,” Prima announced, grinning broadly. “Good to see you awake, Adrian.”
She leapt gracefully up into the wagon.
“I have to admit, I thought you were crazy when you suggested freeing Sanctuary but we’ve actually done it,” Prima said, blowing out a breath in disbelief.
“And we’re back in Archí, thousands of refugees in tow.
It’s going to take a lot of work to turn this place into somewhere that can house all of them but the humans have promised to help out and we’ve got more hands for the work now so… ”
She trailed off, looking between us, sensing the awkwardness.
“Right,” she continued, slowly. “Well, I found someone I thought you might want to see.”
She stepped aside to reveal a familiar young man standing behind her. His hair was a light brown, face gaunt from either starvation or struggle, body long and lean, but he had her eyes. The same eyes as Adrian.
Adrian let out a whimper I’d never heard before and launched herself, on shaking legs, into the man’s arms. They collapsed onto the floor of the wagon together, shaking with silent sobs as they clung to each other.
He looked much older than he had when I’d last seen him only a couple of years ago, his bones more pronounced, expression more hollow, but I recognized Warren Bexley and understood at once that I needed to get out of here.
I slipped past them, past Prima, and dropped onto the ground beyond the wagon. Prima followed me out, closing the door to a crack behind her to give the newly reunited siblings some privacy.
“You didn’t run,” she said, coming up behind me. “You had the chance to defect, to go back and tell them all our secrets, and you didn’t do it. I’m impressed, Viper. Maybe there’s some hope left for my house after all.”
“I take it you haven’t met it’s patriarch yet,” I replied.
She frowned down at me but turned away at the rustling of wings. Ksenia and Phantom landed in front of us and I was more relieved than I cared to admit when I saw the human spy dropping from her saddle and striding over to us, safe and sound.
“Chassina?” Prima asked.
“Got away,” Ksenia explained, brow furrowed in obvious fury. “I chased her all the way back to Pavos but they’ve fixed the cracks I used to slip through. I couldn’t go in after her."
“It would have been suicide anyway.”
“Might have been worth it. I went to the Captain first. His side faired better than yours, as expected. He's been cursing himself for missing Chassina's departure from the city ever since. I doubt he'll ever forgive himself for the failure. Adrian?”
“She’s fine.”
Ksenia nodded, looking to me. She gave me a curt nod as well, an acknowledgement that we were both still alive and breathing. I nodded back.
“Have your reunions and then meet me in the caves. There’s something we all need to discuss,” Prima said, already walking away from us.
We watched her go, both of us remaining silent until she disappeared into the crowd of refugees milling about at the entrance of the Archí encampment.
I could practically feel the fear and uncertainty radiating off of them in waves.
And I didn’t think I imagined the fact that most of them seemed malnourished or sickly, far worse off than they'd been when Adrian and I'd left. What had happened to our home since?
“Walk you to your reunion?” Ksenia asked.
“Don’t bother,” I told her. “I have no interest in seeing anyone from Sanctuary.”
She frowned but made no comment.
"I'm heading for the caves," she said after a moment.
I nodded and fell in beside her as we both waded into the crowd on our way toward the caves Prima wanted to meet in.
Wide eyed stares met us as we passed, refugees jumping to the side to admit the giant, prowling Zver at our backs.
But Phantom only padded along behind us, not so much as glancing at the displaced citizens around him.
Did he know who they were, that he'd helped rescue them?
Was there an intelligence behind those eyes that I thought I'd glimpsed so long ago or was he simply a pet doing as his master commanded?
“You stayed with her,” Ksenia spoke as we walked.
“She needed me,” I replied, pretending that statement wasn’t as complicated as it really was.
“And she still does,” Ksenia murmured. The obvious attempt at keeping her voice low had me glancing over to her.
“Sanctuary wasn’t like it was when you two left it.
There’s been some infighting and these people…
let’s just say there’s been some talk amongst the warriors who freed them.
As shocked as they were to see us, they might have been a little too willing to leave their homes and everything they’ve ever known behind. ”
I frowned, glancing back at my home city’s refugees as they stared back at me, glassy eyed and not fully coherent. What had happened to them?
I was determined to find out.