Perry couldn’t answer. He wasn’t sure if the Aether raged elsewhere as it did there. He only knew that last winter, the storms torched nearly a quarter of their territory. This winter, he expected, would be worse.
“We leave this land, we die,” Vale said, his tone suddenly hard. “Try thinking once in a while, little brother. It might serve you. ”
“You’re wrong,” Perry said. Didn’t anyone else see that?
Several people gasped. He could almost hear their thoughts through their excited tempers. Fight, Perry. This’ll be good to see.
Vale handed the rack to Bear. It grew so quiet that Perry heard Bear’s leather vest squeak as he moved. Perry’s vision started tunneling as it did when he hunted. He saw only his older brother, who’d defended Perry countless times as a boy, but who didn’t believe him now. Perry glanced at Talon. He couldn’t do this. What if he killed Vale right there?
Talon shot forward. “Can we hunt, Father? Can Uncle Perry and I hunt?”
Vale looked down, the darkness in his gaze vanishing. “Hunt, Talon? Now?”
“I feel good today. ” Talon lifted his small chin. “Can we go?”
“Are you so eager to show me up, Son?”
“Yes!”
Vale’s deep laugh roused a few forced chuckles from the crowd.
“Please, Father. Just for a while?”
Vale raised his eyebrows at Perry, like he thought it fitting that Talon had stepped in to rescue him. That look nearly launched Perry forward.
Vale knelt and opened his arms. Talon hugged him, his skinny arms closing around Vale’s broad neck. Covering the Blood Lord chain. Stealing it from Perry’s sight.
“We’ll feast tonight,” Vale said, easing back. He cradled Talon’s face with his hands. “I’ll save the best cuts for you. ” He straightened and motioned Wylan over. “Make sure they stay close to the compound. ”
“We don’t need him,” Perry said. Did Vale think he couldn’t protect Talon? And he didn’t want Wylan along. If the Aud came, he couldn’t give Talon the apple. “I’ll keep him safe. ”
Vale’s green eyes settled on Perry’s swollen cheek. “Little brother, if you saw yourself, you’d know why I don’t believe that. ”
More laughter, unchecked this time. Perry shifted on his feet. The Tides saw him as a joke.
Talon pulled his arm. “Let’s go, Uncle Perry. Before it gets late. ”
Perry’s muscles filled with the need to move, but he couldn’t give his brother his back. Talon let go of him and ran ahead in pitiful lurching strides.
“Come on, Uncle Perry. Let’s go!”
For Talon, Perry followed.
Chapter 9
ARIA
When the coughing fit passed, Aria lay on her side. Her ribs hurt. Her throat was swollen and sore. But she’d survived. Her skin hadn’t melted off and she hadn’t gone into shock. Maybe the stories were wrong. Or maybe that would come.
She hauled herself to her feet and began to walk again. She’d accepted that she wouldn’t get anywhere. What mattered was pretending she might. That by taking one step after another, she had a chance of finding shelter. She convinced herself of this so completely that when she saw rough shapes in the distance, she thought she was imagining them.
Aria walked faster, heart pounding as the forms became more distinct and the ground grew uneven with debris. Broken pieces poked through the soles of her Medsuit, hurting her feet. She stopped, scanning a sea of cement. Pieces of iron stuck out of the rubble, sculptural, bent and rusted. A great city once, she thought. Defiant, here in the middle of nowhere. Now it wouldn’t even provide shelter for her. She pointed herself in another direction and set off again.
She avoided her thoughts as long as possible, but they came, stampeding beyond her control. Ward had seen her alive. Had Hess pressured him to keep quiet? Was her mother grieving now? What had Lumina said in the “Songbird” message?
Aria sat down to rest. She remembered the last time she’d been with her mother in Reverie. A Singing Sunday.
At eleven o’clock every Sunday of her life, Aria had met her mother in the Paris Opera Realm, a replica of the lavish Palais Garnier. Lumina was always there first, waiting with her hands folded neatly in her lap, her back straight in her favorite front row seat. She came dressed the same way every time, in an elegant black dress, a thin strand of pearls around her slender neck, her dark hair pulled back in a tight, perfect bun.