Relapse (Breakers Book 7) Page 23

  "As I said," Winslowe declared, "it was a matter of saving our citizens. In exchange for our services, Anson pledged to put an end to the sickness claiming so many lives."

  Cinder laughed in disbelief. "That is breathtakingly immoral."

  "I cannot say I disagree. But it was not my decision. And were I in our lord's position—weighing goodness in one hand, and my people's welfare in the other—I am not sure what path I'd take. I hope I'll never have to find out."

  "This is so…" Cinder took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. "It's unbelievable."

  "These people who are sick," Raina said. "What are their symptoms?"

  "They are…" Winslowe spun her hand in the air. "Digestive in nature."

  "That's her delicate way of saying we've got a righteous case of diarrhea," Cinder said. "It started a few months ago. We can't seem to stop it. The young and the old are succumbing to dehydration."

  Raina tapped her chin. "How are you treating your water?"

  "It is filtered to the highest degree of purity," Winslowe said. "We are not barbarians. We understand the value of sanitation."

  "It is filtered. But is it treated?"

  Winslowe's mouth worked. She turned to a bald man in the crowd. "Mr. Henderson. Our water. Is it treated?"

  The bald man inhaled deeply. "No one ever asked me to treat it."

  "I know how this can be done," Raina said. "We just did so on Catalina. Spare my life, and I will help you save your people."

  Winslowe laughed lightly. "Who says we need you? It seems to me we might extract this information from the nearest library."

  "I can't be a party to this," Cinder said. "This is a mess. A gigantic, awful mess. I don't see how adding another body to the heap will clean it up."

  "You can't expect me to believe this assassin deserves to be let free!"

  "She's not some common thug. She is a queen. One who came here because she knew it was her duty to help both our lands. Does that mean nothing to you?"

  Winslowe moved her hand to her throat, drumming her fingers against her exposed collarbone. "Certainly, she deserves treatment in accordance with her status. That is why we are discussing this at all rather than stringing her from the tree outside the gate. Also, her crime is far from common: the murder of a fellow regent."

  Cinder lowered her gaze and shook her head. "My gut says we kill her. Take our revenge. But my heart's telling me something different. That executing her here and now would offend true justice. We were deceived by a common enemy. Her coming here, offering to cure our sickness—it feels like a gift. One we can't be too prideful to turn down."

  "Enough. Make your proposal. Make it plainly and clearly. So we can judge it without need for further words."

  "Let Raina undertake this mission. Not to save her life, but so that this tragedy can be transformed into salvation. If she succeeds, and breaks the sickness, we can decide her fate then."

  "So we can have this debate all over again?" Winslowe glanced to the crowd, who was now watching her as one, waiting final judgment. A handful looked angry, but most had shifted their expressions to something more thoughtful. Winslowe closed her eyes and tipped back her head. "May he forgive me—I agree."

  Three soldiers approached Raina. They hustled her away from the yard and back to the basement room where she had spent the last night, locking the door. She waited in darkness for half an hour. She felt some measure of relief that she had been spared, if only for now, but mostly she felt the rightness of having been able to steer San Diego away from war with Catalina. By law, she was no longer their leader, and yet she had been able to preserve their future. Was that not proof that that was where she belonged?

  The door opened, bringing Cinder. The young woman's smile was even brighter than the electric light spilling into the room.

  "That was touch and go," she said. "But we bought you some time. If you pull this off, and tempers have a few days to cool, I think we'll be in business."

  Raina rose from the bed. "I admitted that I killed him. Your king. Why did Lady Winslowe let me go?"

  "Oh, I attacked that one from three angles. First, now that the succession's up in the air, there's been background chatter about whether we should even stick with this whole king/queen shit. By playing up your regal status, and implying you're worthy of a more elevated system of justice, that helps Winslowe build the case that there is something different about royalty. That not everyone can lead—or should."

  "Second was the sickness, wasn't it? She was reading her people on this matter. She didn't want to be the one who threw away the chance to put an end to the blight."

  Cinder nodded. "Nailed it. This thing has been crippling us for months. With no word from Anson on fulfilling his end of the deal, she can't afford to throw this away. It would undermine her claim to the throne."

  "And what is the third angle?"

  "The most obvious. I let her have her cake and eat it too: since sparing your life isn't a part of the deal, she can kill you as soon as you clean up our water."

  Raina crossed her arms. "You sound far too pleased with yourself."

  "Oh, get over it. You killed King Dashing. They were never going to let you walk away scot free. Your job from here is to acquit yourself so well that the courtiers don't have the heart to put you to the sword."

  "I won't fail you." Raina walked to the wall and touched its blank face. "Did you mean what you said about your heart's judgment? That it doesn't believe that what I did was wrong?"

  "Could be," Cinder shrugged. "Mostly, I knew there was no mileage in saying what I really think: that it's fucking stupid to settle past scores at the expense of our future. So: hooray for us. You get to live, and I get to use you to chip away at Lady Winslowe's support. We'll be working with a few conditions, though. First, until it's time to ride out, you're under house arrest. You can't even leave your room without a chaperone. If you try to leave this building, the whole thing is off."

  "Understood."

  "Next, when it's mission time, only you will be allowed to go. Your friends must remain here."

  "That's not possible," Raina said. "Henna must go with me."

  Cinder drew back her chin. "This isn't a negotiation, girl. You want to get out of this, you have to play by the rules."

  "Henna has already been to the university where we will fetch our supplies. She knows the way and the troubles we might encounter. That still leaves you with four of my people as hostages. Believe me when I say I will not forsake a single one of them by trying to escape."

  "If she's mission-critical, I can probably get Winslowe to sign off on it. If not, you're going to have to work out a way to do this without her."

  "Fair enough. As to leaving my room, how am I to summon a chaperone?"

  "Easy," Cinder smiled. She opened the door. "Georgia?"

  A woman moved through the door. She was in her mid-twenties, and though her ponytail, pale blue dress, and demure expression were supposed to make her look unassuming, there was a certain charge to her that Raina felt at once, like when she saw an alien or one of their machines or creations. Something not of this world.

  "This is Georgia," Cinder said. "You're technically a prisoner, so she's not technically your servant, but whatever you need, she's your gal. Aren't you, Georgia?"

  Georgia bowed from the waist. "That I am, ma'am."

  "Great. I need to skedaddle. Hash out the Henna thing with Winslowe. You need me, send Georgia, okay?" In a snap, her face hardened. "And do not cause any trouble. I've put my neck on the block for you. You do anything to tempt the axe, and I'll make sure it finds you first."

  Raina did nothing but nod. Cinder left the room. Georgia remained there, gaze fixed downward, focused on nothing.

  "You work for Cinder?" Raina said.

  "I serve the palace."

  "Of your own free will?"

  It looked as though Georgia might smile. She didn't. "Excuse me for saying, ma'am, but I don't think we have free will. Not since the Pan
handler. Everything after that has been nothing more than a reaction to the plague." Now, she did smile. "Ma'am."

  Raina asked for bread and water. Georgia obliged without complaint. Cinder returned to tell Raina that Winslowe had accepted the need for Henna to come with them to the university of Fullerton. They would leave in another two days, on foot, with a horse-drawn wagon to bear the chemicals back to San Diego.

  "You're coming with us?" Raina said.

  Cinder blinked behind her glasses. "You get what this is about, right?"

  "Saving your people from sickness."

  "Right, but it's especially about saving them from a tiresome would-be queen who cares more about how low people bow than she does about setting up schools and sanitation. She'd prefer if we didn't advance. Then she can sit on her medieval throne without looking weird."

  "To oppose her, you must attach yourself to progress," Raina said.

  "I need to be progress' mascot. The Shamu of that bitch."

  "Then I am eager to travel alongside you."

  Raina stayed in her room for most of the day. At sunset, she asked Georgia if she could go out into the house and Georgia agreed. Raina sat in the common room alone. Rough-looking men clustered around the kitchen counter, drinking moonshine and laughing. Four women were there as well. They were young, dressed in tank tops and shorts. Two of them laughed and drank with the men, but two others said little.

  Raina was fed a meal of cornbread and asparagus and a small piece of fish. Now and then, one of the men and one of the women went upstairs together, returning ten or twenty minutes later.

  Raina went to the bathroom and found a bucket of water beside the toilet. The water contained some algae and sediment. After a moment of confusion, Raina understood she was to use the toilet itself, then dump some of the bucket into the tank so it would flush.

  She returned to the common room. This drew looks from those in the kitchen. Most of the men glared at her, but some watched with hidden curiosity. After a while, Raina could no longer stand the sloppy revelry and returned to her room.

  The next night, the men were there again, boasting, drinking.

  "Is it always like this?" Raina said.

  Georgia looked up from the shirt she was mending. "This is how the knights vent their steam, isn't it? Just think how they'd act if they weren't allowed to take their pleasure after coming in from patrol."

  "Are only the men allowed to be warriors?"

  "They are suited for it. We are not. Is it different in your lands?"

  Raina thought she detected a note of something deeper in Georgia's voice, but the woman hid it too well to be sure. "We would be fools to turn aside half of those who want to fight for us."

  She went to bed early. Georgia woke her while it was still dark and all the knights had retreated to bed to sleep off their liquor. In the driveway, a horse-drawn wagon stood waiting. Henna was there, too. Raina embraced her.

  "They haven't hurt you?" Henna said.

  Raina smiled. "Not yet. Have you seen the others?"

  "They're fine. Though Mauser said something that nearly got him a thrashing."

  "Only nearly? Don't tell me he knows how to mind his manners."

  The party consisted of five knights, two squires—beardless men about Raina's age whose chief duties appeared to be fetching things—Cinder, her secretary Dan, Henna, Raina, and Georgia. The knights were armed with rifles and pistols. The squires had small-caliber rifles and knives. Cinder had a pistol, as did Dan.

  "Where are our weapons?" Raina said.

  Two knights watched them from the porch. Cinder's eyes were bleary and puffy. "There's no need. We have zero intention of getting in a fight with anyone."

  "Those who would fight you rarely care whether you want to. That is the essence of fighting."

  "I won't let anything happen to you, okay? We've got a three-day march ahead of us. Let's get going."

  The pre-dawn smelled of dew and horses. They traveled down the road from the palace. At the gates, two knights in long-plumed hats opened the way. Once they were out of sight of the gates, Cinder called for a stop. She reached into the back of the wagon and withdrew Raina's sword belt and Henna's bow and quiver.

  "Don't make either of us regret this," Cinder said, distributing the weapons. "Remember, your friends are still at the palace."

  Raina buckled the belt over her hips. The swords felt as right as a hand in a glove.

  They marched for two hours, stopped for breakfast, then resumed. The air warmed as soon as the sun rose. Twice, they encountered other patrols from San Diego, who informed them the roads ahead were clear. They continued up the highway, which rarely wandered more than a mile from the coast, unrolling through one suburban beach town after another.

  That day, they made it as far as Oceanside, making camp in a two-story house a few blocks from the highway.

  "I am totally impressed we made it this far," Cinder said. "I'm not going to lock you up overnight, but I am going to ask for your weapons. Note: I'm not really asking."

  Raina didn't like the house—she could feel that people had died there, and not peacefully—but no weapon could fight that. She handed over her belt and Henna gave over her bow.

  The night passed without trouble. Again, they arose before dawn. The squires saw to the horses while Georgia and Dan made breakfast. They were ready to move by first light. Shortly after daybreak, the houses quit, and they walked through scrubby, open land, with green hills rising immediately to their right. Stephen, one of the knights, ranged ahead on foot.

  The hills ramped higher. The shrubs along the road thickened, joined by short, leafy trees. Footsteps pounded from ahead. Stephen returned in a dead run, face red.

  "A group of men are coming this way," he said. "They'll be here in minutes."

  "Any idea who?" Cinder said.

  "They're armed. And they're not ours."

  "Get the wagon into the trees. We'll let them pass right by."

  "And if they see us?"

  "Then I will present them the option of moving along, or collecting a bullet in their noggins. Now move!"

  The squires drove the wagon off the highway and into the trees. It left ruts in the dirt that would be easy to spot and follow if the travelers were inclined, but if that was their inclination, it would be clear they were predators to be put down. The knights installed themselves in the trees beside the wagon, rifles braced over branches. Raina crouched in front of the wagon and found a spot to spy through the foliage.

  Hooves clocked against the pavement. Raina bobbed her head for a better angle, but she wasn't able to get a good look at them until they were within two hundred feet. Six men, all mounted. The man in their lead laughed, his voice booming through the trees. He was tall, well-muscled, blond.

  Henna turned to look at her, eyes bulging. Raina nodded. She willed one of the ambling men to notice the ruts leading into the treeline. The riders came even with the hidden wagon, then passed on. The back of Anson's golden head gleamed in the sunlight.

  All the knights' eyes were fixed on the men beyond the trees. Raina leaned back toward the nearer horse and pinched its leg as hard as she could.

  It whinnied and stomped its feet. Dan shouted out, scrambling away.

  "Who's there?" one of the men called from the road. "It's an ambush!"

  Stephen opened fire with his rifle. Cinder shouted something, but this was drowned out by a fusillade from the knights. A man screamed from the road. Rifles returned fire, bullets shredding into the leaves. Raina sprinted south, drawing her swords. Henna ran behind her. Three of the riders had already been knocked from their horses. One writhed on the highway; the other two were motionless.

  The three survivors, including Anson, were shooting into the trees. They began to move south. One of the men spotted Raina moving to cut them off. He pointed at her, yelling to the others. They wheeled and reversed course, heading back the way they'd come in.

  Gunshots cracked from the woods. Another man t
umbled from the saddle and dashed to the asphalt, his neck snapping beneath his weight. Anson's horse stumbled on him and crashed to the ground. Anson screamed, left leg trapped beneath the beast. Henna's bow twanged. The blond man's head snapped forward. An arrow waggled from the back of his skull. Red matter dangled from the eye socket where the arrow head had emerged.

  The last man tore down the highway, no longer bothering to return fire.

  "Don't let him escape!" Cinder wailed from the trees.

  "Give me your bow!" Raina beckoned to Henna. Henna handed it over and unslung her quiver. Raina tossed these over her shoulder and ran to the nearest horse and swung into the saddle. It was warm from its former rider. She dug her heels into the horse's flank and galloped after the fleeing man.

  He had a few hundred feet on her, but he was a barrel of a man who outweighed her by eighty pounds. Her first arrow sailed to his right. Her second looked as though it would strike him down, but it seemed to pass right through him, smacking into the asphalt.

  He skidded to a stop, aiming a rifle back at her. Her bow thrummed. He spun in the saddle, skewered through the ribs. He squeezed off two wild shots before Raina's fourth arrow found his throat.

  She finished him, then turned and rode back to the south. The knights had exited the trees; three of them covered the north approach, with the other two holding down the south. Henna caught Raina's eye, glanced at Anson's unmoving body, and shook her head. Raina dismounted and kicked the corpse onto its back.

  It wasn't him. It was the double. The man who had tricked her at the reopening of the Dunemarket.

  To her left, Cinder extracted a white cape from one of the men's saddles. "Oh shit. Oh shit. These are the Sworn, aren't they? Did we just spark a war with the People of the Stars?"

  Dan, her secretary, took the cape from her and let it drape from his hands. "No. We didn't. Because they attacked us first."

  "Those sons of bitches," Cinder said. She laughed, pounding her fist against her knee. A crow alighted in the branches, squawking down at them. Cinder glared back at it. "Won't work. They shot first, and we didn't suffer a single casualty? The only way that works is if we shoot the squires and say they did it."