The smell of death lingers on the air, tangy and metallic.
I reach the Hunters, who’re too tired to be surprised at the sudden presence of a Youngling in their midst. They’re older’n Circ, but not by much, perhaps only on their first Call, or maybe second.
They all have injuries: cuts and scrapes and claw marks. Killer wounds.
“I know him,” I say, panting, my elbows on my knees. “Please. Is he okay?”
Across the Hunter’s shoulders, Circ groans.
He’s alive.
Another Hunter helps pull Circ down, lays him in the durt. I hear wheels rattling across the uneven terrain behind me. Help’s on the way. I kneel down, lean over him, touch his dust and bloodstained face. “I’m here, Circ,” I say softly.
His eyes ease open, and when he sees me he manages a smile. “Sie,” he says, his voice barely audible over the sound of the wind whipping through our clothes.
“Yes, it’s me,” I say, taking in his injuries. His hair is matted with blood, aged and reddish-brown. His brown tugskin shirt is soaked through with blood, concentrated at a point where there’s a gnarled and torn hole. I can’t see the extent of the damage ’cause there’s too much blood. If he can’t walk, it must be bad. I’ve seen Circ leap up after nasty injuries, fight through it. He’s not the type to be carried ’round like a dead man.
Tears blur my vision. Circ. Oh, Circ.
“It’s gonna be okay,” I say. “Everything’s gonna be okay.” I think I’m saying it more for myself.
“The Killers found us,” he murmurs. “We barely…” His voice falters and his eyelids flutter.
“Shhh,” I say, fighting back a sob. “We’ll get you help. MedMa’ll help.” A stream is running down my face, dripping on his clothes, mixing with his blood.
Circ sees me, his eyes clear once more. His face twists in agony. The tears start tumbling down his face now, too. I think it’s ’cause he’s scared to die, but then I see it in the swirls of his deep brown eyes and realize: he’s crying for me. Even in this condition, he’s focused on my pain, my anguish, my fear that he’s gonna die. He’s crying for me when he’s the one dying.
Shouts behind us. Wheels rattling over stones. A whole village of people—my people—who don’t mean a searin’ thing without him.
“Sie,” Circ says, his voice sounding stronger’n before. “Sie, I need you to know something.” I’m holding my breath, furiously blinking back tears. He fumbles at his wrist, almost frantic, like he’s fighting against time. His time.
He locates his bracelet, his charms. Snaps the leather, pulls one off. I can’t hold my breath any longer so I let it out in a gasp. “Circ, what are you—”
“Shhh,” he says, his voice sounding almost normal. Like usual, he’s comforting me. Am I the one dying? Did I fall from my cell in Confinement when I was trying to follow the workers? Did I dream everything? Am I dreaming now, in a confused state?
Reality comes rushing back when MedMa’s wagon rattles to a stop next to Circ. No, I’m not dreaming. Circ is dying, right ’fore my very eyes. Using his last few breaths to comfort me.
“Circ, I—”
“Take this,” he says, stuffing the charm into my hand, closing my fingers over it. MedMa and his apprentice rush ’round the cart. “Please know that someday we’ll be together.”
He grabs my wrist, squeezes it. MedMa lifts him into the wagon, starts rolling him away. “No!” I cry. “No, Circ, no. Don’t leave me. Don’t…” I collapse in the dust, mental and physical exhaustion setting in.
I lie still for a moment or two. When I sit up I feel empty, like the butcher’s gutted me. No heart. No will. No nothing. My fist is clenched and I feel the bite of cold metal in my skin.
When I peel back my fingers I see it. Circ’s charm, a pointer. His gift for his first Call. He’s given it to me.
Chapter Twenty
Eventually I come to my senses. Chase after MedMa’s wagon, catch up just as it reaches the Place of Healing. Circ is unconscious but still alive.
He can’t die. He said it himself:
Someday we’ll be together.
I hafta wait outside. MedMa has work to do. He makes it sound so ordinary. Work. Like building a tent or chopping down a tree or shoveling blaze. Work, like saving Circ’s life.
The sun comes out again. I search the sky but the dark clouds from earlier are gone, vanished. Not moved on. Just gone. I pray it’s not a sign for Circ. For us.
I sit in the durt, prop against the Healing hut. Spin Circ’s pointer charm through my fingers, watching it catch the light. Under the Law, he’s not permitted to give it to me, but he did. If he survives I don’t know what it’ll mean. He’s too young to be a Call, and anyway, you can’t choose. The Greynotes decide. I unfasten my bracelet and slide his charm onto the band, next to mine. The tree and the pointer. Together at last.
For what it’s worth, I think healing thoughts for Circ.
He won’t die. He won’t. Can’t. I’m two full moons from my Call, the most important moment of my life, so he hasta be there, right? He’s young, strong, invincible. Good at everything. Even surviving. He’ll survive, ’cause he never loses.
Everything catches up with me at that moment. The constant name-calling at Learning. The endless fights with my father. Confinement. The boneyard on the edge of ice country. Raja, framed for murder. My broken wrist. Saving Circ from the Killers only to find him on a knife’s blade. My body shakes and shudders, my hands trembling as I tuck them ’round my head. Every tear I have left pours from my eyes like a spring rain—the flood of the last few full moons of my shattered and broken life.
Without him, it’s over.
MedMa opens the door.
I look up, unable to see, but seeing more clearly’n I’ve ever seen ’fore.
Circ’s dead.
“I’m sorry. I did everything I could,” MedMa says. I hate him. Hate his apologies. Hate the Killers. Hate ’spiracies and life sentences and duty and the Law. Hate my father.
As I stand up, my face is full of heat. From the hot, bubbling tears that well up from tear ducts that shoulda been empty long ago. From the anger coursing through every blood-carrying vein in my body. From the sun that’s beating—beating, smashing, pummeling—down upon me. There’s no mercy in the sun goddess’s gaze. Not today. I hate her, too.
I run.
~~~
I don’t know where I go, or how far, or who I see. There’re voices, so many voices, but none of them are alive. Not to me.
Not even I’m alive. I can’t be, not if Circ’s not.
My legs are already exhausted but I don’t notice the way they ache and throb. Just keep running. Through the village at first, I think, and then not. Out into the desert somewhere. Away. Just away.
And then I’m there.
Our place. The Mouth.
Our dunes.
Empty, so empty, without Circ’s laughter, his jokes, his knees touching mine, his warmth against me. It doesn’t even feel like a real place anymore.
My legs falter and I fall, feeling a twinge of pain in my injured arm as I land on it. The pain helps. I crawl my way to our nook, scrabble in the sand, scooping out shovelfuls till I’ve made a hole, big enough for only one. Curl up inside it, close my eyes, pretend the sand that’s closing in around me is him, holding me, protecting me.
Someday we’ll be together.
How could he lie to me like that? Someday’ll never come. Never. Even if he’d lived it wouldn’t have come. The Law wouldn’t allow it. My father wouldn’t allow it.
With the wind blowing grains of sand over me and the sky darkening to dusk, I cry myself to sleep, held only by a pocket of sand and memories of Circ.
~~~
Blackness greets me when I wake. The merciless sun goddess is asleep and the moon goddess and her lieges are taking a day off.