Of Dreams and Rust (31 page)

I take his face in my hands, and I kiss his mouth. He sighs a broken thank-you as I lay my cheek on his forehead and listen to his life ebb, his breathing going shallow and erratic. I hold his hand and kiss his fingers while he dies, and I look into his eye as the spark of brilliance fades from it.

Once it is gone, I put his mask back on his face. I know how he would feel about people staring. Numb and hollow, I rise. I touch my temple again, and blood dribbles over my fingers, slick and fresh. With vague interest I look down at my tunic to see my shoulder and sleeve stained crimson. I trudge clumsily around the side of the carrier, my feet like blocks of ice. A group of Noor stands a good distance away from the wreckage, over by the riverbed. Even through my blurred vision I see the rust-colored hair of my Noor mother. “Anni,” I breathe, “I think I'm hurt.”

My ears fill with the ocean's roar as I sink to my knees. Distant shouts fly past me, and then I am rolled onto my back and faintly familiar faces hover above me. I try to smile as Anni strokes my face. Something soft is pressed to the side of my head. “You'll be fine,” she says, her voice strained.

But I will not be fine. I could never be fine again. Melik is gone. Bo is gone. And I would rather be with them.

I close my eyes, let myself sink into the dark and the cold, and invite death to swallow me.

Chapter

DEATH IS NOT pleasant. My head pounds and pinches and throbs, my muscles ache, and I cannot get away from the noise. Instead of rising into the sky, I descend into the earth, too heavy to move. Bo and Melik are close—I see them, hazy shapes and colors, shadows just out of my reach. I call for them over and over again. Bo perches on one side, and Melik on the other. Dark and light. Both beckoning, offering to take my hand and lead me to wherever they are. They promise they are real, and that we can be together.

“Come with me,” Bo says. “Choose me.”

“Mican tisamokye,”
whispers Melik. “If you leave me, you take my heart.”

They are so different from each other, and I don't want to let either one go. But finally both of them fade away and leave me alone.

I curl in on myself. My mother is not here. There is no crystal sea of souls and no ancestors to enfold me. This is the opposite of peaceful. I want to cry, but I have no tears. I want stillness, but all I have is jostling and prodding. I want silence, but my ears fill with clatter and chatter, as well as the endless crashing and hissing of machines.

“Shouldn't she have awakened by now?”

I have lost too much to return.

“Her body needs rest, and so she is resting.”

I wish for rest, but all I have is clamor.

“Does she know we're here?”

Hands smooth over my hair and there is a tug at my temple. “I believe she does.”

Something in the weary yet gentle tone of that voice pulls the veil of oblivion away from me. Yearning swells in my chest. “Father?” I whisper.

Someone squeezes my hand and lets out a low, strangled noise. “I'm right here, daughter. I am holding your hand.”

I slowly open my eyes, and his face is above mine. “Father.”

He smiles and quickly swipes a tear from his cheek, then tugs a blanket higher on my chest. There is a thick pillow beneath my head, and my body is warm and tightly bundled. “You lost a great deal of blood.”

Someone else takes my other hand, and the flash of rust-colored hair in my periphery is a painful jolt to my heart. “It's been all we could do to get enough dang-gui tea into you,” says Anni.

My father touches a bandage on the side of my head. “You were cut with some shrapnel. We are thankful it didn't kill you.” He smiles, a gentle, soft curve that I have missed so much. “I stitched you good as new. Your hair will cover the scar.”

“How are you here?” I ask, my voice cracking and hoarse. My gaze flits from him to the stone and mud walls around me and the thatched roof above. I am in Anni's cottage. Strange noises come from outside, the roar and hiss of steam engines and shouts in Noor. It is like the battle is still going on, and I shudder. Anni puts her hand over my stomach, weighing me down, holding me where I am.

“I have had an adventure,” my father says, his wrinkled face bemused but also full of quiet pride. “I was grieving my beloved daughter when five young soldiers walked out of the Western Hills and into the Ring with an amazing story that was too strange to ignore. Hoping Bo had been right when he refused to accept the news of your death, I packed my things and set off into the canyon ahead of the army. I stuck to high trails and got lost a few times, and I ended up in a village several miles to the north of this one.”

Anni lets out a fond chuckle, and I am amazed that someone who has lost so much can make that kind of happy sound. “He spoke enough Noor to get to Dagchocuk. He arrived the night after the great battle, and we were very thankful. Your father is a great doctor, and you were not his only patient.” She pats my shoulder and leaves the room as the ground trembles.

Father looks toward the door. “You have been sleeping for two days. The Noor have been repairing the war machines. Sixteen are operational, but it is taking some time to fill the water tanks using their wells and the spring. They are teaching themselves to pilot them.” He lets out a snort of quiet laughter. “They have only crashed one. Really, I think they are doing very well.”

But I cannot feel that triumph. My losses curdle in my stomach, and I wish I could sink into unconsciousness again. As awful as it was, being here is harder. “Bo did this. He delivered the machines. He . . . he—”

Father sighs. “We buried him yesterday, with the rest of the dead. There were many. Wen . . .”

I squeeze my eyes shut. I don't want to hear him tell me about Melik. I cover my mouth to stifle a sob of grief. This is too much. “Please don't say his name.”

Uneven footsteps thump toward us from the front room. “Wen?”

My eyes pop open at the desperate, familiar sound of his voice. “Melik?”

He appears in the doorway, blocking out the light, his broad silhouette unmistakable. His rust-colored hair is wild and his tunic is smeared with soot. My father dodges out of the way as Melik lunges forward and reaches my side in an instant. His hands smell of machine oil but I don't care—I am in his arms and his lips are on my forehead and I am alive, so alive that my heart bursts with it. My fingers curl into Melik's sleeves as he kisses me, scratching my skin with his scraggly stubble.

“I was so afraid you would not come back,” he says in a choked voice.

“Are you real?” I whisper stupidly as his hair tickles my cheeks.

Anni peers in from the doorway. “Real enough to have been pestering your father constantly about your condition.”

My father chuckles and rises to his feet. “I did not mind,” he says, looking down at me. “When you are ready, we have bread and more tea for you.” He and Anni disappear into the front room, where the fire glows warm and throws shadows on the wall.

Melik raises his head and looks down at me. The circles under his eyes are purple, and even his freckles are pale. “You kept saying my name, and Bo's name, and you sounded so lost.” His eyes glitter with unshed tears. “But you did not hear me when I answered. Your father finally told me I had to stay away. He thought it was upsetting you.”

“I saw you die.”

“No, you did not.” He kisses the tip of my nose. “When the carrier began firing and charging ahead, we were behind it. Bo ordered me to load the firebox with coal—and then he told me to jump out. It was a hard fall. I was lying in the riverbed, and my leg . . .” He shifts uncomfortably, and I glance down to see the cane that he discarded as he dived to the floor to reach me.

“He was alone in the machine when he attacked the carrier,” I murmur.

“He told me I had better not die,” Melik says, sadness shadowing his face. “He said I owed my sorry life to you, and I had better repay the debt.”

“He was trying to make amends.” In his own way. Always in his own way.

“I know,” he says quietly, laying his forehead on mine. “But he was doing more than that.”

“He felt terrible about Sinan, Melik.”

“I know that as well, Wen. I was in too much pain to share it with him at first. I wish . . .” He presses his lips shut.

“What are you doing with the machines?” I ask, needing to move away from talk of Bo. His loss is so heavy that it is hard to breathe.

“We have positioned five in the canyon, and they will hold the troops back. The others are leaving tonight for the northern front.”

My unsteady hands push Melik's hair back from his face. “Are you going with them?”

His jade eyes bore into mine. “I must.” He turns his head and kisses my palm. “Wen, I need to know . . .” His eyelashes flutter against my fingers. “Will you be here when I return? Your father is here now. He said he could take you back to the Ring. It might be safer there. We do not know what will happen. I could have someone guide you if you want to return.” He mumbles all of this against my skin, and I feel every word.

It is shocking to me, after what we have shared, that he would say this. I can tell it hurts him to do it, and I am glad, because it certainly hurts me. But I understand it. This time, I understand it. I turn his face back to mine. “Melik, I am not letting go.”

*  *  *

I kneel in front of the grave, the chill wind whipping my hair. My body aches from another long day by my father's side, tending to patients who come from every village on the Line. I am so tired that I could lie down right here and sleep, but I think that is normal, and being tired is not the worst thing. Besides, there is always something to do, and that is when I do best.

I brush a bit of dirt off the grave marker. The stones are carefully placed, the corners squared, the earth smooth. “I hope you can hear me,” I say quietly. “I think you would be very happy today.”

A gust of wind tugs and twists the strip of cloth tied to the grave-post. I smooth down the crimson fabric, the delicate green leaves and black diamonds, but it wants to fly. It is identical to the one next to it, the one that marks Sinan's grave. The two banners flutter, straining to take flight. They are so alike, and so like their owners. It is hard to hold them down, to suppress their boundless energy.

I hope they are together. It is a silly kind of wish, but I like to think of them that way.

Hands close over my shoulders, and I cover them with my own. “Thank you for claiming him,” I say.

“Do you think that's what he would have wanted?”

I lean my head back and look up at my red Noor. “It is hard to know what he would have wanted. But I think he would have been glad to call Sinan his brother.”

Melik's mouth curves into a half smile. “Then he is my brother too, whether he wants to be or not.”

Melik's arms wind around my waist as we look down at the two graves. Bo did not want to be alone, and he isn't. He will never be. He might have been a ghost in the east, long dead and known to no one at all. But I will never forget him, and neither will the Noor—he is a hero to them. He is the reason there is a truce. He is the reason Melik's arms are around me. He is the reason we are safe. He gave power to those who had none, just enough to make them hard to stomp on. It was such a startling and expensive loss that our government reconsidered the invasion. After weeks of stalemate the balance was struck. The negotiations began.

And the fighters came home. Yesterday Melik and several of the other men from Dagchocuk rode their horses along the Line and came running down the lanes, into the arms of their families. Tonight there will be a feast. Already there is singing in the square. One would think the drought had ended or that the government had granted Yilat autonomy, but neither has happened. We do not need the rains or a permanent peace to celebrate, though—we will not assume there is a better time than now to be happy.