War of the Princes 02: Dragoon (25 page)

C
hapter 41: The Dead of Morning

Florian's hooves clattered on the road rhythmically. His legs stretched out in a steady loping canter. My horse was powerful, fluid, strong. So different from me.

What was I? Selfish. An idiot. A fool. I was a terrible daughter and a worse friend. Dad was the perfect father and I still continued to run off on him. My parents fought because of me. Ruby was trapped in Breakwater because of me. Rune's existence was confused because of me. Maybe he would have been better off if we'd never met. Maybe he'd live longer.

Dylan might have been right
. It really could have been my fault he was forced to be a prisoner, losing his life, his standing, and his respect.

Calvin was put in the hospital beca
use of me, there was no doubt about that.

I was the source of it all.

We rode through Cape Hill in the dark of pre-morning, bound for the harbor. Dim electrical street lanterns swung from their posts, lighting the way. We'd put Professor Block on Dylan's horse, since it was still in the stables, and Sterling rode close to him, in case he lost his balance. My former teacher was slouched in the saddle, but didn't fall. Kyle rode harder than the rest of us, like nothing could get him out of Cape Hill fast enough. Florian wouldn't have it, and made sure that he was ahead of the mare by a nose.

The round, heavy train warmed its engine in the station. Cars with
headlamps rolled lazily down the street. Other riders, by carriage, wagon, or saddle, set themselves sleepily into motion. Only the fishermen were as alert as we were, hustling to their jobs at the docks.

A frigid
wind gusted up from the cape waters and the few people I passed huddled into their coats or blew into their hands for warmth. I envied them. Cozying up near a fireplace, with a mug of cocoa in hand would probably be enough to cheer
them
up, but not me.

I'd left Rune behind a second time. Why did he have to involve himself in smuggling weapons and painting on the walls of the
installment? He was in enough trouble that he didn't think he could possibly get out of it. Why couldn't he let it go?

I heard Dylan's voice in the back of my mind, some part of my
subconscious urging me to listen to him.
“Because he's the Prince's puppet. You have no idea what he's doing. Leave him.”

“
Yeah?” I said to myself. “And where are you right now, Dylan?”

The memory of Rune's words echoed in my head.
I'm already dead.

My dad and Margrave
Hest had both told me some chillingly similar wisdom. That one person made all the difference in making or breaking the greater machine. If Haven was that machine, had I already broken it by falling out of line and making a mess of my life?

Reaching the harbor, and trotting down the lane that took us to our mooring was surreal. No one stopped us. No one pursued. Seeing the Flying Fish, her deck lights making the copper hull glow, set me afire with a
wild, hysterical relief. The wide boarding plank was down, readily awaiting us.

We dismounted and brought the horses aboard in silence. Block barely managed to get down without falling.

“I c-can hardly move m-my arms and l-legs,” Block said through chattering teeth.

“
You need to get warm,” Sterling told him.

“
That went infinitely better than I thought it would,” Kyle said, giving his mare a pat on the neck. “Aside from freezing in our saddles anyway.”

Carmine joined us on the main deck and brought a different sort of fire with her.

“What in any imaginable hells do you think you're doing?” she snapped at me, barely keeping her voice quiet.

She snatched Florian's reins from my hand, thrust them at Kyle, clamped me by the arm and wrenched me in the direction of the aft cabins and cargo hold.

I was jarred into shock, unready for an assault from a friend.

It was about the weapons. She'd found out what our cargo was.

Carmine is risking her neck because of me. Add another name to the list.

“
I can explain.”

“
Damn right you will,” she said, flinging open the cabin door. “Kyle gave me your message, so I agreed, like any good ferryman. These huge containers were loaded aboard, and I thought, well, I'll make a nice profit now won't I? So, after they left, I got curious, and I checked the containers. The price should suit the product. If all of Breakwater donated their life savings to Common-Lord Axton, their combined coin still would not be able to cover what you've done.”

We went past the horse stalls to the broad opening of the greater cargo room. Five huge wooden crates crowded the sides of the hold
. Each of their tops had been swung open on their hinges. But the room was choked with something else. On the crates, around them, within them, were Breakwater's stolen children.

Chapter 42:
Lina Thayer

They were all here
, the ones with Abilities, and the ones without. I could tell them apart by their clothing. The Dragoon initiates wore simple, dark uniforms. The others wore the clothes they were taken in. Few resources, if any, had been offered to the latter group. Many of them were emaciated, sick. Some of them slept, curled up in groups, but each and every one of them looked happy. They played quiet games, whispered to each other, and covered their mouths with their hands when they laughed.

“
I wanted to turn them out. Send them back,” Carmine said. “But what kind of a hypocrite would I be? They appear to know that their lives depend on them being quiet and staying hidden. I've never seen children take anything so seriously, but if I catch so much as one above decks or screaming, I'll throw them overboard myself. I'll get them to Breakwater, if that's what you want, but I'm not dying for them.”

“
Thank you, Carmine,” I said, shaken.

“
Don't thank me yet.”

She stalked away, leaving me in the crowded cargo hold with the children.

Their joy and hope were infectious. I'd let myself go colder than the frigid wind after finding out the truth about my mother, but here was a little light. Maybe I had messed up my life, but if I hadn't been here, these kids wouldn't have had an escape route.

A few of them looked familiar. I saw the boy from the platform in the
installment, sitting side by side with the little blonde girl who had fought to help him. There were faces I'd seen in Breakwater, while I was Dylan's prisoner. Children who'd played with Lina Thayer in the stables.

“
Miss Katelyn.” A boy of about thirteen had stood and climbed around the younger children to reach me. He barely dared to use his voice at all. “Do you remember me?”

He was skinny and tan, with wavy brown hair and rich brown eyes. The
Dragoon recruit uniform hung off of him, begging the question of whether it fit when he'd first arrived. I did remember him. He was the boy who'd worked at the stables in Breakwater. He was there when Dylan had first given me Florian.

“
Yes,” I said, still battling with my surprise that they were all here. Was I dreaming? “I don't think I ever learned your name.”

“
Merritt.”

“
Merritt, how many of you are there?”

“
Two hundred and forty-nine,” he said with enough confidence to convince me that he was keeping track. “Nobody younger than six made it, except for Callie, because she's so quiet. Most of us are Dragoon initiates. A few are initiates from Cape Hill and other towns. The kids without Abilities got drained right after they failed the tests. Some of them were my friends. We only saved a few, but it's better than none.”

I could see the pain on his face, the shock, and the hope. He was holding together remarkably well.

“It's going to be okay now.” The words slipped out, and I wondered if I should be making promises. “They're all keeping so quiet. No one is even crying.”

“
The loud ones didn't make it. We're so close to getting home, not even the six-year-olds will risk ruining that. I think they had to grow up fast,” he said, as though he'd already done all of his growing up.

“
How did so many of you get aboard?”

“
There are shelves in the crates. We had to crunch in as many people as we could. It was hot and hard to breathe, but it was worth it. Pilot Rousseau smuggled fifty kids to the forward of the ship, and seventy below deck, so that it would balance better. I sent twelve and thirteen year olds with her to take care of each group. I don't think she's happy about us being here, but she gave us as much food and water as she had.”

I stared at him, amazed. He was so organized, so determined, I
was washed with a surge of admiration. “Merritt, you've done everything right.”

The younger teen shrugged.
“My dad's in the militia. He says when your soldiers are looking after each other, and someone is looking after them, everyone is safer.”

“
I think he's right, and I think he gave you the right name.”

Merritt let himself look proud, just for a moment.
“The Dragoons that helped us get out, they blew up the children's training halls to make it look like we all died. The Prince won't come looking for us.”

All of those tremors, the perfectly timed explosions that had plagued the
installment the whole time I was there. It wasn't enemy spies or Cape Hill rebels. It wasn't any of the people from the lower city, forcefully pulled in at the Prince's order to be interrogated.

Rune. It was you all along. This was what you were hiding, what you sold your life for. If they'd failed, if someone needed to be caught, to take the fall, you were willing to die.

My chest constricted and burned. Dawn was only an hour away. An eternity. He would make it. I knew he would.

There was another Thayer who was important to me that I might finally be able to see. She was a brave girl, willing to demand my release from the
installment in Breakwater while I was being held prisoner there. She was probably the only person native to the Outside World who'd refused to participate in pretending that Dragoons didn't exist.

She was the reason Rune had fought to be the perfect soldier. So long as he didn't die, the
Prince wouldn't need new recruits, wouldn't discover his sister or any other talented children. His efforts were wasted. Penalty was exacted. It had all been for nothing. It must have tormented him. I couldn't imagine anyone, Dragoon or not, escaping from that kind of emotional blow unscathed.

“
Merritt, do you know Lina Thayer?”

“
Yes,” he said looking up at me. “Her brother, he was the one telling the other Dragoons what to do. I think saving us was his idea.”

I was right.

“We were all together at first, while they were testing us. They took her away with the others. She didn't have an Ability.”

No Ability? Then if Penalty hadn't happened, she was never in any danger of becoming a
Dragoon, or suffering their tests. Rune's reasons for enduring military slavery were doubly pointless.

“
What part of the ship is Lina in?”

“
She's not on the ship.”

“What? Why not?”

Merritt looked back at the hold, packed with his peers and the other children that were so obviously happy to be on their way home, despite their condition.

“
Because she's dead.”

Chapter 43:
Paperglass To Be

Lina
Thayer.

Leaving
myself open to my instincts, I called on the Pull to find the little girl who’d been my friend.

Nothing.

I finally had my answer. When a person was dead, I didn't feel any desire to move in any direction. It was true then. I hadn't wanted to believe it. I was certain I could search for Lina's physical body, but I didn't want to. I didn't need any more evidence.

“
Kat,” Kyle said, resting his hand on my arm. “You can't save everyone all the time.”

We were sitting in a
bunkroom within the forward cabin. Professor Block lay in one of the beds, resting, and Kyle, Sterling and I sat on a cot opposite him. I wasn't crying. I wouldn't cry in front of them.

“
She was a sweet kid,” I stared at my hands in my lap. “I could have come back. I could have done something.”

“
Like kidnapping her from her family?” he asked, in a half-mocking tone. “That would have gone over really well.”

He was right, but I didn't want to tell him that he was.

“I don't understand how these people can choose to live like this,” Sterling said vacantly. “Why do they do this to themselves, to each other?”

“
I must have asked myself that question a million times,” I sighed.

“
Blood,” came Professor Block's worn, gravely voice. “And revenge. One side hurts another, hurts another. It is the snake that eats its own tail. The... ughn... circle redraws itself until it is broken, and the only way anyone can ever think to break the cycle is with force, thus contributing to the everlasting. Pride, murder, revenge. Pride, murder, revenge.”

“
You're awake,” I said, looking his face over. Carmine and Kyle had helped to clean his wounds. They'd gotten him into a fresh set of clothes while I was in the cargo hold with Merritt, and Sterling had tended to the horses. The swelling on Block's eye had gone down some and the slit of his lids were able to peel open a fraction. His face was still horribly bruised and he was weak.

“
Three of my students, in the Outside World… mister Mason, slower to grasp new concepts but quicker to put them to use. Mister Kiteman, intelligent beyond your years, but easily bored. Miss Kestrel, poor with assignments but rich with questions. I should be surprised least by seeing you here.” His words were air. Block swallowed, closing his eyes for a while before reopening them. “I expected to die.”

“
I'm sorry for what happened in the cell, sir,” I said, ashamed by how long it had taken me to break the spell I was under and help him. “I thought I was going to find my mother.”

“
With me? No, they wouldn't let her join the mission.”

“
Why not?” Kyle asked for me.

“
Kendra,” he broke off, coughing. “She has none of the gifts. No extra talents. No, Abilities, as they're so frequently called here. If she had one, it would be hard work and determination.”

And selfishness.

“I didn't know who she was when it happened,” I told him. “She came to recruit me, in Rivermarch, to come and look for you. She said her name was Sandra Loring.”

“
I've heard that. We were never close enough for me to understand why she used it. I knew who she was.”

I explained our meeting to him, and her proposal, hoping the details weren't too difficult for him to absorb, in his current state.
“She said my mother was Paperglass To Be.”

That made him laugh and he groaned with discomfort.
“Paperglass was the name of the team,” he said, through his teeth. “I'm Two B.”

Two B's.

“Barry Block,” I said, groaning and covering my eyes with my palms. The clue had been right there all along.

“
Hey,” Kyle said, shaking my shoulder. “Don't lose it. There’s no way we could have figured that out.”

Block sighed, looking exhausted. His eyelids drooped.
“You need to know... but I'm so tired. You need to know Haven's secret.”

“
Professor,” Sterling said, rising to examine him. “He's unconscious.”

“
He'll be alright,” Kyle said. “He's just smarter than the rest of us. We all could use some sleep.”

Kyle was right, but I couldn't rest
, not without Rune safely aboard.

Lina
. You decided we would be friends for a long time. That didn't get to happen. I couldn't help you, but I can help your brother.

*   *   *

It was dawn. Light beamed behind mountainous clouds that dwarfed even the highest structures in Cape Hill. I stood on the deck of the Flying Fish, holding the orange scarf that Rune's mother had knitted for me.

“
No one's sorrier than me,” I said to no one and wrapped it around my neck. The comfort it brought me was instant. I was still cold, but a little less, and not because of the insulation the fabric provided. How had I ever let Dylan talk me out of wearing it? It'd been burned and battered, but I'd taken a whole class in my final year of high school simply to repair it.

Icy rain began to spill over half of the cape, darkening everything it crossed.

Where was he?

Pink faded into the snow blue sky like watercolors in a painting. Gentle yellow light pierced through a hole in one of the great cumulonimbus, and sent a beam of light to
lie over the city. In its path, tile roofs brightened, statues glowed, metal boats shined, and the dark sea sparkled. As the clouds moved, a fragment of the light touched the Fish and warmed my cheek.

I spun away from it, like it'd hurt me.

He should have been here by now. Hadn't I gotten to him? Convinced him he had reason enough to change his fate and live? His freedom frightened him, but he said he'd be here. He promised.

“
Should we begin our departure?” Carmine asked from behind me.

I nearly jumped out of my skin. When had she gotten there?

“No,” I said. “Not yet.”

“
Listen, I don't want to be pushy here, but considering the cargo we have, I'm afraid I'll have to insist we're underway.”

A
Dragoon, beaten, brainwashed and molded into service, had broken away from his training. He'd saved me, and every one of the children aboard the ship, and we were going to repay him by leaving him behind. My feelings for him aside, abandoning him was wrong. I couldn't do it.

I wouldn't.

“Give me an hour. Just one more hour,” I told her. “If I'm not back by then, leave. If Dylan returns, take him with you, and whatever happens, don't let anyone off the ship.”