Weavers (The Frost Chronicles) (14 page)

“I’m just surprised he speaks about his past,” I said finally.

“He doesn’t,” she said. “He never says a word. I only know he’s from Astralux because I saw him there.”

My interest sharpened. I put down the fork and leaned forward. “Saw him there? You mean...before he was a fugitive?”

“Yes. Of course. At functions at the palace. My father was a tailor and I sometimes attended functions. We never spoke, of course.”

My heart crashed against the walls of my chest, and my pulse thundered. “Palace?”

“Yes,” Claire said, and her eyes widened slightly with surprise as she realized I was startled by this information. “He’s a prince, a member of the royal family.”

Prince? Royal family? As in the royal
Aeralian
family?

Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe.

I STARED AT her across the table, open-mouthed. Gabe was an Aeralian prince?

“You’re wrong,” I said, even though pieces were clicking into place and shivers were beginning to cascade down my spine. Gabe’s clear good breeding and signs of obvious wealth. All the Farther soldiers who’d braved the dangers of the Frost searching for a single, frightened fugitive when they’d never done such a thing before—clearly, he must be an important prisoner to warrant so many soldiers. I recalled his noble habits, his vocabulary, his gestures, and the aura of grave importance that clung to him like a lingering scent.

And then there was Korr. He was a nobleman, a person of wealth and position. A man of influence...and he was Gabe’s brother. I remembered the way Raine had deferred to him, almost feared him.

A bird landed behind the window and peered at us with bright black eyes. It fluttered its wings and hopped on the ground, looking for crumbs, and I gazed at it while shards of the truth sank into my soul. “You’re wrong. You must be wrong,” I repeated, but my words were dull and lacked inflection.

Claire’s eyes softened as if she understood something. As if she’d just solved a puzzle. I didn’t like being a puzzle that she was solving. I bristled.

“Whatever you say,” she murmured, and then turned her head to look out the window as if suddenly fascinated by the bird.

I struggled to draw in a deep breath. I glanced down at my food, which had begun to congeal on my plate. I was no longer interested in eating it, despite my hunger. My mind churned with a cacophony of memories, thoughts, and denials.

How could this be true? How could he have hidden it from me?

Claire fiddled with her spoon and bit her lip. Finally, she broke the silence. “Well,” she said, shooting me a quick glance. “We should get going. I have to take you to the work site before I can report to work myself. I don’t want to be late.”

Despite my sudden lack of appetite, I shoveled the last few bites of food into my mouth before pushing my plate away. Even extreme shock wouldn’t keep me from eating. Months of near-starvation tended to put things into perspective. Claire waited, tapping her fingernails against the table.

After I’d finished eating, we put our plates in a hole in the wall meant for dirty dishes, and then we exited the building. The hot air struck my face and sucked the breath from my lungs. I followed Claire up the street. I recognized the shape of what would become the artisans’ quarter in my village. To my left, I saw the place that would become the markets. At the moment, it was only an empty square filled with barrels.

Claire stopped before a curving metal door just beyond the market space. “You’ll receive your work assignment here. Good luck.”

I jerked my head in a nod, and she left me standing there alone. I took a deep breath and entered the building.

The room was small and lined with shelves just like Juniper’s room had been. Bright light glowing from the ceiling hurt my eyes, and a humming sound buzzed in the distance like the whining of an insect. The scent of dust and soap filled the air, a contradicting promise of unwashed corners and cleaned surfaces. A spider crawled along the edge of the ceiling, near the light.

A woman sat at a table a few paces away, gazing down at a stack of papers. When I entered, she looked up and frowned, as if she’d just been presented with a particularly unpleasant problem to solve. Her eyes crinkled at the corners as she squinted at me, as if she was trying to place my face in her memory. “You’re the newest girl?”

I nodded.

“Funny,” she said. “Your face is familiar. I wonder...” her voice trailed off, and she raised an eyebrow.

Sweat broke out between my shoulder blades. Did she suspect something? Was something about my face, my mannerisms, my clothing suspicious? My stomach curled in apprehension as words hovered on her lips, unspoken.

She licked her teeth. “Hmm,” she said.

“I arrived yesterday.” My lips felt stiff. What if I gave her a wrong answer? What if my accent, my words gave me away? My fingers dug into my palms as I waited for her to make another comment.

But after an excruciating few seconds, she flicked her hand as if waving away a cobweb. “Never mind,” she said, and reached across the desk for a stack of papers. “This has your information. There’s a need for another member of the cleaning crew in the Labs. You’ll have to be cleared with security first. You can do that there.” She pointed at a doorway in the far wall and then looked away.

Clearly, I was dismissed.

My legs wobbled and my stomach lurched as I headed for the door, clutching the paper. I’d escaped one potential trap, but now I was faced with another. What were they going to do? Would I have to pass a test?

I stepped into another hallway, another room. More bright lights, more endless rows of shelves. More scents of dust and soap. But fortunately, I wasn’t asked any questions this time. A man in a white coat marked my fingers with ink and pressed it onto a warm square that blinked and beeped. He shone a bright, focused beam into my eyes and then checked a thin tablet in his hand. He grunted an affirmative sound. “Lila White.”

I expected him to ask me questions, but he only turned away.

My breath escaped my lungs in a hiss. I was running blind here. I had no knowledge of this place, no knowledge of what to say. Irritation surged in me. Why hadn’t anyone given me instructions yet? I needed more knowledge if I was to complete this mission unscathed and undetected. What would they do if they discovered I was an imposter? Evict me from this place? Imprison me?

But when the man turned back, he only handed me square of metal that clipped to my garment. He didn’t ask any more questions. “This shows that you’re allowed in the Labs,” he said. “You’ll need it at all times in the Labs, so don’t lose it.”

“I won’t.”

“You ought to report right away,” the man added. “They’ll be expecting you with the other swabbers. Do you know how to find the Labs?”

“I...”

“Oh, I’ll take her.”

I went still at the familiar voice.
Gabe
. I lifted my eyes and saw him standing in the doorway, his head tilted so his hair fell over his eyes and his left shoulder braced against the doorframe casually. He carried a box under one arm. “I’m going that way.”

“Are those the tests I’m expecting?” the man asked, and Gabe nodded.

My skin prickled and my mind spiraled as I watched him set the box on a low table. He turned and looked at me, his face impassive.

“Ready?”

“Yes.”

He swept an arm to indicate that I pass through the door before him. The gesture was grand, almost stately. Claire’s words flashed across my mind.

I know he’s from Astralux because I saw him there. He’s a member of the royal family
.

Little explosions of pain danced in my chest.

Our eyes met and our clothing brushed as I passed him to step through the doorway. His were deep, unfathomable. His eyebrows lifted at what he saw in mine. I could only imagine what daggers I might be shooting at him. A confusion of feelings crawled at the back of my mind, a cacophony of thoughts fighting for dominance. I went out into the bright, oppressive heat and waited for him to catch up while the feelings cascaded over me in a wave of images. I remembered the shirt I’d torn from his back the first day I’d found him—the feel of fabric fine and silken against my fingers, fabric that was completely useless in the cold but that spoke of wealth, opulence. I remembered the story he’d told me, about his sister’s birthday, about how the soldiers took him from the house. I remembered him choking on astonishment when I asked about his family’s occupation, and the way his face had sobered as he’d searched for something to say.

Gabe reached my side. I wanted to speak, but when I looked at him, the words in my throat refused to come out. He shoved his hands in his pockets and nodded at the trees. “The Labs are this way. Shall we walk?”

I let him lead me up the path. The sunlight shone against his hair and turned the edges golden. I stared at his back. Finally, I found the words. They came out suddenly, shattering the stillness. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Gabe stopped. His shoulders and neck stiffened. “Tell you what?” His tone was cautious.

My fingernails dug into the palms of my hands as I spoke again. The words felt like vomit coming up my throat. “That you are a member of...of the Aeralian royal family. A prince.”

He flinched and turned, and I read the sharp refusal in his eyes, but I also saw the fear. He was begging and defying me at once without speaking. At his sides, his hands clenched just like mine. For a single shimmering moment, tension hung between us. Birdcalls snapped the silence. The heat clung to my skin and made me sweat. There were so many things to say. I didn’t know where to start. I didn’t know how.

“It’s not—” he began, and stopped. He sighed. “I was a prince. Before the soldiers overthrew everything. Before the coupe. Now, I’m just a beggar with fine manners. Worse, I’m a fugitive hiding for my life.”

“What else haven’t you told me?”

He just shook his head.

Everything we’d shared, everything we’d risked, everything we’d given, yet he’d held this back. The truth of it made me feel old, dried up, empty. Keeping such secrets left me vulnerable. It put me at risk. But more than that...it was Gabe. I thought we trusted each other.

“Why didn’t you tell me such a momentous thing?” I demanded, and this time my voice crackled, giving me away.

Heat rose in his face and settled behind his eyes, flickering like defiance. ¬“It was too dangerous. I didn’t know if I could trust you. And I...I still don’t.” His throat bobbed as he swallowed.

That admission cut me like a knife, sensible as it may be. Anger spiked in me, hot and furious. “I risked my life for you. I risked my family’s lives for you! I cared for you when you were sick and braved the Watchers in the forest to see you to safety. I...” I faltered before saying those three fatal words.
I loved you
.

“But...” His eyes pleaded with me to understand. “My political identity is my biggest secret. My greatest vulnerability. I don’t dare trust anyone with it. Anyone who knows might use it against me, or against my family.”

Footsteps rang out, and a string of workers in gray garments emerged from the trees, following the gravel path toward the village behind us. Gabe and I fell silent, waiting until they had passed. His chest rose and fell with tight breaths. His eyes were too bright, like flames. “Listen,” he said, as soon as they’d gone. “Please. We’ll talk about this later. You have to understand, Lia. I just...couldn’t.”

I nodded. I couldn’t speak.

We resumed walking, side by side but miles apart.

The path wound through the forest. Trees crowded both sides of the path, striping us with shadows and sprinkling speckled patches of sunlight at our feet. The air here was cool and heavily scented with pine. I scanned the landscape for landmarks to tell me where we were, but I recognized little here in the woods. I saw only trees and hills. Not the sort of things that would look the same after five hundred years.

But when we rounded the final curve, I inhaled sharply. A faint shimmer filled the air, like the inkling of a dream, and then we were through it. Ahead, at the top of the hill, a cluster of rounded roofs made from shimmering white material shot up abruptly from the trees. Behind them I saw the mountains framed by a sweeping blue sky.

It was
Echlos
.

“ECHLOS,” I BREATHED.

Gabe stopped and swung to look at me. He seemed surprised that I hadn’t known. “Yes,” he said. “Here, they call this place the Labs. Echlos is the name of the organization who built it, but it is the same place where they keep the gates, the place you took me that night.”

Dazed, I stared at the sight before me. The structure looked so different beneath this warm blue sky, free from snow or debris or crumbling vines. New, clean, sparkling. Beautiful. Part of the river had been diverted to flow across the front of the building, and it fell in a ribbon of silver between two bridges that led to the doors. All around us, ferns and rushes shivered in the breeze.

“Come on,” Gabe said, reaching out for my arm, but he stopped before he touched me and let his hand fall. He stepped forward toward the buildings, and I followed him along the paved white path that snaked up the hill, a path that would crumble away in the 500 years between my time and this one. My stomach fell as we reached the shadow of the doors, a place that was now just a hole in my own time. They gleamed silver in the sunlight.

They swished open with a musical tone, and the wind blew my hair back. I resisted the urge to gasp. We stepped inside, and again I was struck by how familiar and yet how strange it all was. The hallway I recognized from before stretched ahead of us, but now it was free from dust and grime. The floors shone. The ceiling burned bright as a captured sun. The air smelled faintly of something sharp and metallic.

We descended a flight of steps, the same flight of steps I’d descended with Adam only months previous. On the wall, I saw the painted letters. ECHLOS. I breathed out. I reached up and touched them lightly with my fingertips. Shivers crawled over my skin, and I knew if I shut my eyes, I’d see the memory of the dimly lit cavern and Adam’s dark eyes meeting mine.