Darkfall

“Not yet, but we will, I promise.”

“If there’s a home to go back to,” Danello mumbled.

“What?” Aylin said.

“I want to go back, too,” he said. “My da’s still there. And Halima and the twins ask about him all the time.”

Danello’s little brothers and sister stayed pretty close to the farmhouse, and I’d never seen them out past the main gate. After what they’d been through, I couldn’t blame them. Kidnapped, almost killed by Undying, running from Baseer with the rest of us. They deserved to go home and be with their father again.

“Well, listen,” Danello said, taking my hand. “We have a picnic to finish.”

“We’ll see you this afternoon, right?” Aylin said.

“At the north gate as always.”

We left through the kitchen and out the back door, but Danello didn’t head for the pond again. Instead he led me towards some trees near the front of the farmhouse.

“It’s not as secluded,” he said, “but it’s shady and mostly out of the way.”

“What did you mean when you said, ‘if there’s a home to go back to’?”

He winced. “Nothing.”

“If it was nothing, you wouldn’t have changed what you said to Aylin.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s just, well, if someone in Geveg really did kill the Gov-Gen, and there really is a strong rebellion there, and the Duke is suddenly moving troops, then he might be going after Geveg.”

“That’s what Onderaan said.”

He pulled out the blanket again and spread it under the trees. “You’re not the only one missing family, you know,” he said softly.

“I know.” Shame warmed my face. I’d been so focused on Tali, I hadn’t thought about what he and his brothers and sister were feeling. Their father was out there somewhere too. Maybe he was safe in Geveg, but maybe not, especially if the city was in revolt.

I took his hand and rested my head against his shoulder. “We’ll get them all back, I promise. We’ll get everything back.”

He nodded, but he knew as well as I did that wasn’t true. We’d never get his mother back, or my parents. The people the Duke had already killed were gone forever. All we could do was hold on to what little we had left and hope we could make something out of it.

I guessed we wouldn’t have any fun today after all.

We met Aylin and Quenji at the north gate midafternoon, standing near a dark-brown horse with the wagon loaded with food. The horse nibbled grass, tearing it out of the ground with quick twists of its head. Ellis sat on the driver’s bench in that brown uniform that all Jeatar’s guards wore. We’d met in Baseer when I’d saved her life after a pynvium raid had gone wrong. She’d been one of the Underground’s guards then, had fought with us against the Undying, and even held shifted pain for us. She’d been promoted to captain a few weeks ago, but she still liked to help out with the food, same as I did.

A second guard appeared and waved hello to Danello.

He waved back. “Afternoon, Copli.”

“Do you know all the guards?” I said.

“The ones who come to practise.” The rapier he carried wasn’t just for show. Danello drilled with the guards a few hours every day, working on his skills. “The rest I play cards with.”

“You really should socialise more, Nya,” Aylin said. “There are a lot of people on the farm.”

“Enough people know me already.”

Quenji chuckled. “You can never have too many friends.”

“Come on,” I said, climbing into the wagon beside Ellis. “We have hungry people to feed.”

Folks turned our way when we rolled through the outer camp. Families sat on small stools or on the grass, faces turned down, staring at the campfires. Not every tent had a fire, and those seemed the saddest of all.

Some of the people looked Baseeri, a few entire families with black hair and sad blue eyes, but we met a lot more folks with strong Verlattian features and clothes, and farmers with blonde hair who could have been from Geveg.

I’d seen similar faces after the Baseeri threw us out of our homes. Sad, scared, lost. My guts churned, my own memories tumbling through my head.

“Nya, where we gonna sleep?” Tali had asked, tears on her cheeks, fear in her eyes. No seven-year-old should ever be that scared.

“I don’t know, but I’ll find us someplace safe. I promise.”

No tents for us back then. Just hard ground under scratchy bushes. I’d wrapped my arms around Tali to make her feel safe, but it was years before either of us felt – well, not safe, but safer.

Ellis guided the wagon through the campsites. Folks were already moving towards us when we stopped at a large fire with a heavy cook pot hanging over it. A community pot just like the ones I’d eaten at in Geveg. People brought something in the morning, it cooked all day, and everyone shared it that evening. There’d been days when I’d eaten only because I’d sneaked a few handfuls of flour from the mill to thicken the stew. Wasn’t much, but it satisfied the rules.

Today’s stew simmered, bits of sweet potato and rosemary sticking out of the thickening broth. Cook glanced over at us, his face tough and lined from the sun. He smiled and waved.

“Just in time,” he called. “We could use some bread to go with the stew.”

“We have lots of that,” I said, a little guilty as I climbed off the wagon. None of it was as good as the bread Ouea made. No fruit or nuts, no spices. Just basic bread. But no one seemed to care. Food was food.

The children raced right for Aylin, holding out their tiny hands. She always filled one bag with treats – sugar nuts, candied fruit, even a few bricks of sweet brittle.

“News of the day?” Ellis asked while people lined up. Dinner wasn’t all you got at a community pot. Folks got to talking when they had no place to go.

“Nine new carriages rolled into Little ’Crat City,” Cook said.

Ellis chuckled. “You really shouldn’t call it that.”

“Bunch of aristocrats set up camp and keep everyone else out? What would you call it?”

“Rude.” She smiled and handed him another sack. “Want me to look into it?”

He shook his head. “Nah. No self-respecting Baseeri wants to bed down there anyway.”

Ellis glanced at me and winked. Wasn’t too long ago I thought no Baseeri had any self-respect, and she liked to remind me of that.

“Oh, you might want to send the Healers round,” Cook said.

“Is someone hurt?” I asked.

“Might not be serious, but three families came in an hour ago, and they look like they barely made it here. I told ’em to go up to the house, but they insisted they were fine. I said they didn’t have to pay, but it didn’t change their minds.”