CHAPTER 48
KY
not in the water anymore
why not
where is Indie
tiny lights come in and out of the darkness.
I hear Cassia’s voice.
She’s been waiting in the stars for me.
CHAPTER 49
CASSIA
Ky,” I say. I’ve seen a lightening like this on his face before, but this time it keeps coming, growing brighter, as he returns to us.
I did not reach Thee,
But my feet slip nearer every day;
Three Rivers and a Hill to cross,
One Desert and a Sea—
I shall not count the journey one
When I am telling thee.
Ky and I took the journey in our own order. We began with the Hill, together. We crossed a desert to get to the Carving and streams and rivers inside the canyons and again when we came out. There has been no sea, no ocean, but there has been a great expanse for both of us to navigate without the other. I think that counts.
And I think, looking at him, that the poem is wrong. He will count this journey, and so will I.
Anna comes in later and hands me several more cures from Xander. “He says it will take more than one dose,” she whispers. “This is all he could manage for now. He says to give the next dose as soon as possible.”
I nod. “Thank you,” I say, and she slips back out the door, nodding to the medics as she goes.
They’re conducting their morning rounds. One of the village medics turns Ky from his side to his back to change the areas of pressure on Ky’s body. “He’s looking better,” the medic says, sounding surprised.
“I think so, too,” I say, and right then we hear something outside. I turn to the window, and through it I see that the guards are bringing Hunter and Xander out to the village circle.
Hunter.
Xander.
They both walk on their own to stand in front of the voting troughs, but their hands are tied and they’re flanked by guards. I wish I could see Xander’s eyes from here, but all I can see is the way he walks and how tired he seems. He’s been up all night making cures.
“It’s time for the vote,” says one of the medics.
“Open the window,” the other says, “so we can hear.”
For a split second they are both engaged with pushing open the window and that’s when I empty the syringe into Ky’s line. When I finish slipping the evidence into my sleeve, I glance up to find one of the medics watching me. I can’t tell what he saw, but I don’t miss a beat. Xander would be proud. “Why are they having the trial so soon?” I ask.
“Colin and Leyna must feel that they’ve gathered enough evidence,” the medic says. He looks at me for a second longer and, as the morning smell and fresh air from the window rush in, Ky takes a deep breath. His lungs sound better. He’s not all the way back yet, but he’s coming, I can tell. I feel him, more than I did before; I know he listens even if he can’t yet speak.
People fill the village circle. I’m not close enough to see the stones in their hands, but I hear Colin call out, “Is there anyone here who will stand with Hunter?”
“I will,” Anna says.
“The rules are that you may only stand with one person,” the medic tells me. And I understand what he’s saying: if Anna stands with Hunter, she can’t stand with Xander.
Anna nods. She walks up to the front and faces out to the crowd. As she speaks, I notice them drawing closer to her. “What Hunter did was wrong,” Anna says, “but he didn’t mean to kill. If that was his intent, he could have done it easily and escaped. What Hunter wanted was to make things fair. He felt that since the Provinces denied Anomalies access to any of their medications for years, we should do the same for their patients.”
Anna doesn’t play on the crowd. She says the facts and lets the crowd weigh them. Of course, we all know that the world isn’t fair. But we all understand how it feels to wish that it were. Many of these people know too well what it’s like to be tossed aside—or worse, sent out to die—by the Society. Anna says nothing of all the losses Hunter has suffered that would lead him to this point. She doesn’t have to. They’re written on his arms and in his eyes.
“I know you can require more,” Anna says, “but I ask for exile for Hunter.”
The lesser of the two sentences. Will the crowd give it?
They do.
They drop their stones in the trough near Anna’s feet instead of the one near Colin’s. The farmers come with the buckets and pour the water. The decision holds.
“Hunter,” Colin says, “you must leave now.”
Hunter nods. I can’t tell if he feels anything. Someone hands him a pack and there’s a disturbance as Eli comes running for Hunter, wrapping his arms around Hunter to say good-bye. Anna embraces them both, and for a moment they are a little family, three generations, connected not by blood but by journeys and farewells.
Then Eli steps back. He will stay with Anna, who must remain with the rest of her people. Hunter walks straight into the forest, not taking the path, not looking back. Where will he go? To the Carving?
And now the crowd murmurs and Xander comes forward. In that moment, I realize that the people have spent their mercy on Hunter. They lived and worked with him for the past few months. They knew his story.
But they don’t know Xander.
He stands in front of the village stone, alone.
Xander will do anything for those he loves, whatever the cost. But, looking at Xander now, I think the cost has become too high. He looks like Hunter, I realize. Like someone who has been driven too far and seen too much. Hunter kept himself together long enough to deliver Eli safely to the mountains. For a long time, he did what he had to do to help others, but then he broke.
I can’t let that happen to Xander.
CHAPTER 50
XANDER
Who will stand with Xander?” Colin asks.
No one answers.
Anna looks at me. I can tell that she’s sorry, but I understand. Of course she had to use everything she had for Hunter. He’s like a son to her, and it was right for her to have spent everything on him.
But there is no one else. Cassia has to stay in the infirmary with Ky, to give him the cure and make sure he wakes up. Ky would stand with me: but he’s still.
People shuffle their feet and look in Colin’s direction. They’re impatient with him for letting the moment go on so long. I’d like it to be over, too. I close my eyes and listen to my heart, my breathing, and the wind high up in the trees.
Someone calls out: a voice I know. “I will.” I open my eyes to see Cassia pushing her way through the crowd. She came after all. Her face is all lit up. The cure must be working.
Something’s wrong with me. I should be glad that Cassia’s here and that the cure could be viable. But all I can think about are the patients in the Provinces, and Lei when she went down, and I worry that it’s too late. Will we be able to bring enough people back? Will the cure work again? How will we find enough bulbs? Who will decide which people get the cure first? There are a lot of questions and I’m not sure we can find the answers fast enough.
I’ve never felt this worn out before.
CHAPTER 51
CASSIA
People come up to take their stones back from the vote they cast for Hunter. The stones are still wet and they drip a little onto the villagers’ clothes, leaving small, dark spots. Some of the people roll the rocks in their hands as they wait.
“This trough,” Colin says, pointing to the one nearest him, “is for the maximum penalty. The other,” the one closer to Xander’s feet, “is for the lesser penalty.”
He doesn’t specify what the penalties are. Does everyone already know? Anna guessed that the worst sentence Xander would receive would be exile, because his crime wasn’t as great as Hunter’s. No one died.
But for Xander, exile would mean death. He has nowhere to go. He can’t live out here alone, and it’s a long journey through rough terrain back to Camas. Perhaps he could find Hunter.
But then what?
I look up at Xander. The sun has crept through the trees and shines gold on his hair. I’ve never had to wonder what color his eyes are, the way I did with Ky; I’ve always known that Xander’s are blue, that he would look at you from a place of kindness and clarity. But now, though the color hasn’t changed, I know that Xander has.
“I’m lonely with you sometimes,” he told me in the infirmary earlier. “I didn’t think it could ever be that way.”
Are you lonely now, Xander?
I don’t even have to ask.
There are birds in the trees; there are stirrings in the crowd, and wind in the grasses and coming down the path, and yet all I feel is his silence—and his strength.
He turns to the crowd, straightening his shoulders and clearing his throat. He can do this, I think. He’ll smile that smile and his voice will ring out over the crowd like the Pilot he could be someday, and they’ll see how good he is and they won’t want to destroy him anymore—they’ll want to circle around and gather close to smile back up at him. That’s how it’s always been with Xander. Girls in the Borough loved him; Officials wanted him for their departments; people who became ill wanted him to heal them.
“I promise,” Xander says, “that I only did what Oker asked me to do. He wanted the cures destroyed because he realized he’d made a mistake.”
Please, I think. Please believe him. He’s telling the truth.
But I hear how hollow his voice sounds, and when he glances back at me, I see how his smile isn’t quite the same. It’s not because he’s lying. It’s because he has nothing left right now. He took care of the still for months without relief. He saw his friend Lei go down. He believed in the Pilot, then he believed in Oker, and they asked him to do impossible things. Find a cure, the Pilot said. Destroy the cure, Oker ordered.
And I’m no less guilty. Make another cure, I told him. Try again. I wanted a cure as much as anyone else, whatever the cost. We all asked and Xander gave. In the canyons, I saw Ky get healed. Here in the mountains, I see Xander broken.
A stone clatters into the trough next to Colin’s feet.
“Wait,” Colin says, bending down to pick it up. “He hasn’t had a chance to finish speaking yet.”
“Doesn’t matter,” someone says. “Oker’s dead.”
They loved Oker and now he’s gone. They want someone to blame. When the stones settle, it might not be exile Xander receives. It might be something worse. I glance over at the guards who brought Xander here and who let him make the cures. They won’t meet my gaze.
Suddenly, I see the other side of choice. Of all of us having it.
Sometimes we will choose wrong.
“No,” I say. I reach into my sleeve to pull out one of the cures Xander made. If I show them this, and the flower that my mother sent and Oker saw, they have to understand. We should have done this first, before the trial even began. “Please,” I begin, “listen—”
Another stone rattles into the trough, and at the same time, something enormous passes across the sun.
It’s a ship.
“The Pilot!” someone calls out.
