Partisan - Book II

Clear Air

The air is a breath of frost when Allayria and Ruben climb up to the ramparts that evening. As promised, the stars blink down at them from a sky whose blue hue is a razor's width from black and the wind huffs past, a buffering, changeable thing prone to flights of fancy and fury.

They left Lei below in the mess hall with the others, swapping stories about the trek back. Finn was amidst a speedy monologue on the variety of birds he saw and conversed with on the way, lulling Caj and Fae into a deadened stupor, while Hiran, a looking a little skinnier than the last time Allayria had seen him, bemoaned the bandages on his hands to a clearly inattentive Tara.

"Just look," he had whispered to her as Allayria and Ruben walked past, "the doctor covered them up this morning. He said if the scabs don't heal I may have scars."

Tara, whose hands are rough, cracked, and laden with many a scar, had cocked an eyebrow at this and said: "I can cut them both off if the blemishes are too much to take."

But their voices are hidden behind walls and gusts now, just as Allayria's and Ruben's will be. The Skilling master leads her to an outcrop that leans over the sharp cliff, ostensibly providing them a glorious view to look upon.

"Well, first thing's first," Ruben says when they halt. "The Cabal has been put under Beinsho's custody. He has removed them to some secure cells in the bottom of the base for the time being. I think he means to move them to Quersido after the next council meeting."

"Quersido?" Allayria repeats, wondering why Beinsho should take the Cabal to the Halften capital.

"For their trial," Ruben explains quietly.

Allayria looks away, uncertain what to feel, yet alone say about this.

"And the bow?" she asks instead, turning back with her chin lifted slightly.

"I took the bow from Hiran," Ruben answers. "It is in my trunk."

Allayria's eyes narrow. Ruben is a Skilling master, of course, but it seems foolish to her to keep such an item in a trunk unguarded for most of the day, especially with Ben and the others still in the base.

He gleans these thoughts from her expression and sighs, leaning his forearms onto the stone ledge.

"The second thing is: it's not the real bow, Allayria."

"What?" she demands, her heart seizing. "Where is the real one? Did they hide it somewhere? Has anyone interrogated them?"

He glances over at her and, strangely enough, a ghost of a smile passes across his lips.

"You misunderstand me," he says gently. "I meant that the Cabal never had the real bow, Allayria."

She stands, rooted to the spot, the distant rumble of thunder crackling through her frozen thoughts.

"What?" she says, brain sluggish with this new information. "But they... You... I was—"

"It was a fake," he explains. "You were not the first to find Gothi Haren's journal, nor the first to crack the code, nor the first to climb down into the Seeing Caves and seek it."

He straightens up and then nods at her breast pocket.

"Did you keep it? The coin I gave you?"

Wordlessly, Allayria reaches into her pocket, pulling the small wooden coin out, its avian detailing glinting bright in the moonlight.

"Did you show it to anyone?"

"No," Allayria answers, shaking her head. She had rather forgotten about the whole thing, if she is being honest.