Page 3

“Freia, next you can grind the jackoray and put it in that sack,”

Mum says, handing my best friend a clean stone bowl and pestle from our kitchen table.

Freia scratches her cheek, streaking green feversley powder across her dark brown skin. She fixes me with a tired look at getting stuck doing the arduous task of grinding again. “Jacko-yay!”

Mum ignores Freia’s attempt at humor, just like she has all year since Freia joined us to learn how to become a healer. “Isadora, we need more of—”

“Everything. I know,”

I say, frustration edging my voice. Despite living as if we’re always on the verge of an attack, we’re not prepared. Supplies have never been more lacking, thanks to the Kingsland’s increased raids on our traders, and I don’t know what to do. Today could bring an unprecedented number of wounded, and we wouldn’t be able to help them all.

Mum exhales. “Yes.”

I point to my stack of yarkow and whimlore. “I’ve prioritized the herbs for bleeding and pain relief. But we’re short on poppy extract unless the traders make a surprise visit. We’re probably good for widowspore and venite for infection, but as for bandages—”

I hold up a large roll of the handwoven material we make and use to wrap wounds—“We have thirty-eight.”

That’s less than one bandage per soldier out on the perimeter right now. “If we want more, all we can do is cut up some clothes. Boiled horsehair for stitches is running low too.”

There’s a knock on our front door, and all three of us flinch. I let out a nervous laugh. “As if the Kingsland would knock.”

Mum hastily wipes her hands on the bottom of her button-down shirt. “Don’t underestimate their sorcery. If they can communicate without words and inflict pain without a weapon, who knows what else they can do?”

I resist a deep sigh. The Kingsland doesn’t have magic. Nobody does. I know she was only a small child when the world still had electricity and hospitals and doctors, but if she’d let me read to her about what she’s forgotten, she’d know how ridiculous these superstitions sound.

“Elise,”

she says, surprised as she opens the door.

I lean back from my position in the kitchen but can’t see the young mother who lives a few houses over.

Elise clears her throat before speaking. “I know this is privileged information, but”—her voice breaks—“I was hoping you might have news about our husbands guarding the line.”

Mum throws me a stern look, a reminder to keep working, then slips outside. Thankfully the window is open.

Freia and I tiptoe to the wall closest to it so we can listen. No way are we passing up a chance to get information.

“I haven’t been told much,”

Mum says softly. “But the Saraf did say that if the Kingsland were to retaliate, it’d likely happen in the first twenty-four hours.”

Freia’s eyebrows shoot up, and I nod, equally concerned. Father doesn’t often talk to us directly about the Kingsland. Not that I haven’t heard things, or siphoned information from Liam, but he’s been firm in protecting us from the burden of politics and the defense of our territory. I glance at the old windup clock above the wash basin. It’s noon; we still have another eight hours before we reach the milestone of twenty-four hours.

Or, it’s already too late. For all we know, Liam, Father, and some of our best soldiers could be fighting for their lives this very second, doing everything possible to keep the clans from being destroyed. I press my forehead to the wall. Please don’t let it be that.

“Right. Okay,”

Elise says. “I was also wondering if you would look at little Polly. I found some fenuweed and mixed it with oil, then rubbed it on her feet, but her fever won’t quit, and, well, you’re the expert with plants—”

“Yes, of course,”

Mum says. The door opens and Mum strides back into the house, catching Freia and me hovering near the window.

“Whew!”

Freia fans herself. “It sure is hot in here; good thing this window is open.”

With a disappointed frown in our direction—mostly my direction—Mum shoulders her travel bag of healing supplies from the hook by the door. “I’ll be back soon. Keep working.”

I push away from the wall as she leaves and fling open the old cabinet in the corner. Maybe a tablecloth could be cut up for bandages or a tourniquet—if I could find one.

Freia returns to grinding the jackoray bark. One of her tiny, long braids falls into her eyes, and she swipes it away. “How long do you think we should wait before we can breathe a sigh of relief that the Kingsland isn’t coming?”

I eye her with a funny look. “I’m not sure we ever can.”

“Not even with Farron . . . ?”

She doesn’t finish.

The cupboard doors slam as I close them. “No,”

I say. “You’ve heard the same stories I have. Think of their worst attack on us, the first slaughter. And all the graves we’ve visited. Or the dozens of stories we’ve heard from survivors of their attacks. I don’t know about you, but I can’t forget their faces.”

Sometimes morning academy felt like nothing more than a parade of mutilated men sharing their testimonies of barely surviving, all of them missing fingers and eyes. “There’s a reason they spent so much time making sure we took the threat seriously. It’s because the Kingsland is rotten to the core, and with or without Farron, the threat is real.”

I used to roll my eyes at having to memorize the patterns of attack sirens, or being forced to listen to another cautionary children’s parable. I didn’t want to practice how and where to hide during a potential attack, while the boys learned the basics of how to fight. I wanted to read and write and study the history of the old world. I wanted to spend my mornings focusing on being a healer.

But now I see that very little of the education I wanted is relevant. We need to be vigilant and report on anything suspicious, even among us, and we need everyone to stay within our boundary and follow the rules. To do that, we need a healthy dose of fear. It’s the only way we’ll survive.

“I know, you’re probably right. It’s just . . .”

Freia scratches where her hair was a second ago, just above her eyelid. “I really hoped—

“Wait!”

I blurt, then rush toward her. “Did you touch your eye with jackoray on your fingers?”

“Is that why it’s burning?”

She blinks, then rushes to the bathroom mirror.

I follow her, but the stagnant bowl of handwashing water won’t do. I race back to grab a cooled bottle of boiled water for cleaning wounds. “Put your head in the sink and turn it to the side.”

She does, and after some coaxing, I properly flush Freia’s eye. She stands with a sigh, her face and some of her braids now dripping. I hand her an old, brittle towel, then reach to empty the bucket under the cracked sink.

Freia plops down on the toilet seat—thankfully the bucket under that is empty. “That was quick thinking. Your medical books tell you to do that?”

“Yes.”

Taking another towel, I mop up the puddles on the wooden planks.

She hums. “I’m not sure I’m a fan of jackoray. We’re off to a pretty bad start. Is that what they used in the old world?”

I shrug. “I mean, it grew in their forests, just as it does ours, but they found far better ingredients to make the casts to hold broken bones than jackoray. The ones they talk about in my textbooks were so strong they had to be cut off at six weeks.”

Normally I love when we’re alone like this and can talk freely about the way the world used to be, but I can’t help glancing at the kitchen. “We should get back to work if you’re okay.”

She straightens her green, quilted vest in the mirror, then snorts. “Good grief, I look like a drowned—”

Her eyes suddenly go wide. “Do you hear that?”

she whispers. “Hooves.”

I strain to hear over the quickening of my heart, and it doesn’t take long to catch the hoofbeats of a single horse. “They’re coming in hard.”

On any other day, the sound of soldiers arriving isn’t concerning. But today isn’t a normal day.

We run, my hand going for the knife in my pocket as Freia rushes to grab the bow mounted by the door. She fumbles with it, nocking an arrow so poorly it’s more likely to hit her foot than any enemy soldier. When she sees the knife in my hand, she nods approvingly. “At least we’ve got you.”

I remain silent as I open the door a crack.

She looks through, and then straightens and lowers her weapon. “Freddy?”

I exhale as Freia’s sixteen-year-old brother rides up. He jumps off his horse too early, stumbles, then runs toward the house—until he spots us and stops. “What the burning bull nuts are you doing with that?”

he shouts at Freia. A few pieces of grass stick out of his thick, chin-length braids.

“I thought you were the Kingsland, you malevolent bucket of hair,”

she shouts back. “I was going to put an arrow in your guts.”

His lips tighten, but then Freddy’s urgent eyes find mine. I’m terrified to hear what he has to say. “There’s at least a half dozen wounded. They sent me back for more bandages.”

“Who’s injured?”

Freia asks. “Franklin? Felix?”

“Liam?” I add.

At Freia’s mention of their brothers, Freddy’s face grows mournful. “We got separated. I don’t know the names of anyone hurt.”

My heart thuds painfully. “Has the Kingsland launched their whole army?”

I’ve heard the number of their fighting men alone could be as high as four hundred, nearly double the entire population of the clans.

He shakes his head. “From what I’ve seen, they seem to be hunting for Farron’s body in small parties.”

Hunting.

“Do you need more men?”

Bandages are pointless if we’re severely outnumbered.

“Your father sent a runner back to Maska.”

For more of Gerald’s men, our best trained fighters. “Good. Let me gather what you need.”

I run back into the house and stuff almost all our bandages and a wide variety of dried herbs and bottles of boiled-water solution into a bag. Medicinal herbs could mean the difference between life or death for the wounded. And we need any advantage we can get.

“This,”

I say, opening the bag at Freddy’s feet, “is whimlore. It’s a mild pain reliever. You can swallow a pinch, but don’t take more than that or it might cause nausea or diarrhea. Too much and . . .”

I hesitate as it hits me how dangerous these herbs are in the hands of an untrained person. “Their throat might swell shut. And this”—I point to a leaf that looks very much like whimlore except for its size—“is yarkow. It goes on the wound to stop the bleeding. Don’t eat this.”

I take in Freddy’s overwhelmed face. Bleeding skies, he’s not going to remember. I point at the whimlore. “Eat a pinch for pain.”

Then point to the second one. “Don’t eat. This goes on the wound for bleeding.”

I pull out the next sack and open it. “This is—”

He scrubs a hand down his sweat-damp face. “I’m—are you sure you can’t just come?”

I slowly stand. Maybe I should.

“No,”

Freia says to me, then whirls on her younger brother. “Don’t say that. Not to her. If she goes, her father will have both your hides.”

“Not if I could stay back far enough; he wouldn’t even have to know.”

I blink as Freia’s finger suddenly appears in front of my face. “Stop that,”

Freia says. “You can’t go. It’s not just your skin at stake, okay? It’s everyone’s. If you’re murdered, there’s no wedding. If there’s no wedding, Liam isn’t Saraf. You’re the promise your father will keep his word. And if Liam isn’t Saraf, then the five clans go back to behaving like ravenous wolves about who gets to be the next leader. Then we all die because if our infighting doesn’t kill us first, the Kingsland surely will.”

I take a deep breath. She makes a valid point. Except—“I don’t plan to be murdered, and there are two people in a marriage, Freia. This all falls apart just as equally if Liam dies on the front line. Which is likely without a healer.”

She tips her head as if somewhat agreeing. “But it can’t be you.”

Who else, then? Freia’s only just begun her studies to be a healer, and any woman more knowledgeable in healing would never risk Father’s wrath by going to the fighting.

Not that I would ask any of them, because no woman here has been trained to defend herself.

There’s only me.

“Freia’s right,”

Freddy says as he scoops up the bag of medical supplies, his face now showing his worry. “You can’t come. I shouldn’t have suggested it. It’ll be fine. They sent me to get the bandages and”—his head bobs in one firm nod—“the plant stuff. Hopefully someone there can figure it out.”

His deep brown eyes are slow to meet mine, but when they do, they offer me a wordless apology. “I’d better go.”

“Freddy wait,”

Freia calls, chasing after him as he heads to the barn for a new horse.

I stay back, allowing them time for a goodbye.

It could be their last.

The thought hits me like a rock to the temple, and I suddenly know that I need to make sure that’s not the case. In the living room, I snag the empty backpack hanging by the door and stuff my travel medical bag inside. It contains a few bandages and a small assortment of herbs, but Freddy has the bulk of the supplies. I slip a pillowcase off one of the pillows on the couch, then rip bundles of yarkow down from the ceiling and place them in my sack. I fill the small pocket on the front of my pack with whimlore. In the kitchen, there’s a day-old skin of water, half full—good enough.

“What are you doing?”

Freia asks as she comes back inside. “You’re going, aren’t you?”

“Yes. I have to.”

If I want to follow Freddy, I can’t stay to argue. Sifting through the wooden box of weapons Father keeps on the counter, I swipe three knives. With the one in my pocket, that makes four. I’d take the bow, but I’m probably worse at it than Freia is.

She follows me to the corner as I pull on my denim jacket with the cotton hood. “Is there anything I can say that will change your mind?”

My eyes meet hers. “Freia, I need to go. Freddy doesn’t even know what half those herbs are used for.”

She swallows hard. “What am I going to tell your mother? Oh, skies, don’t leave me alone with your mother.”

I give a tight grin. “Tell her what we talked about. That if Liam dies, there is no marriage. That’s what I intend to save.”

I pull my best friend into a fierce hug, and the scent of her lavender hair oil fills my nose. A sharp ache of fear stabs my chest at the thought of leaving. “And tell her everything Freddy said. The clans need to ready for an attack.”

Freia frowns as I pull back, but instead of arguing, she surprises me. “Don’t get murdered or I’m marrying Liam.”

A tense laugh bursts out of me. “That’s not what I was expecting, but . . . okay. Deal.”