Page 11 of They Call Me Blue

There aren’t any footprints nearby, and the plants aren’t bent. My tribe has been gone for a while.

A desperate scream climbs my throat, but I swallow it back down and count to ten. I need to stay calm and come up with a plan to find them.

Faint giggling comes from the blue reeds to my right. Relief floods my body and air fills my lungs for the first time in what feels like minutes. I brush aside the plants, sure there’s been a misunderstanding, sure my tribe will be waiting for me close by.

I find Nirissa instead, sitting in the open water beside the Korring-Marr’s root—wooden doll in hand. Its twiggy body drips muck into the water as she walks it across the rippling surface, playing with it, laughing and talking to herself as if she isn’t in the center of snake-infested waters.

Heart pounding, I run to her—water splashing, feet squelching, the warm sun bearing down on my skin. She shouldn’t be here alone. Fenris or the spotters should be with her.

Nirissa flashes me a toothy smile, completely oblivious to what she’s done and where she is. “I found my dolly,” Nirissa says, holding it up, victorious. “Can you believe it?”

Anger boils my blood. Soaking wet, I snatch her off the ground and hug her tightly to my chest, breathing her in. She’s fine. She’s safe in my arms.

“What were you thinking, Nirissa? You can’t go out into the swamp alone. There are snakes here!” I squeeze her tighter, afraid if I let go, she’ll disappear again. “You could have been hurt.”

“But I found my doll,” she says like that makes it ok.

I take a deep breath. Then another. Then I remind myself she’s too young to know any better. “Are you alright? Did you see where Fenris and the others went?”

“They were gone when I woke up.”

I push aside the anxiety threatening to take hold.

Drugging me had to be Selik’s idea. He must have convinced Fenris and the others to leave us behind.

If I can find them, I can explain what happened, and the elders might take us back.

At the very least, they’d take Nirissa. After all, she isn’t Marked like I am. She isn’t blue.

“Let’s get you cleaned up, and then we’ll find them,” I say, carrying her back to Shoulder Squish Cave. Begrudgingly, I set her on her feet and nudge her toward thenarrow opening, not wanting to let her out of my sight even for a second but not having much choice.

We file in—Nirissa first.

As my eyes adjust to the darkness, a low, gravelly voice comes calling out.

“You’re back.” The Starra’lee soldier lowers her hood, exposing her freckled, unpainted face.

Thick silver hair brushes her shoulders, the braids gone from last night.

Aside from her pointed teeth, she doesn’t seem half as frightening.

A poorly constructed wooden horse—or maybe it’s a cat—sits in front of her, all lumpy and misshapen.

“You shouldn’t have let them see your mark,” she says. “That was incredibly stupid.”

“Hey, bug, why don’t you take off your wet clothes?” I suggest, not wanting to have this conversation with her around. “We’ll hang them outside to dry.”

She glances between the Starra’lee soldier and me but does as she’s told. While Nirissa strips, I step deeper into the cave, the sound of her splatting clothes echoing. “We’ll be gone by nightfall,” I tell the woman, lowering my voice.

“Good. Starra’lee doesn’t take children, and I’m not interested in playing babysitter.” She crosses her arms and leans against the cave wall, but her eyes are a sharp contrast to the aggressive posture—there’s something soft in there. Or maybe that’s pity. “Where will you go?”

“We’ll find Fenris and the others. The Hunter who gave me this ”—I flash her my swollen palm—“won’t be a threat until I reach my Age of Majority. Once I explain that to my tribe—”

“You’re delusional. Your friend drugged you last night,” she says matter-of-factly. “After you fell asleep, he convinced everyone to leave you and your sister behind. Made a pretty compelling case for it too. I don’t think they’re interested in your explanations.”

“He wouldn’t do that to Nirissa.”

He loves her.

He loves me .

The betrayal stings so sharply, I refuse to believe it.

Fenris might’ve poisoned my drink, but he wouldn’t have done so without Selik and the healers’ encouragement.

He might’ve suggested they leave me behind for everyone’s safety, but not Nirissa; she got caught in the crossfire.

The tribe’s decision to abandon us was rash, caused by everyone’s heightened emotions.

Once they hear what happened, it’ll be different.

I have to believe that. Anything less and we’re as good as dead.

“My parents were inventors,” I argue. “I know how to build things they can’t. I’m the only one in our tribe who’s fluent in the Elgrew tongue. I’m too useful to get rid of.”

She scoffs. “Everyone’s replaceable, Blue. ” She says it like the slur it is, and the name hits like a physical blow. If that’s the name she’s calling me by, does that mean that’s what she heard last night? Is that the way my people talk about me when I’m not around?

I feel queasy. The bitter taste of their tea lingers on my tongue.

“Tribes don’t take the Claimed in. Full stop,” the soldier adds. “It’s too risky.”

“Mine does.” Our best forager, Trista, came to us Marked, and Fenris’s dad took her in regardless. He protected her like he protected me.

But Fenris’s dad is gone, whispers that little voice of doubt. And Fenris left you to die.

The soldier withdraws a dagger and begins picking her fingernails with it, clearly bored of this conversation. “And when they don’t want you?”

“Then someone else will.” I say it with conviction. And for my sister’s sake, I hope it’s true.