She’d given up speaking with the Outsider. They trudged in silence, with only the sound of her book covers crunching over the earth. She’d almost laughed when she’d read The Odyssey on the leather. It wasn’t a good omen for their journey. But she hadn’t seen any Sirens or Cyclops so far, just scrubby hills with clusters of trees here and there. She’d thought there’d be so much to fear out here, but her companion was the scariest thing around.
They spent an hour digging with flat rocks around midday. Somehow the Outsider had found water a foot beneath the ground. They filled their waterskins and ate in silence. When they were done they sat for a while, the Aether flowing calmly above them. The Outsider looked up, considering the sky. He’d done it often throughout the day. There was something so intent in the way he studied the Aether. Like he found meaning in it.
Aria lined her collection of rocks in front of her. She was up to fifteen. She noticed dirt under her fingernails. Were her nails longer? They couldn’t be. Nails weren’t supposed to grow. Nail growth was regress. Pointless, so it had been eliminated.
The Outsider brought out a flat stone from his leather pack and began to sharpen his knife. Aria watched him from the corner of her eye. His hands were broad and big boned. They drew the blade over the smooth surface in even, sure strokes. The metal hissed a quiet rhythm. Her gaze drifted higher. Daylight caught on the fine blond fuzz over his jaw. Facial hair was another trait genetic engineers had done away with. The Outsider’s hands stopped. He peered up, a quick flash of green. Then he put away his things and they walked again.
In all the quiet, Aria was left to circle in her own thoughts. They weren’t good ones. Her enthusiasm over finding the Smarteye had worn off. She’d tried distracting herself yesterday by observing the outside, but that no longer worked. She missed Paisley and Caleb. She thought about her mother and wondered about the “Songbird” message. She worried that her feet would get infected. Whenever a headache flared, she imagined that it was the first symptom of an illness that would kill her.
Aria wanted to feel like herself again. A girl who chased the best music in the Realms and bored her friends with facts on inane subjects. Here, she was a girl with leather book covers for shoes. A girl stuck walking across hills with a mute Savage if she had any hope of staying alive.
She made up a tune to match all the fear and helplessness she kept locked inside. A mournful, terrible melody that was her secret, sung only in the privacy of her thoughts. Aria hated the tune. Hated even more how much she needed it. She vowed that when she found Lumina, she’d leave this pathetic part of herself on the outside where it belonged. She’d never sing the sad melody again.
That night, she collapsed before the Outsider had the fire burning, wrapped in the blue fleece blanket. She rested her head on his leather bag, finding that she needed a pillow more than she feared filth.
She had never known this much pain. She had never been this tired. She hoped that was it. That she was tired, and not surrendering to the Death Shop.
On the morning of their third day of traveling together, the Outsider divided the last of the food he’d brought from the cave. He ate, avoiding looking her way, as usual. Aria shook her head. He was rude and cold and eerily animal, with his flashing green eyes and his wolfish teeth, but by some miracle they’d struck a deal. She could’ve had worse luck than to have crossed paths with him.
Aria chewed on a dried fig as she ran through the inventory of her discomforts. A headache, muscle pains, and cramps low in her stomach. She couldn’t look at the soles of her feet anymore.
“I’ll have to hunt later,” the Outsider said, poking at the fire with a stick. The morning was cooler. They’d been climbing steadily into higher terrain. He’d put on a long-sleeved shirt beneath the leather vest. It was a tired white color, rife with loose threads and patched holes. It looked like something a shipwreck survivor might wear, but she found it easier to look at him fully dressed.
“Fine,” she said, and frowned. Monosyllabicism. An Outsider disease, and she’d been infected.
“We’ll be moving onto the mountain today,” he said, his gaze darting to her feet. “Well out of my brother’s territory.”
Aria shifted the blanket tighter around her. He had a brother? She didn’t know why it was hard to imagine. Maybe because she hadn’t seen any sign of other Outsiders. And she’d had no idea the land out here had any divisions.
“Territory? Is he a duke or something?”
The corner of his mouth lifted in a smirk. “Something like that.”
Oh, this was champ. She’d found herself a Savage prince. Don’t laugh, she told herself. Don’t laugh, Aria. He was being downright chatty, for him, and she needed to talk. Or listen. She couldn’t go another day with nothing but that melody rattling like a ghost in her mind.
“There are territories,” he said, “and there’s open land where the dispersed roam.”
“What are dispersed?”
His eyes narrowed, annoyed at being interrupted. “People who live outside of tribe protection. Wanderers who move in small groups or alone. Looking for food and shelter and . . . just looking to stay alive.” He paused, his wide shoulders shifting. “Bigger tribes claim territories. My brother is a Blood Lord. He commands my tribe, the Tides.”
Blood Lord. What a horrible-sounding title. “Are you close to your brother?”
He looked at the stick in his hands. “We were once. Now he wants to kill me.”
Aria froze. “Are you serious?”
“You’ve asked me that before. Do you Dwellers only joke?”