Gisa giggles into the soapy sink. “I burned them!” she yells back. “For the good of mankind!”
My laughter is silent these days, little more than a gasp of air and a tight smile that pulls at my scars. Still, my stomach tenses as I laugh quietly, almost doubling over with good ache. We were right to come here. To rebuild ourselves, to figure out who we are now, in spite of our missing pieces.
Shade might be buried a thousand miles away, but I feel him here with us. And for once, it doesn’t make me entirely sad.
There wasn’t much to pack. The furnishings, rations, everything down to the soap in the bathrooms, stays at the cabin. We only have our clothes and other personal items to worry about. Gisa easily has the most stuff. Her art supplies and sewing kit are probably the heaviest thing loaded into the dropjet waiting at the edge of the clearing. She worries over them like a nervous mother, keeping a close watch as the Montfort pilot tucks them in with the rest of our baggage. I’m surprised she didn’t insist they travel in her lap. Mom and the boys are already inside, strapping themselves in away from the cold.
Dad stands back a little from the craft with me. He scrutinizes the frosty ground beneath us. I think he half expects a geyser to explode beneath our feet and blow the jet sky-high. It isn’t an entirely ridiculous notion. Many of the clearings and basins throughout the Paradise Valley are pocked with geysers and hot springs, steaming even beneath the snow.
Our breath clouds in the air, a testament to the cold. I wonder if Ascendant will feel this frozen already. It’s only October.
“Are you ready?” Dad says, his voice a low rumble barely audible over the jet engines as they spool up. On top of the drop, massive propellers whirl around at a quickening pace.
I want to tell him yes. I’m ready to go back. Ready to be Mare Barrow again, where all the world can see. Ready to return to the fight. Our work is far from over, and I can’t spend the rest of my life surrounded by nothing but trees. It’s a waste of my talent, my strength, and my influence. There’s more that I can do, and more that I want from myself.
But that doesn’t make me ready. Not by a long shot.
The pilot waves for us before I can speak, sparing me the pain of lying to my father.
It doesn’t really matter. Dad knows the truth of it anyway. I feel it in the way he supports me as we walk, even though he’s the one with a regrown leg.
Each step feels heavier than the last, the safety belt like a chain across my lap. And then we’re flying, the ground disappearing beneath a bank of gray cloud as everything goes bright and empty.
I let my chin fall forward onto my chest, and I pretend to sleep. Even with my eyes shut, I can feel them all looking at me. Gauging my mental and physical state by the set of my shoulders or my jaw. I still have problems talking about the worries prancing around my head, so my family has to improvise. It’s made for some very idiotic questions from Bree, who is without any kind of emotional sense. But the others have found ways, Gisa and my father especially.
The roar of the dropjet makes speaking difficult, and I only catch snippets of their conversations. Most are innocuous. Will we be staying in the same apartments at the premier’s estate before moving to the new house? Is Gisa going to bring that shopgirl around to meet everyone? She doesn’t want to talk about her, and Tramy is good enough to provide a change in subject. Instead, he needles our sister about wanting a new jacket for the upcoming gala. She huffs but agrees to make him one. Something embroidered with the wildflowers that dotted the Paradise Valley—purple and yellow, green too.
The gala. I haven’t even begun to think about the specifics of the celebration. Needless to say, I’m not the only one returning to the capital this week. Part of me almost wonders if Davidson dispatched a storm up here to drive me back to the city. I wouldn’t be upset if he did. It gave me a good excuse to return right now, in time for a gathering of so many.