The Glass Arrow(27)

I scoff. “Nice of you to wake up.”

I pet Brax’s back, soothing his raised fur back down. The Driver is regarding Brax warily.

He gives the wolf wide berth on his way to the wall, then slides back against it. I feel my eyes narrow—this is the place where I usually sit. He pats the ground beside him.

Tentatively, I approach, coaxing Brax to follow. Just because I’m pretty sure I won’t be knifed doesn’t mean I’m about to sit beside this boy unprotected. With my eyes ever on him, I sink to the ground. Brax insists on sitting between us. He faces the Driver, giving a warning snap each time the boy jostles.

The bass from the Black Lanes changes rhythms twice while I wonder what to make of my visitor. Absently, I trace patterns in the dirt with my fingers while he tosses the ball from hand to hand. After a while he seems to notice what I’ve done and taps the ground beside him, where I’ve scribbled a picture of a four-leafed weed. He looks at me expectantly.

“It’s what they call me here,” I say in a hushed voice so that I don’t wake the Watcher up. “Clover. Eck. It’s not my real name.”

I look at him from under my lashes, waiting until he turns away so he doesn’t see my face when I whisper, “My real name’s Aiyana.”

It’s been so long since I’ve said it, I scarcely recognize its feel on my tongue. The word sounds strange, like I’m speaking a foreign language. I almost wonder what else has drifted away, but the Driver boy is watching me again, so I don’t worry about that right now.

“Aiyana,” I repeat, then point to him. “What’s your name?”

He looks back blankly. Even if he did follow, he wouldn’t be able to tell me.

“Your name should be Kiran,” I tell him. “Because your eyes, they look like…” I pause. I don’t know why but I feel like I’ve said something stupid again. The Driver, Kiran, looks over at me when I stop talking, and nods as though he wants me to continue.

“Well, what do you want me to say, Kiran?” I ask him. The name fits. I’m pleased with myself for thinking of it.

He leans back against the wall again, not understanding a word I’m saying. So I talk. Because no one has listened for a long, long time.





CHAPTER 7

“YOU’RE A LONG WAY from the Driver camps,” I say, not expecting an answer. Though Silent Lorcan came to trade with us, we never went to his home. It’s somewhere in the valleys where the rivers meet. At least, that’s what my ma always told us.

Kiran’s leaning against the plaster wall, looking towards the barn. There’s a chestnut mare out in the back that’s sleeping standing up. One of her rear hooves is cocked, and her head hangs low.

I go on.

“Ma was raised in Marhollow, one of the towns in the outskirts, where people still live the old ways.” When he doesn’t respond, I explain, “With families, I mean. All living together because they want to. Anyhow, the Magnates sent Trackers to raid the town when the census was low and took all the girls that were auction age. That’s how she came to the city.”

She was torn away from her family, her sister left behind. Not unlike I was.

“She got kicked out of the Garden when they found out about the baby—about me. They gave her a Virulent mark, and sent her to the Black Lanes. But she wasn’t having any of that, so she left.” I picture my ma’s fierce smile. The way the puckered X scar would stretch when she was mad. “The gatekeepers figured she’d be better off dying outside their city.” I shiver at the words, but that’s how my ma told the story.

“She was alone in the mountains when I came. For years it was just her and me. Sometimes Lorcan too—the Driver I told you about. He came to trade with us. I wasn’t more than hip high when he taught me how to set a trap.”

By five I was cleaning my own game while Ma cooked. Fishing on days I couldn’t hunt. Gathering the roots and plants that my ma had told me weren’t poisonous.

I look at the Driver boy and for the first time I wonder if my ma named Lorcan the way I named Kiran. It’s not like he could talk to tell us his real name. Strange that I never questioned it until now.

“When I was seven, Ma and I went down to the outskirts of Marhollow so she could visit her family. She made me stay above the tree line while she snuck in to see her parents and her sister at their farm.”

The bitterness returns to me as I say this. I’d never been to a town or met my grandparents before. I didn’t get to meet them then either.

“She came back at nightfall, carting the whiner. Salma. Her sister’s daughter, my cousin. The census in the city was low, and so the Magnates hired Virulent thugs—Trackers, we called them—to raid the towns for young girls to bring to the meat market.”

Lots of women fled into the mountains then. Some of us even became friends. But as the Tracker raids increased and more Magnates started hunting, our numbers dwindled. Soon it was only Lorcan that came to call.

“Salma was nine when we took her in. She hated my ma for what she did, for saving her life. She never really got over it. I used to tell her just to go back to town if she missed it so much, but she never did that either. She’s all bark and no bite, Salma is.”

I turn to Kiran who, when he hears me stop, motions for me to continue again. I wonder if he just likes the sound of my voice. This makes sense to me. I like the sound of the wind through the trees. I don’t speak tree language, but the whisper is soothing all the same.