Fire Country

Out of the pricklers I dash, finally finding my ru

All of a sudden the earth falls away beneath me as I reach the edge of the Dead Snake River. I teeter over the edge, waving my arms chaotically, but then manage to hold off gravity.

I take a step away from the ledge, feeling the fall that never happened in my gut.

I glance back, see only the blurred forms of my pursuers closing in, much closer’n I expected as if they have superhuman speed, like they’re part Cotee or Killer.

I turn to the edge once more. Ru

I hafta jump.

My muscles tense, preparing for the twenty-foot drop onto the dry riverbed.

I hold my breath—

“Burnin’ wait!” a voice cries. It sounds strange for a Marked voice. So unlike Feve’s, which was warm and steady and controlled, this voice is wild and rough and passionate, like a spi

Don’t trust it—

But I know that voice.

Could be a trick—

How do you trick a voice?

My i

I whirl ’round and see her. The voice don’t match the body.

“Lara?” I say.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

She’s too tall to be Lara. And yet she carries herself with the strength and confidence that Lara always had. Also like Lara, her hair is cropped short, like a boy’s, not fully bald like the image of the Marked my mind conjured up from a distance, but nearly so. Her body is toned and sheening with sweat from the run, covered only by a swatch of cloth ’round her chest and a flap on the front and back of her torso, leaving her hips exposed. Images are painted on her skin: a sun, a flame, a tree.

I gasp.

The voice, so familiar, but not Lara’s…

“Siena, burn it all to scorch, you found us!” my sister says.

It’s her, but not her. Skye, but as far from the Skye I remember as possible. I’m frozen to the ground, like a cold breeze has blown in from ice country, cementing my feet. Can it be? Can it really be her?

I’m dreaming, I’m dreaming, I pinch myself, Ow! It hurts. It hurts so good. It’s real—all of it.

I run to her. She throws down her sharp stick and catches me, her arms so strong and firm and protective, and I feel like I’ll never be in danger again as long as I stay near her. Near my sister.

“Sie,” she murmurs. “I can’t searin’ believe it’s really burnin’ you.” It’s my sister’s voice, but rougher, sharper ’round the sides, like each word is cut all along its edges. And filled with obscenities the likes of which I ain’t never heard flying from her mouth.

My tears are swarming but I don’t feel ashamed. It’s all there, in my eyes, the gashes in my soul laid bare in the streams of moisture on my face. Bart. Mother. Feve. Father. Circ: most of all him.

“Dead,” I say, not sure who I’m referring to. Maybe all of them, ’cept Feve. And Father, who I only wish were dead.

“Lara told me,” she says, holding me out to look at my face.

“Lara’s here?” I say, eyes widening.

“Yeah, she made it, too.” Skye looks older’n I remember her, wiser somehow. With her short hair, she should look boyish, but instead it seems to only make her all the more feminine, more beautiful. And yet there’s a wildness ’bout her, a freeness, something I ain’t never seen in her ’fore.

“What’d she tell you?” I say. She wipes away the tears from half of my face. The side for—

“Circ,” she says simply.

I close my eyes.

“I’m so burnin’ sorry,” she says, thinking I’ve closed my eyes for Circ. What she don’t know is that the tears she hasn’t wiped away, the tears on t’other side of my face, are for someone else.

“Mother’s got the Fire,” I say, scared to say the rest of it, that by now she’s dead, that Father has a cure but keeps it for himself, that she saved me from Bart.

She pulls me close and we hold each other for a long time.

~~~

“Siena!” Lara yells as I enter the camp beside Skye.

She runs up and gives me a hug. I hug her back even harder. “You were talking to the Wilds the whole time?” I whisper in her ear.

“Course,” she whispers back. “They recruited me long ago. I was never cut out for the Call.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me?”

“We weren’t sure you’d want to come, and your mother—” she says, but then stops, throwing a hand over her mouth.

“My mother what?” I ask, sharper’n I intended.

“You’d better let your sister tell you,” she says. “Look, Siena, this was always what I wanted, to get out of the village, to join the Wild Ones, but you…”

“I wasn’t a sure thing and you didn’t want me to tell anyone,” I finish for her.

She nods. “But that doesn’t matter now. You’re here.”

We’re still whispering and Skye’s watching us suspiciously. I pull away and raise my voice. “I’m here. But where’s here?” I ask, sca

Dozens of girls are moving ’bout, many of them with short hair like Skye and Lara, carrying on with their business, glancing at us curiously but not outright staring. They’re all wearing the same two-piece cloths that leave little to imagination. They’re also all lean and muscled and look like they could snap bones with their bare hands.

Skye answers. “We call it Wildtown. It’s hidden from all directions ’cause of the canyons, but we can still easily git out the way you came in, ’neath the lover’s hands.”

Unbelievable. The Wild Ones are real, but they don’t look wild at all. On the contrary, they look civilized, with tents and storage sheds and even cook fires that send wisps of smoke curling over the canyon walls. They don’t eat raw meat after all.

I scan the canyons, which are pocked with caves. Girls are moving in and out of the caves, carrying bundles of prickler skins and scrubgrass and weapons. Spears and daggers, bows and pouches of pointers. Enough weapons to outfit every Hunter back in the village.

“Why do you have so many weapons?” I ask, frowning.

“Fire country’s a burnin’ dang’rous place,” Skye says.

I nod. She don’t hafta tell me.

“Are you ready to meet the others?” Lara says, a smile on her lips.

“Meet them?” They don’t look too friendly. Other’n their furtive glances, everyone’s pretty much ignored me since I arrived. Even the girls who found me with my sister didn’t say a word to me, just strode ahead of us, as if I didn’t exist. I get the feeling that things won’t be any different here’n the village. As usual, I’ll be hated for being Scrawny. Always the outsider.

“Searin’ right,” Skye says, flashing a smile as big as Lara’s. What am I missing?

“Uh, sure,” I say.

“Can I do it?” Lara says to Skye.

“All yers,” Skye replies. I look back and forth between them, trying to figure out why they suddenly seem so cheerful. My eyes settle on Lara, who raises two fingers to her mouth and blows out, letting out a whistle, loud and shrill.

Abruptly, all activity in Wildtown ceases. Prickler skins are discarded, weapons are dropped in the durt, budding cook fires are ignored. Every girl runs toward me, cheering and smiling and whooping and hollering.

Naturally, I shrink back, somewhat afraid, somewhat thrilled by the sudden attention. They close in, the mob surrounding me. Cries of “Welcome, Siena!” and “You did it!” ring out ’round me as they pick me up, clap me on the back, pass me around. Something sparks in me and I can’t hold back the laughter. I feel giddy and excited and tearful and wild. Completely wild, like I’m already one of them, a long-haired, Scrawny version of them. Tears of joy stream down my cheeks as I laugh harder’n I’ve laughed in many full moons, years, maybe ever.