Firewalker (Worldwalker 2)

Lily realized Tristan was carrying her. Una’s and Juliet’s faces appeared nearby. They were running through the camp. It was dark out, but Lily could still see some guards watching them pass as they stole away from camp. No one raised the alarm.

Far off, on the other side of the camp, Lily could hear the sounds of a skirmish. Terrified, she listened for the howls and screeches of Woven, but all she heard were human voices fighting with one another. She could feel some of her claimed dying, and clutched at her chest with each heartbreaking loss.

When they got to the edge of camp, Lily saw Caleb, Breakfast, and the other Tristan already mounted and holding the reins of five fresh horses. A handful of braves were with them, speaking in hushed tones. They left as soon as Lily arrived, each of the braves pausing a moment to touch a hand to their chest in a gesture of respect as they passed her.

Her Tristan passed Lily up into Caleb’s arms. Caleb’s face was bruised and swollen. So was the other Tristan’s. They’d both been in a terrible fight. She tried to ask what had happened.

“Later,” Caleb whispered, holding her in front of him on his horse. “We’ve got to get you out of here.”

Her mouth was so dry. She looked around. “Where are we going?” she croaked.

Everyone exchanged frightened looks. Lily noticed Juliet’s eyes were red and swollen with crying. “West, like you wanted,” Juliet replied.

CHAPTER

13

They rode all night. No one spoke for fear of the Woven. Lily clung to Caleb, wishing she were back in the cage without her willstones. At least then she wouldn’t have to feel anything. Now that she was no longer numb she had to face what had happened.

When she’d made her choice and told everyone that she had been in contact with Lillian, she’d known it might mean she would lose Rowan. Deep inside, Lily had always wondered how he could look at her and not think of Lillian anyway, and when she’d openly admitted that she agreed with Lillian, Lily knew she would be giving him up. She might even have to fight him.

But what he did was worse than fight her. At least in a fight, you have to hear each other’s argument. Rowan took away her willstones. He took away her voice.

Lily wasn’t sad yet. She felt embarrassed and off balance, like someone who’d put her foot down hard, expecting there to be one more step on the stairway, only to stumble in front of everyone. She couldn’t stop thinking of the night they’d spent together, and what a fool she’d been to give herself to him. It hit her in waves, alternating between the heat of shame and the chill of disbelief. He knew what had happened to her in the oubliette, and he still did the same thing to her that Gideon and Carrick had done. He’d robbed her of her will.

In the early morning hours, Caleb decided that they’d gone far enough and called a halt to rest the horses and eat. Everyone chewed mechanically, like they had no appetite. It wasn’t just fear of what they faced in the west that stole everyone’s spirit. They had all lost someone they’d loved. Lily wasn’t the only one Rowan and Alaric had turned against.

And poor Juliet—Lily stared at her sister’s swollen face and shaking hands. Juliet looked as wrecked as Lily felt, but Lily couldn’t cry like her sister. Not yet. Maybe not ever. It had been Lily’s decision to listen to Lillian in the first place, and then her decision to take Lillian’s side. She had walked into this with open eyes, and she had to keep them open or they could all die out here in the Woven Woods. Crying was a luxury, a release she couldn’t afford.

After they’d eaten, Lily felt strong enough to talk. “What happened?” she asked.

“I’ll tell her,” Breakfast said with a tired sigh. “Well, for starters, I finally found out why everyone kept mistaking me for an Outlander. It’s because

there’s another me here.”

“He’s the young shaman in training that we were trying to locate for you when you were first here,” Tristan said.

“He was on a vision quest on the Ocean of Grass,” Lily recalled.

“He came back. And I met myself.” Breakfast’s tone was even, but his expression was still one of shock. “And myself said that he had spirit walked into these places called cinder worlds.” Breakfast shook his head to clear it. “Anyway, so Red Leaf—that’s his name—came out against the bombs. He said that he’d seen this mistake made on other worlds, and that Alaric would wipe out the Outlanders along with the cities.”

“How did the tribe take it?” Lily asked.

“A lot of braves were angry that Alaric hadn’t told them about the bombs and that he’d planned on using them without consulting the rest of us,” Caleb said. He threw something into the fire in agitation, showing that he was one of the angry ones.

“So that did happen,” Lily said.

She shivered, realizing that if she hadn’t hallucinated seeing two Breakfasts, she hadn’t hallucinated seeing Carrick. She rubbed her cheek repeatedly, trying to scrape away any trace of the blood he’d marked her with—as if they’d both been responsible for shedding it.

“Were you conscious while you were in the cage?” Una asked. “Your eyes were open, but Rowan said—” She suddenly broke off, stumbling painfully over Rowan’s name. She’d trusted him, too. Una had learned to love Rowan like a brother. It was an honor she’d never given anyone before, and the loss of him had hurt her deeply.

“I wouldn’t say I was conscious, but a few things managed to sink in,” Lily said quietly. “Keep going.”

“So the tribe started to divide,” Breakfast said. “One side agreed with the sachem and the other with the shaman. But that’s not all.”

“Let me guess. Someone disarmed the bomb that Alaric had been concealing at camp and no one knows who did it, right?” Lily said. She nodded, already knowing she was right. “It was Carrick. He came to my cage.” Everyone stiffened and Lily raised a hand. “He didn’t hurt me, and I’m sure he’s long gone. He’s Lillian’s henchman now, and her main objective for everything—the trials, the hangings, all of it—has been to get rid of the bombs and the people who know how to make them. She’ll send Carrick after the other twelve bombs before Alaric has a chance to use them.”

“Thank God,” Una said. It earned her a few sharp looks. “Look, Carrick is a psycho, but he’s doing this world a huge service. You three didn’t grow up seeing movies about nuclear war like we did,” Una continued defensively, aiming her comments at Juliet, Caleb, and the other Tristan. “You have no idea what nuclear fallout is. It’ll kill all of you, slowly and painfully. Lily, show them what happened to the tunnel women just for carrying the bomb parts.”