I roll over to face him, meeting his gaze. “I will find her for you. And I’ll make sure she knows you’re coming. You just have to hold out. They’ll make you free one day.”
There’s a soft tremble to his eyelashes as he looks down. A silent movement of his lips, before he settles on, “I don’t know if they found her. She could be anywhere right now.”
I draw his eyes back with a hand on his cheek. “So long as my father lives, know she’s safe. He would fight to his dying breath to protect her. Her and all of Atrea.”
“Your father…” The tip of his tongue wets his beautiful lips. “I believe he would try. But I was taken, Marco. And I don’t know who else was.”
“How…” I don’t want to ask. I’m sustained by the hope he’s given me. He said they’re alive. I want to leave that as the last word spoken about it. As though it were a sacred vow, untouchable. But as if I’m not even in my body, as though it speaks automatically, despite my fear, I hear the words on my lips. “How did it happen?”
His eyes widen, a touch of panic about them. And why wouldn’t it be there? No one is taken by Victora’s army without suffering.
“They came at dawn,” he says softly. “Woke us from our beds. I hid Esme—forced her to hide. She wanted to fight. I told her no. She’s so small.”
“She would have fought well,” I tell him, as certain of her Atrean blood as I am that the sun will rise. “She would have protected herself if they found her later.”
“There were so many of them. There were hundreds. There must have been.”
“Hundreds?” An ice-cold hand crawls deep into my chest, makes its home there as his eyes turn distant. “What do you mean?” A sickness rips through me, and I push myself up on one arm.
He follows the movement, a mirror to me. “There were so many. They came over the beach. And we fought. I fought as hard as I could. But they had guns. I’ve never seen so many guns.”
His voice seems to come from far away. I can barely process it over the pulsing in my ears. “You said they were safe.”
His eyes flick up to mine. “No, I didn’t. I never said that.”
“You did. You said they live.”
“I told you…” Why won’t he look at me now? “I told you I saw them alive. That I saw them alive before I was taken.”
“You didn’t tell me there were hundreds of them. Robin, that’s not a raiding trip. That’s an invasion.”
“So maybe it is,” he snaps.
My voice rises sharply. “So maybe they’d kill the governor first thing if their intention is to rule our people.”
“So maybe they won’t!” he shouts back at me. “And—and maybe Esme’s safe. Maybe they would, and maybe they wouldn’t. And maybe you’re in exactly the same place you were yesterday before I ever told you any of this. Maybe you’re like me, and you’re just pushing through each hour, and hoping, hoping…” Moisture rushes to his eyes, and his voice cracks. “Fuck! Fuck, Marco, I don’t have any answers for you! I’m just fucking…” I pull his head against my shoulder, letting the tears break out of him where I can’t see them, letting them slide over my arm, letting him get it out. “I’m trapped here. I can’t do anything. I don’t know anything.”
“We’ll get home.” That same shield protects us both, and I stroke his hair. “We’ll get home.”
He stays there for a time until he gathers himself, when he asks quietly, “What would they have done with her?” Pulling back to look at me, eyes pleading, “You know this city. These people. If they found her…”
The cruel truth is, it depends who found her. There’s every chance she was just a plaything for them, torn apart on the spot, pieces of her left for the ravens.
“She’s a precious commodity,” I tell him, a half-truth. “A young and capable girl, healthy, not infected. One who’s strong, who can be trained, would make a good slave. It’s the very path my own housekeeper trod, taken and enslaved at twelve.” He searches me, assessing me. “I keep her safe. She’s like family to me. When I go, I will buy her. If they’ll let me. I will set her free.”
Eying me steadily, “How long has she been here?”
“Twenty years.”
He turns his face away, but I catch him. “If your sister is beautiful like you, if they caught her, they would bring her to the city. She can earn them more that way. Is she…”
I don’t want to say the words. It makes me sick all over to refer to this child as ‘desirable’. But that’s why he’s here. That’s why I’m here. Decoration for their great empire.
He understands without me having to say it. He nods once.
“I will look for her. Esme is her name?”
“Esme.” He breathes it on a broken breath, his chest swelling large when he tries to shut the emotion out.
