The Mark of the Dragonfly (6 page)

He wants us poor, Piper thought—poor and working for him.

“That still doesn’t explain where you came from.” Piper spoke softly to the girl, nudging her a bit. “Can you hear me? Can you wake up?”

No answer. The girl had drifted into a deep sleep, but whatever nightmare she’d been having hadn’t let go of her yet. Her eyelids twitched, and every so often, her body stiffened as if she expected an attack. Piper started to move away, wanting to give the girl space, but in her sleep, she clutched at Piper’s wrists and made an unhappy little mewling sound. Piper sighed and settled down next to her. The floor was cold. She freed one of her hands long enough to reach for more wood for the stove.

Outside, she heard the first stirrings of the townspeople coming back from the fields. Voices raised in agitation drifted past her door. She caught snatches of their conversations—mostly about Micah and the caravan, how neither of them had any business being out there in the storm and how the Consortium was going to punish the survivors. Anger swelled in Piper’s chest. They had no right to gossip about Micah. He was just a kid. And none of them had run out of that shelter to help him. They’d stayed huddled in the dark like rats.

That was the problem with this town. Nobody really cared about helping anybody else. They were all drifters, scavengers hoping to make a fortune or at least some quick coin. Nobody ever thought about trying to build a real life here. Even the houses were temporary structures built as quickly and as cheaply as possible. In some
ways, Piper knew she was just as bad as the rest. After her father died, she’d stopped going outside unless it was necessary. She kept to herself and rarely talked to anyone except Micah and his family. Now even that connection might be gone for good.

And what would happen when the girl woke up? Piper didn’t need another mouth to feed, and a girl from the Dragonfly territories wasn’t likely to want to stay in the scrap towns any longer than she had to. She could go to the Consortium and tell them what happened, but they were already going to be looking for Piper to answer for the stunt she’d pulled escaping from the shelter. Why hurry that process along? Still, as someone marked by Aron, the girl was obviously important. Someone was bound to be interested in where she was and what had happened to the caravan.

Piper lifted the girl’s sleeve and looked at the tattoo again. Outside, the shrill call of a distant steam whistle caught her attention. It was the 401. The train came through the scrap town once a month, ferrying goods and passengers on a north-south route through the Merrow Kingdom and the Dragonfly territories, where it originated. It was scheduled to come in at midday. Piper hadn’t realized it was so late. A gnawing hunger clawed at her insides. She hadn’t eaten anything since her quick breakfast of bread and tea.

“I bet you’re going to be hungry too if you ever decide to wake up,” Piper grumbled at the girl. “Well, we
can’t sit here cuddling all day, and I’m going to need my hands if you want food.”

She eased out of the girl’s tight grip and breathed a sigh of relief when the girl didn’t make a fuss. Piper took the rice balls out of her satchel and ate both while she fetched another bucket of water from the well. Then she got out an old dented pot with a bent handle and set it on the kitchen table. Micah’s parents had returned from their last fishing trip with a bundle of sturgeon for her. She kept it in an ice chest in the corner farthest away from the stove. She took two fillets from it and a bunch of leeks and potatoes that she’d bought at the trade market. Altogether, she thought she had enough to make a decent fish soup for her and the girl.

Piper hadn’t cooked for two in a long time.

A little while later, she had fishy-smelling fingers and a blister on her thumb from peeling potatoes, but her ingredients were chopped and simmering in the pot on the stove. The aroma of cooking vegetables and fish broth brought a raw ache to Piper’s stomach. She tried to ignore the sensation and washed her hands and face in the water bucket. Her brown hair fell in wet spirals against her temples, and she caught a strong whiff of brimstone and sweat. Wrinkling her nose, Piper stripped off her coat and shirt. She kept a bar of soap and a few other toiletries in a small cabinet at the foot of her bed. She used the soap to wash her hair and her upper body, scraping the dirt and dust remnants off her tan skin. After she’d
finished, she changed into a spare shirt and stripped off her pants to wash her legs. When she was satisfied that she no longer smelled like the meteor storm, she hung her coat on a hook on the door and went to check on the soup.

Piper didn’t realize the girl’s eyes were open until she was standing right next to the stove. The girl had woken without a sound, and she lay silently where Piper had left her, clutching Piper’s knife in her hands.

Piper went straight for the knife on her belt, but of course, it wasn’t there. It must have fallen out of its sheath while she was washing, she realized. And now the girl held it in both her hands as she watched Piper’s every move with huge brown eyes.

When she was little, Piper used to bring home stray cats and beg her father to let her keep them. He always said no, not only because they couldn’t afford to feed them, but also because of their temperaments. The townspeople called them devil cats because they were half crazy with hunger and fear of the humans. They’d leave scratches and bites up and down Piper’s arms every time she tried to pick them up. The look in their eyes was the same look the girl was giving Piper.

I should have learned my lesson back then
, Piper thought.
No more bringing home strays
.

Piper held up her empty hands. “I’m not going to hurt you,” she said softly. “You were in an accident. Your caravan—” She hesitated. Now probably wasn’t the best time to tell the girl that the rest of her companions were gone. For all Piper knew, her parents might have been among the dead. Her stomach twisted at that thought. “I brought you here to get better,” Piper said at last. “Are you hungry?” She pointed to the bubbling broth on the stove. Tempt it with food—the best way to tame any wild creature.

Against her will, the girl turned her attention to the food. Piper saw the naked desire in her eyes, and the hands holding the knife trembled. “I’ll get you a bowl and spoon,” Piper said, turning slowly to a shelf on the wall. She made sure she could still see the girl out of the corner of her eye. “But you’ll have to put the knife down to eat.”

The girl watched as Piper took a wooden bowl and spoon off the shelf. Her eyes followed Piper to the stove, where she carefully ladled out soup from the pot. Herbs floated on top of the broth and steam rose from the bowl in fragrant clouds. Piper ignored the growls of her own stomach and held the food out to the girl.

After a moment’s hesitation, the girl dropped the knife and snatched the bowl from Piper’s hands. She plunged the spoon into the broth and shoveled it into her mouth.

“Careful!” Piper said. “Blow on it first, it’s—”

The girl’s eyes widened an instant before she spat out the scalding mouthful. A shower of broth and leeks hit Piper in the face.

“—hot,” the girl said in a small, croaky voice.

Silence fell. A log shifted in the stove, and the pot of broth continued to simmer. With a detached calm, Piper reached up, picked a leek out of her hair and dropped it back in the pot. Waste not. She took the bowl from the girl and blew on the broth several times to cool it, then she handed it back and smoothly retrieved her knife from the floor. The girl was too busy eating to notice.

Piper watched her for a long time when she should have been eating her own meal. She was absorbed in trying to figure out how, in the space of a few short hours, her life had gone so completely lopsided that she found herself standing in her house, fish broth dripping down her face, watching her dinner be gobbled up by a girl who was protected by King Aron, the person she hated most in the world.

Try as she might, she couldn’t come up with a satisfactory answer, so Piper ladled up some soup and ate it at the kitchen table while the girl stuck close to the stove. When Piper finished, she stood and went to get her coat. She used the sleeve to wipe the rest of the broth off her face. She knew without looking that the girl was watching her. “I’m going out,” she said, “but I’ll be back soon, and then we’ll talk about … what happened. Eat
as much as you want, but don’t go outside, you understand? I don’t want you getting lost while I’m gone.”

The girl didn’t answer, and Piper wondered how much she understood. Piper herself spoke in the Trader’s Speech, and the girl had used the same tongue just now. Was she a simpleton, or just afraid because she’d woken in a strange place to an unfamiliar face? Either way, it didn’t make any difference to Piper. She needed to get the girl out of here, find a way to send her back south to the Dragonfly territories. The first step would be to get a letter out on the 401, let the king know what had happened to the girl. She could look into doing that much now. Then she needed to check on Micah. She couldn’t stand not knowing how he was.

Piper bundled the big coat around her and headed for the train station, a worn, two-story brick building on the outskirts of town. The 401 had pulled alongside, sunlight gleaming off its tracks and driving wheels.

Despite all the other things on her mind, excitement fluttered through Piper at the sight of the immense black steam engine with its mile-long tail of boxcars and passenger carriers. Though aged, the 401 was still an impressive specimen. Every time it came to town, Piper itched to get her hands on the old girl to see what secrets she held in her metal heart.

And there were secrets. Piper could tell just by looking. Dozens of strange pipes, vents, and valves covered the train’s exterior, far more than should have been needed to operate the various systems of an ordinary train, and an extra layer of thick armor plates had been bolted to each of the cars. Stories floated around town that the best machinists in the Dragonfly territories had fitted the train with a formidable set of defenses, and that it hauled cargo through some of the most dangerous lands in Solace, fending off sky raiders and saboteurs along the way.

Whether the stories were true or not, Piper thought the 401 was a heavy, stern-looking, capable old girl—one who’d seen practically every corner of Solace—and Piper envied the big train and everyone who had ever traveled on her. Her crew had seen more of the world than Piper was ever likely to.

But maybe that didn’t have to be true, Piper thought as an idea came to her. Her heart beat excitedly as she considered it. Getting an express letter all the way to Noveen was going to cost a small fortune, yet wouldn’t the capital be very interested to learn that she’d rescued one of Aron’s marked people from the harvesting fields? Interested and maybe grateful enough to reward Piper with the money she needed to get out of the scrap town for good.

Running through the possibilities in her head, she was almost to the station when she heard a male voice
call her name. Turning, she saw Jory running toward her, his blond hair flapping in his face. Piper swallowed. What if he was coming to tell her bad news about Micah? For just a second, a tiny part of her wanted to run away, even though she was desperate to know how Micah was doing. She pushed her fear aside and greeted Jory when he stopped, out of breath, in front of her.

“I was on my way to your house when I saw you headed out of town,” he said. “Micah’s still unconscious, but the healer thinks he’s going to be all right.”

“Thank the goddess!” Piper breathed. Light-headed with relief, she didn’t immediately notice the worried expression on Jory’s face. “What’s wrong?” she demanded. “You said he was going to be all right.”

“It’s not that,” Jory said. “I came to find you because there’s a man wandering around in town—says he was with the caravan. He’s looking for the rest of his people, asking if anyone found anything in the wreckage.”

“Another survivor?” Piper felt a quick surge of relief. That meant the girl wasn’t alone. It also meant Piper wouldn’t have to spend the money to send a message after all, and she could get rid of the girl—and maybe get her reward—much sooner than she’d expected. Finally, things seemed to be looking up. “Where is he?” Piper asked.

“I don’t know,” Jory said. He shot an uneasy glance back toward the town. “I didn’t tell him about you finding the girl.”

“Why not, for goddess’s sake?” Piper felt a flash of irritation. “It’s not as if she can stay here.”

“I know that, but I didn’t like him, Piper. He wasn’t friendly.” Worry furrowed Jory’s brow. “I didn’t like the look in his eyes either.”

“He’s from the cities,” Piper said scornfully. “His type doesn’t like to mix with us scrappers. Of course he’s uncomfortable.”

Jory didn’t look convinced. “Why’s he here, then? Why did that caravan go out in the storm? I never heard of anyone from the cities doing something that stupid.” He bit his lip. “And Micah, he never should have—” Jory’s voice cracked.

Piper laid a hand awkwardly on his shoulder. “Once this story gets out, nobody will ever try it again,” she said. “Thanks for telling me about the man.”