KARIS

We waited in line together, Iric telling me when to move forward and how many steps to take. He was my eyes, but still allowed me a measure of independence.

People walked past us as we waited, making their way to the amphitheater hewn from a rock cliff after one of the old mine’s shafts caved in, burying an entire work team beneath the rubble. Iric’s older brother Roane was among the dead.

I’d always wondered whether the Governor had done it on purpose as an excuse to make room for the great stadium. He used it often enough. According to him, it was a monument to those hard-working men who’d lost their lives to try to make ours safer, and that we would be dishonoring their memories by not utilizing the space the accident had fortuitously provided.

I wasn’t sure exactly how many people lived in Ironton, but the structure offered ample seating for all with room to spare. The Slopers got the best seats. The entire bottom half of the amphitheater was reserved for them, even though the Trenches had four times the population.

Iric, ever the optimist, would say we should enjoy the brief reversal of our stations in life. For once, we could be high up and enjoy the thinner air the Slopers claimed was cleaner and better.

We would sit at the very top, where Iric’s friends teased that we’d get nose bleeds. But it was easier that way. The fewer people around us, the easier it was for him to relay what was happening without our conversation annoying the people around us, and the freer Iric could speak about what he saw down below.

The scents of sweat and iron swirled through the air on the light breeze as the line steadily moved forward. The Governor’s staff was eager to attend the Midsummer Reveal, and were more than generous and three times faster than they normally were. Before I knew it, it was my turn, and with more than a handful of scrap iron, the pocket on my skirt was soon straining to contain it and I was struggling to contain my smile.

Iric nudged me as we walked away and joined the throng. “That’s twice as much as usual!”

“I know,” I boasted, flashing a grin in his direction.

“Take my arm. It’s getting crowded. You’ll knock into someone with your staff.”

I reached my left hand out and found his right forearm. He steered me toward the farthest row of steps and we made our way up, up, and up until we were at the top row and out of the Trenches, even if only for a short time.

It was refreshing, not because of the air, but because the tinkling of the bells wasn’t so infernally loud here. The chatter of the people below us was muffled, and as I sat on the hewn bench, the feel of the sun-warmed stone under my skirts comforted me.

“Incoming...” Iric warned a second before I was tackled. His three youngest brothers knocked me backward, but I held tight to them.

Root or Mage, I wasn’t sure which, grabbed my staff and pretended to battle his brother with it on the ledge behind us. “Take turns,” I warned them, eliciting a groan from Root. He loved to be the aggressor and hated being on the defensive.

The quietest and youngest of Vivica’s children, Dusty, settled next to me. I wrapped an arm around his shoulders and he gave me as big a hug as he would while his brothers were close. “How have you been?” I asked him quietly.

“Mage was caught stealing in the market today,” he admitted, scooting slightly closer to me.

I released a long exhale and pressed my eyes closed.

“We got away,” he added. But there was a time Mage hadn’t been able to escape the guards. He’d lost one of his hands as punishment. And since it was cut off as the result of a crime, he wasn’t eligible to receive alms. The boys were half-starved. If I moved my hand on Dusty’s back, I could count the knobs of his spine and feel the bow of each of his ribs. If Mage was caught again…

“Tell you what,” I entreated with a smile. “I have some extra iron. This should help.” Fishing some iron out of my pocket, I let it fall into his hands, trusting that they were there and ready to catch the offering. “Don’t. Steal.” Emphasizing the words was pointless, but I did it anyway. The three would steal again. Children weren’t being used in the mines as often now. The Slopers found child labor distasteful, even though they could do simple chores. Of course, if they hadn’t been born to Vivica, they’d probably be fine. Iric and I helped them as much as we could, but it wasn’t enough.

“Thank you, Karis,” Dusty muttered. I pulled him into my side as the Midsummer Reveal began.

The rock amplified the Governor’s voice. “Citizens of Ironton,” he began. “We have been given a new opportunity to thrive once more. The fae have bestowed the gift of fae sight upon one of our people. It is a rare, but important ability to be able to see through the smoke and into the realm of the fae.”

He prattled on about past citizens who had been gifted the ability only to be gobbled up once they set foot across the wall. “If I were the one gifted with the sight, I’d be pissin’ my pants right about now,” Mage swore. “All those monsters, ready for a meal made of man.”

He was right.

The boys quietly agreed with him.

“I heard that only one of the Retrievers have ever made it back alive with the smoke in the last fifty years. That’s why it’s so thin now,” Mage continued.

“Only one?” Dusty asked from my right.

At my left, Iric’s arm brushed mine as he leaned forward. The Governor, with great fanfare announced, “I give you our Retriever, our very salvation: Trava of the Slopes!”

“What’s happening? What does she look like?” I asked Iric.

He leaned in, and above the wild applause and whistling, described the girl. “She’s no older than we are, thin, with red hair braided tightly and wearing a new leather suit of armor. That won’t stop the fae from sinking their teeth into her, though.” He released an angry breath. “The Governor is waving to the people. Her parents are standing behind her, wearing proud smiles, and everyone is clapping and cheering. But the girl? She looks terrified.” He snorted in disgust. “If she has the gift of faery sight, then so do I.”

“What about the smoke?” Root asked Iric.

“I can guarantee you she won’t make it far enough into Faery to find it.”

“What’ll happen to us if she doesn’t?” asked Mage.

“When the smoke grows thin, the beasts come in.” A line from a nursery rhyme. That was his answer. Despite the humidity and heat of the evening, a shiver of dread crawled up my spine.

“It’s time for us to go,” Mage declared, calling for his brothers to join him. The people were about to file out of the amphitheater. Some would head to the wall to watch as Trava the Terrified stepped through the smoke and into Faery. Most would pray for, but not expect her return. The entire scene would be a morbid mix of farewell and well wishes.

Mage, Root, and Dusty would seize the opportunity, and any iron they could pluck from the pockets of Ironton’s people tonight, all gathered together in one place. A good haul would feed them for weeks.

Iric nudged me when I opened my mouth. “Be careful,” he admonished the trio. They did inherit one thing from their mother. Their feet were quiet. I barely heard them leave us. When they had gone, he turned to me and added, “We should go. We’re at watch tower thirty-four.”

It was one of the more secluded towers, past the gardens and fields. It was also my favorite—the farthest from the bells.

Taking Iric’s arm, he guided me until we were out of the crowd, stopping at the edge of the Trench market to buy dinner for us both: freshly cooked fish, corn on the cob, and bread. “I’ve got water,” he stated as he came back to where I stood. But he stopped his approach, becoming eerily quiet before saying, “Why...?”

“What is it?” The hair on my arms stood on end.

“There’s a woman, in a house just beyond the market. She’s staring at you.”

“Who is she?”

He hesitated. “If the boys are to be believed, she’s the only Retriever to have made it back to Ironton alive in the last twenty years. I thought she was a myth. I’ve never seen her outside before.”

“Maybe she’s a ghost,” I teased.

He gave a slight laugh.

“Why wouldn’t the Governor send her back? Even if she only acts as a guide. If she knows how to get the smoke and survive the fae, why not have her help?”

His voice grew quiet. “That’s a good question.” He blew out a tense breath. “She went back inside.”

We made our way to the watch tower and ate our dinners in silence.

“Once a person is given the sight, do they ever lose it?” I asked as the crickets sang all around us.

Iric took a drink from his canteen. “I don’t imagine the fae would give it to a person for a limited time. I think it would be a lifelong gift.”

“Or curse.”

“Or curse, depending on how you looked at it,” he agreed. “I wonder what the woman who made it back sees now that she’s home. And I wonder what she saw beyond the wall.”

The wall was just that, a divider; but made of smoke and magic, it allowed humans to pass through while keeping the fae from entering our town. According to Iric, it was less a wall and more a dome with a hole in the top to let the sunlight and rain in.

My theory was that the top of the dome still held smoke, but was thinner. Some of the fae could fly, according to the histories. Something had to be keeping them outside.

“How thin is the wall? Can you see out?” I asked.

“The smoke is thinning in places, but not enough to see through. I can’t see out. Never have been able to. Sometimes I wonder if there’s really anything out there to see.” He took another drink.

“You don’t think there are monsters on the other side?”

“There’re monsters everywhere, K. A wall of smoke doesn’t keep them from living among us.” I knew what he was referring to, but pinched my lips together. He threw our gnawed corn cobs out the watchtower window. “If you’re asking whether I believe the fae are real, I know they were at one time. I just don’t know if they still exist. And I don’t know if they’re all monsters like people say.”

“Did you know her?” I asked curiously. “Trava of the Slopes, I mean. The girl with the sight?”

“I make runs for her family.”

He did know her. I wasn’t sure if he liked her, but I could tell her leaving bothered him. He was exhausted and laid down on the floor of the tower to nap, but it took forever for him to relax. When his breathing became slow and even, I listened for any unusual sounds. His commander knew he was a runner, but didn’t know the extent of his work within the Slopes. If he found out, Iric would risk dismissal. The Border Grays were charged with either peacekeeping or guarding the wall. Iric had chosen the latter to retain his runner job during the daylight hours.

But a Border Gray had to be alert during their watch, or so the commander would say. Iric’s friends respected him. They hadn’t told anyone that he took me with him, and no one knew he napped at night. Not that it would matter. We’d been doing this for years and nothing had ever broken through the wall.

We’d never heard, seen, or felt anything out of the ordinary. No one would admit it, but the Border Grays were something the Governor insisted on in order to give a sense of security to the people of Ironton, mostly to appease the Slopers who demanded a guard—and mostly to keep the Trenchers in line.

But the Border Grays were respected, honored, and loved, which is why none of the citizens bothered me while I was in Iric’s presence. He was the fastest runner in Ironton, and considered handsome and charming, from the amount of giggles and whispers from the girls we passed at the Reveal today—Trencher and Sloper alike.

I wondered what would happen if a monster did make it through the thinning smoke. What did fae beasts look and smell like? How fast could they level a human village like Ironton and slaughter everyone inside? Would the large bells above the towers give enough warning for the people of Ironton to flee, or would the tinkling of the tiny iron ones drown out their cries?

Maybe the Slopers could find a place to hide. Iric remembered that some had hidden rooms hewn into the bedrock, with locking iron doors to keep them safe in case an attack came. But the people in the Trenches already lived on top of one another. There were no rocky hills, no secure iron doors—just earth and excrement and squalor. There was nowhere for us to hide.

If one of the fae managed to find its way through the thinning smoke, would everyone still assume the monster was me?

* * *

Trava was beyond the smoke.

That was the only thing I could think about. Sitting on the small porch of the watch tower, I pulled my legs into my chest and wondered what was happening to her. Could Iric be right? Was she just wandering through a forest in the dark of night, or had she already been slaughtered?

Iric’s light snoring mixed with the insect song, barely louder than the iron bells rattling in the Trenches, and the faint sound of them ringing out from the tops of the Slopes in the distance. I’d asked Iric what it was like up there. He described the houses made of thick timber, strong and sound. Nothing like the Trench hovels and shacks comprised of scraps and discarded material, anything to try and keep the weather outside.

Our home was a rare exception, a small cave that now sported a wooden floor. Iric and a few of his Border Gray brothers had spent an entire day cutting and hammering boards into place to keep us from freezing on the ground. We had a solid door now, recently replaced after the latest incident, and Iric was saving up to have a lock forged.

I agreed about the lock, but Iric wasn’t content with our little hole in the rock. He was always bringing salvaged scrap from Sloper homes to make it more comfortable, but I couldn’t have been happier with it. It was all we needed. And having what you needed was the most important thing in the world. You found that out when you didn’t have those things.

Aside from our cots and a small table, a few dishes and glasses, and pots and pans for cooking, our house was largely empty and Iric hated it. He wanted to dig farther into the mountain to make more rooms. Maybe that meant he was ready for a family.

I needed to find a job and make my own way. It wasn’t fair that he had to work all day and night for us to survive. I got alms, but it wasn’t enough. Not even to feed me, let alone both of us. And definitely not enough to help the boys with food and clothing as they grew. The alms program was a joke—a way for the Governor to pat himself on the back for giving to the damaged. The Slopers had no idea how little iron we actually received, or how much it took to buy the most basic of necessities in our markets. They had plenty – why should they worry themselves over those beneath them?

Closing my eyes, I propped my head up on the side of the tower and took a deep breath, blowing it out slowly. I’d been tense since leaving Vivica’s, but now that tension leaked slowly from my muscles.

I let it bleed out of me as I breathed in the fresh air, appreciating the fact that my headache had eased. For a moment, I was at peace.

Overhead, a sudden clap of thunder startled me, my muscles tightening once more. My heart jolted. The wind gusted, but it wasn’t raining. I listened closely. The thunder hadn’t woken Iric. He didn’t even shift positions, and his breathing remained rhythmic and steady.

There came another tremendous boom, but it was different; closer, and low to the ground. Thunder only came from above. Something was wrong. That wasn’t thunder...

Something was making the noise and it was near the ground, just outside the wall. Opening the trap door, I felt the edges of the cut square, kicking the ladder rungs to orient myself before climbing down.

When my feet hit the soft ground, I turned toward the wall, my hands outstretched. My vision, normally black as night, began to clear. And the more I blinked, the clearer my vision became. I could see the wall in front of me. Sucking in a sharp breath, my heart galloped in my chest.

I could see.