“You’re well if you don’t use it?” he asked.
Cinder nodded, his eyes downcast.
“Then don’t. Don’t call the Aether. Not for any reason.”
Cinder peered up. “Does that mean you’re not streaked at me?”
“Because you can’t save the Tides for me?” Perry shook his head. “No. Not at all, Cinder. But you’re wrong about something. The Aether isn’t the only thing you have. You’re part of this tribe now, no different from anyone else. And you’ve got me. All right?”
“All right,” Cinder said, fighting off a smile. “Thanks.”
Perry thumped him on the shoulder. “Maybe one day you’ll let me borrow your hat, if it’s all right with Willow.”
Cinder rolled his eyes. “That was … that wasn’t …”
Perry laughed. He knew exactly what it was.
Twig ran up on the trail as they returned to the compound. “Gren is back,” he said, panting for breath. “He’s brought Marron with him.”
Marron was here? It didn’t make sense. Perry had sent Gren for provisions. He hadn’t expected his friend to deliver them personally.
He stepped into the clearing and saw a filthy, weather-beaten group, roughly thirty in number. Molly and Willow were giving them water, and Gren stood with them, his face tight with worry.
Perry clasped his hand. “Good you’re back.”
“I ran into them on my way,” Gren said, “and brought them with me. I knew it was what you’d want.”
Perry scanned the crowd and almost missed Marron. He was a different person. Dirt coated his tailored jacket, the ivory silk shirt beneath rumpled and stained with sweat. His blond hair—normally perfectly combed—was matted and darkened by grease and dirt. His face was windburned and had lost all of its roundness. He had withered.
“We were overpowered,” Marron said. “There were thousands.” He took a gulping breath, fighting back emotion. “I couldn’t keep them out. There were just too many.”
Perry’s heart stopped. “Was it the Croven?”
Marron shook his head. “No. It was the Rose and Night tribes. They took Delphi.”
Perry studied the people with him. Men and women, huddled together. Half of them were children, so tired they swayed on their feet. “The others?” Marron had commanded hundreds of people.
“Forced to stay, some. Others chose to. I don’t blame them. I started with twice this number, but many turned back. We haven’t eaten—”
Marron’s blue eyes filled. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket. It was folded in a perfect square, but the material was as rumpled and dirty as the rest of his clothing. He frowned at it like he was surprised to find it soiled, and returned it to his pocket.
His ragtag group watched in silence. Their expressions were dead, their tempers muted and lifeless. Perry realized this could happen to the Tides if they lost the compound and were forced into the borderlands. His doubts about the cave began to fade.
“We have nowhere else to go,” Marron said.
“You don’t need to go anywhere else. You can stay here.”
“We’re taking them in?” Twig asked. “How’re we going to feed them?”
“We are,” Perry said, though he didn’t know how. He barely had enough food for the Tides. But what could he do? He could never turn Marron away.
“Get them settled,” he told Reef.
He took Marron to his house. There, Marron’s temper deepened and deepened, becoming something immense, until finally his tears came. Perry sat with him at the table, deeply shaken himself. At Delphi, Marron had had soft beds and the finest food as often as he’d wanted. He’d had a wall protecting him, with archers posted day and night. He’d lost everything.
That night at supper—watered-down fish soup—Perry sat with Marron at the high table and looked across the cookhouse. The Tides wanted nothing to do with Marron’s people. They sat apart, at separate tables, glaring at the newcomers. Perry hardly recognized his tribe anymore. People came and people left. Both were unsettling to the Tides.
“Thank you,” Marron said quietly. He knew the strain he’d placed on Perry.
“No need for that. Tomorrow I plan to put you to work.”
Marron nodded, his blue eyes sparkling, filling with the sharp curiosity Perry remembered. “Of course. Ask anything.”
22
ARIA
Whatever Aria had expected from the Horns, it hadn’t been this. She absorbed their settlement in awe as she and Roar approached on a farm road. She had imagined Rim as a compound, like the Tides’, but this was so much more.
The road led them through a valley many times larger than the Tides’. Farmland stepped up mountain slopes that rose to soaring, snowcapped peaks. Here and there she saw the silvery scars of Aether damage. Sable had the same challenges Perry did with growing food. The realization gave her a perverse satisfaction.
In the distance she saw the city: a cluster of towers of varying heights nestled against the sheer side of a mountain. Balconies and bridges connected the towers in a chaotic network, giving Rim a sprawling, jumbled appearance that reminded her of a coral reef. A single structure loomed above the others, with a spired rooftop that looked like a spear. The Snake River skirted the near side of the city, forming a natural moat, with smaller structures and homes spilling along its banks.
Aether currents flowed bright and fast in the late morning sky, enhancing Rim’s severe appearance. The storm they’d been running from had followed them there.