The Essence

brooklynn

Brook shivered, clutching her jacket tighter as she scooted nearer the fire, wishing she’d dressed warmer. Wishing that she’d been more prepared. Instead, not only was she unprepared for the weather, but she had no idea what she was doing. She’d never led a search party before. For all she knew, she was leading her soldiers into some sort of trap.

After that first fruitless hour, Brook had made the tough decision to break her soldiers into three separate groups. She hoped that by splitting up, they might increase their odds of locating Charlie.

She’d sent one group, a traveling party made up of ten of her best riders, back to the palace, with news of what had happened at the depot. It was entirely possible that Charlie had decided to head south, too, and that Brook’s riders would intercept the queen on her journey home. Maybe the message to Max would be entirely unnecessary, and her riders would simply become escorts to Her Majesty.

The second group of ten had been ordered to remain in town, to keep searching. They’d already scoured buildings and questioned everyone they’d come in contact with, never revealing why it was so important that they find the “missing girl” for whom they searched. But they’d come up empty.

The men she’d left behind were to continue hunting, moving outside of town and combing every inch of the Scablands if necessary. Turn every home and shop inside out for signs of their lost queen. For this, Brook had sent ten of her most resilient and well-trained men and women. Survivors. Those whose instincts and skills matched the treacherous lands they’d be searching.

She would keep moving north, the most likely place Charlie was headed. Charlie was nothing if not predictable. Tenacious. She’d made a commitment, and she had a goal in mind, and nothing—not even a little hiccup like losing an entire army to back her up—would stop her.

Brook just hoped that wherever Charlie was, Zafir was as well.

She cupped her hands around her mouth and blew into them, trying to dethaw her frozen fingers.

“You shouldn’t be so stubborn. This will warm you,” Sebastian promised, sitting beside her and handing her a dented, silver flask.

Across from the fire, Aron nodded. “He’s right, you know?” His lips curled, the promise of a smile. “I mean that you’re stubborn, of course.”

“I don’t see you drinking any of it,” she shot back to Aron, lifting her hand to ward away the flask. She knew Sebastian was worried, they all were, but she needed some space. Needed to think. “No thanks. That’s what the fire’s for.”

Aron reached for another log and threw it on the already blazing campfire. The red coals beneath the flames flickered, and wayward sparks shot into the chilled air, turning black and then drifting away with the smoke.

Brook worried about that too, the fire. It made them an easy target, pinpointing their location in the yawning blackness that engulfed them. Pointing them out to rogue outlaws who might chance by. But they’d had to stop. They’d ridden hard, her band of thirty-odd soldiers. Well, thirty-odd soldiers plus Sebastian who tended the horses, and Aron who was practically useless. They’d stayed as close as they could to the rail lines, following the tracks as far as possible, until even the moon overhead couldn’t provide enough light to let them find their way.

Finally, when they’d realized they couldn’t keep going, Brook had ordered the fire, and she’d set up watch shifts, taking the first one herself and giving some of her soldiers a chance to sleep.

They were well into the second watch now, and as far as she could tell, neither Sebastian nor Aron had slept yet either.

“You should turn in,” she said vaguely to the both of them. She turned, looking into Sebastian’s dark eyes, which reflected the fire’s light, and spoke again. “I need you refreshed in the morning. Don’t make me order you.”

He opened his mouth, as if to argue, but then closed it again when he caught her determined expression. There was no point disputing a command. He leaned closer, and reached for her hand, squeezing it reassuringly. “The same could be said of you, Commander. You need to sleep.”

Hadn’t Aron said the exact same thing just the night before? Why did it sound so much more sincere coming from Sebastian, Brook wondered. Why, when he spoke, didn’t it sound like he was laughing at her? Taunting her?

He pressed the flask into her hand. “Just in case,” he said, and then she watched as he gathered his jacket tighter against the chill and went off toward the camp they’d set up just outside the perimeter of the fire, using as many blankets as they’d been able to scavenge from the merchants near the train depot before leaving town. Another reason they’d have to sleep in shifts.

“’Night, Sebastian,” she called after him, and he lifted his hand in a wave, not looking back.

“What about me?” Aron asked when it was just the two of them. Somehow he made even that simple statement feel like a joke. “Don’t you want me to be refreshed?”

Brook pinched the bridge of her nose. “Not unless you’ve learned to wield a mean sword or shoot like an expert marksman over the past few months. Otherwise, you can water the horses for Sebastian.” She peeked up at him, over the top of the fire. “You know, like a stable hand.”

Aron laughed then, and Brook caught a glimpse of his scars, captured in the flickering light cast from the flames.

At first, right after Charlie had taken the throne, those same scars had been impossible to miss, a daily reminder of what Aron had done for Brooklynn, of how he’d refused to give Queen Sabara the information she’d wanted. Even when she’d tortured him for it. Of course, he hadn’t realized it had been Brook he’d been protecting; he hadn’t realized that it was she who’d been part of the underground movement Sabara was so desperate to locate. All he’d known was that he had no intention of turning on one of his friends. . . . Traitor or not.