C. Redwine - Deception

“Right arm, please,” I say to a man nearly as old as Oliver. He raises his hand, and I slide his tunic sleeve down his arm. His skin sags away from his bones, and the wristmark has faded over time, but it’s there. I rub my thumb over it, searching for any signs that it could be fake, but the ridges are right where they should be and the ink is a permanent stain on his forearm. The ridges in his mark are longer than mine. Skinnier, too. Each mark is different, so that a guard’s Identidisc can bounce sound off of the mark and come back with a sound signature unique to that citizen.

Logan stands beside me, checking Jan’s wristmark. I move past him to check the next person, and we quickly fall into a rhythm.

Cassie. Ian. Elias. Geraldine. Susan. Nick. So far everyone in my line has a wristmark. Logan is checking the wristmark of a woman whose brown skin gleams like a polished jewel beneath the midday sun. I step around him and discover that Sylph and Smithson are next in line.

“Right arm, please,” I say to Sylph. She smiles at me and lays her hand in mine. I lift our hands in the air, and her sleeve slides to her elbow. I gasp. A deep purple bruise blossoms like rotting fruit along the underside of her arm.

“What happened?” Abandoning any effort to check her wristmark, I grab her arm as she starts to pull it down. “Who did this to you?”

The bruise is easily the size of my palm, and its center is black. Whoever hurt her meant to hurt her. With a bruise like this, she’s lucky her arm didn’t break. Fury gushes through me, sharp and vicious.

My eyes find Smithson, and I arrow my rage at him, as if I can flay him to pieces with nothing but my glare.

But he isn’t looking at me. Instead, he’s staring at Sylph’s arm, worry in every line of his face. “What happened?”

Sylph pulls her wrist free of my grip and examines the bruise. “I guess this is from hitting my arm when I got our lunch ration. I slipped in some mud and fell against the wagon. I must have fallen harder than I realized.” She sounds puzzled, but not upset.

Poison.

The air is suddenly too thick to breathe. I’ve known Sylph for most of my life. I’ve never seen her bruise easily. Sickness crawls up the back of my throat as I make myself ask, “Any other bruises? Do you feel sick? Tired?”

She shrugs and smiles at us both. “I’m fine! I feel fine. I didn’t realize I hit my arm that hard. That’s all. Honest. Stop worrying. Both of you. I’m not used to roughing it, but I’ll toughen up. We all will. Now shouldn’t you be checking my wristmark to make sure I’m really from Baalboden?”

My fingers rub gently across her wrist, though I don’t need to check. Sylph is a bright, laughing presence in most of my childhood memories. I can’t think of my life in Baalboden without thinking of her. And I refuse to consider a life outside of Baalboden without her.

Smithson thrusts his arm at me, lets me verify his wristmark, and then carefully wraps his arm around Sylph as if she’s made of glass. She laughs and leans into him, but I meet Smithson’s gaze above her head and know the worry burning in his eyes also burns in mine.

Only he doesn’t realize how much he truly has to fear.

Unlike Logan, I’m not brave enough to put it into words. Because maybe Logan’s wrong. Maybe Sylph really did hit her arm too hard against the wagon. Maybe the knowledge that someone out there is ruthlessly determined to torture us is messing with my head.

Besides, if bruising were a symptom of poison, wouldn’t Smithson be bruised too? The X was over both of them. Holding on to that thin comfort, I continue down the row, checking every survivor with dogged determination.

All of them have a Baalboden wristmark. So do the survivors in Thom and Frankie’s row. We’re no closer to figuring out which one of us is working with Rowansmark. As Logan calls for us to start moving again, I slowly scan the faces of the survivors who walk past me.

One of them is a traitor. One of them might have poisoned Sylph. All I need is a sign, a single glimmer of guilt or treachery, and whoever painted a bloody X on her door is mine.

Ignoring the tiny voice whispering that I was once sure of Melkin’s guilt, and now I don’t know how to live with myself, I heft my Switch and take my place along the western flank.

We camp on a small rise beside a wide river. The air smells of muddy soil, fresh grass, and moldy wood. Logan wastes no time ordering his team to create a perimeter—wagons, children, and those too old or frail to easily defend themselves are in the middle. Those marginally able to fight are circled around them. And then those of us who’ve been trained take up our posts at the outer edge.

There’s a new tension in the camp. Partially because we’ve seen signs that someone else regularly travels on this faded, poorly maintained path, and the possibility of running into highwaymen or unsympathetic envoys from other city-states is a clear danger. And partially because we’re no closer to catching the killer, and the strain of wondering which of us is a traitor wears us down.

I’m stationed with two of our newer guards on the southern edge of camp. Logan has a guard with him as well and is ten yards away. He watches me with worry and regret in his eyes, and I know it’s because he can’t stop the poison when he has no idea what was used.

I suppose I should find the energy to comfort him, or at least to tell him I know this isn’t his fault, but the dread that has filled me since I saw Sylph’s bruise seeps into my bones, and I can’t find any words.

I give the men standing guard with me the first watch, and close my eyes, not intending to actually fall asleep. The Wasteland’s nighttime noises crowd around me. Owls hooting. Things rustling through the underbrush. The far-off howl of a wolf pouring out his misery to the unfeeling moon.

The howl climbs through the sky and wraps around me as I sink into a dream. It feels like I’m the one crying, I’m the one putting inarticulate sound to the things that haunt me. I don’t see clouds gathering over the face of the moon, but suddenly rain streaks from the skies in relentless streams. It strafes the canopy of leaves above me, skids down bark, and pools in the mud beneath me. I get up and try to walk—I have to walk—but my feet refuse to move.

Looking down, I see the mud is bubbling around my boots, a seething mass that defies gravity and slides viscous tentacles over my ankles, searching for skin.

Whipping my knife from its sheath, I beat at the mud with the flat of my blade.

It can’t touch my skin. It can’t . Something terrible will happen if it does.

The rain plummets down. The mud bubbles and slurps and grows until the toes of my boots disappear beneath the writhing mass.

The flat of my blade isn’t helping. I flip it around and crouch. The tip of my knife gleams silver beneath the water, and I plunge it into one questing tentacle as it slides over the lip of my boot and onto my skin.

Pain flashes, a brilliant light that explodes behind my eyes and rips a scream from my throat.

The knife is useless. The mud burrows in, and the ground beneath me becomes a crimson sea of blood crawling over my feet.

I bruise where the tentacle meets my skin—a decaying blossom filled with agony. Abandoning my knife, I rip at the crimson threads with my fingers.

“No, Rachel,” Melkin whispers. “You deserve this.”

His face rises from the seething pool of blood at my feet, and bubbles escape his gaping mouth.

“No,” I say.

“You’re broken. This is what happens when you’re broken,” Oliver says gently, and Melkin’s face melts into Oliver’s full cheeks and dark eyes.