Under the Never Sky: The Complete Series Collection Read online

  “What is that? Is that a book?”

  “Not anymore.”

  She touched the device over her eye a few times, her fingers fluttering and skitty. Perry looked away. The eyepiece was disgusting. A parasite. And it reminded him too much of the men who’d taken Talon. He went back to work, tearing the other leather cover off. Then he took his bag and knelt in front of her. He lifted her foot, pushed the bandage aside.

  “You’re healing up.”

  She sucked in a breath. “Let go. Don’t touch me.”

  The cold scent of her fear came at him, flickering blue at the edges of his vision. “Steady, Mole,” he said, letting go of her foot. “We have a deal. If you help me, I won’t hurt you.”

  “What are you doing?” she asked, looking at the ripped covers. Her pale skin had nearly gone white.

  “Making you shoes. There aren’t any in the supplies. You can’t travel barefoot.”

  Cautiously she gave him her foot. Perry set it on the book cover. “Be still as you can.” He took Talon’s knife and traced the outline of her foot with the tip of the blade. He was careful not to touch her as that triggered her panic.

  “You don’t have a pen or anything?” she asked.

  “A pen? Lost it about a hundred years ago.”

  “I didn’t think Outsiders lived that long.”

  Perry looked down, hiding his face. Was that a joke? Did Dwellers live that long?

  “Are you a shoemaker or something?” she asked after a moment. “A cobbler?”

  Did she think this was what he’d come up with if he were? “No. I’m a hunter.”

  “Oh. That explains a lot.”

  Perry didn’t know what it explained other than that he hunted.

  “So you . . . kill things? Animals and things?”

  Perry closed his eyes. Then he sat back and gave her a wide grin. “If it moves, I kill it. Then I gut it, skin it, and eat it.”

  She shook her head, her eyes dazed. “I just . . . I can’t believe you’re real.”

  Perry scowled at her. “What else would I be, Mole?”

  She kept quiet for a while after that. Perry finished outlining her feet. He cut the impressions out. Poked holes into the binding with the tip of the blade, working as swiftly as he could. This close, her Dweller scent was making him sick.

  “My name is Aria.” She waited for him to say something. “Don’t you think we should know each other’s names if we’re going to be allies?” She arched a dark eyebrow, mocking his earlier use of the word.

  “We might be allies, Mole, but we’re not friends.” He laced the leather cord through the holes and then tied them around her ankles. “Try those.”

  She stood and took a few steps, drawing up her pants so she could see her feet. “They’re good,” she said, surprised.

  He swept the leftover scraps of leather cord into his satchel. The covers made perfect soles, just as he’d thought. Tough but flexible. Best use he’d ever seen for a book. They’d last a few days. Then he’d have to come up with something better. If she lived that long.

  If she didn’t, he’d already decided he would take the eyepiece to Marron’s alone. He’d find a way to send a signal to any Dweller who’d hear it. He’d offer himself and the eyepiece in exchange for his nephew.

  She lifted a foot and looked at the bottom. “How fitting. Did you choose this one on purpose, Outsider? I’m not sure this bodes well for our journey.”

  Perry snatched his satchel. Took up his bow and quiver. He didn’t have a clue what book he’d chosen. He couldn’t read. Had never learned no matter how many times Mila and Talon had tried to teach him. He walked out of the cave before she could see that and call him a stupid Savage.

  They spent the morning crossing hills Perry had known all his life. They were nearing the eastern edge of Vale’s territory, rolling land that climbed out of the Tide Valley. Wherever he looked he saw memories. The knoll where he and Roar had made their first bows. The oak tree with the split trunk that Talon had climbed a hundred times. The banks of the dry creek that first time with Brooke.

  His father had walked this land once. Longer ago still, his mother had as well. It was strange missing a place before having left it. Unsettling to realize he had no loft to climb back into when he tired of being in the open. And he was walking with a Dweller. That cast the day in an odd light as well. Her presence made him shifty and irritated. He knew she wasn’t the Mole who took Talon, but she was still one of them.

  She jumped at every small sound during the first hours. She walked too slow and made more noise than someone her size ever should. Worst of all, she’d begun to put off a thick black temper as the morning wore on, telling him that grief had followed him. This girl he’d somehow struck a bargain with had suffered and lost and was hurting. Perry did his best to keep upwind from her, where the air was clear.

  “Where are we going, Savage?” she asked around midday. She was a good ten paces behind him. Walking ahead held another advantage besides avoiding her scent. He didn’t have to keep seeing the eyepiece on her face. “I think I’ll call you that since I don’t know your name.”

  “I won’t answer.”

  “Well, Hunter? Where are we heading?”

  He tipped his chin. “That way.”

  “That’s helpful.”

  Perry glanced over his shoulder at her. “We’re going to see a friend. His name is Marron. He’s that way.” He pointed to Mount Arrow. “Anything else?”

  “Yes,” she said, frustrated. “What is snow like?”

  That nearly stopped him in his tracks. How could a person know about snow without knowing it was pure and silent and whiter than bone? Without knowing how the chill of it stung your skin? “It’s cold.”

  “What about roses? Do they really smell so great?”

  “See many roses around here?” He knew better than to give a true answer. From what he could tell, she’d never heard about Scires in her stories. Perry wanted to keep it that way. He didn’t trust her. Knew she wasn’t planning to help him. Whatever double-crossing she meant to do, he’d figure it out.

  “Do the clouds ever clear?” she asked.

  “Completely? No. Never.”

  “What about the Aether? Does that ever go away?”

  “Never, Mole. The Aether never leaves.”

  She looked up. “A world of nevers under a never sky.”

  She fit in well then, he thought. A girl who never shut up.

  Her questions continued through the day. She asked if dragonflies made a sound when they flew and if rainbows were myths. When he stopped answering, she turned to speaking to herself as though it were a natural thing. She talked about the warm color of the hills against the blue cast of the Aether. When the wind kicked up, she said the sound reminded her of turbines. She stared at rocks, wondering at the minerals that made them, even pocketing a few. She’d fallen into a deep silence once, when the sun appeared, and it was then he’d wondered most what she was thinking.

  Perry couldn’t figure out how a person could be grieving and still manage to talk so much. He ignored her as best he could. He kept an eye on the Aether, relieved to see that it moved in pale drifts above. They’d leave the Tides’ land soon so he paid close attention to the scents carrying on the wind. He knew they’d meet with some form of danger eventually. Traveling outside tribe territories guaranteed it. Hard enough to survive alone in the borderlands. Perry wondered how he’d manage it with a Mole.

  Late in the afternoon, he found a sheltered valley to lay camp. Night was falling by the time he got the fire going. The Dweller sat on an overturned tree examining the soles of her feet. What healthy skin she’d had left that morning had blistered.

  Perry found the salve he’d taken from the cave and brought it to her. She unscrewed the small jar, her black hair spilling forward as she peered at it. Perry frowned. What was she doing? Was her eyepiece some sort of magnifying glass?

  “Don’t eat that, Dweller. Spread it on your feet.
Here.” He pushed a handful of dried fruit at her along with a cluster of thistle roots he’d dug up earlier. They tasted like uncooked potatoes, but at least they wouldn’t starve. “That you can eat.”

  She kept the fruit but handed the roots back. Perry returned to the fire, too stunned to be offended. No one handed food back.

  “The fire won’t burn into these trees,” he said when she didn’t join him. She was inspecting each piece of fruit before she ate it. “It won’t burn like that night.”

  “I just don’t like it,” she said.

  “You’ll change your mind when the cold sets in.”

  Perry ate his own meager dinner. He wished he’d taken time to hunt. Probably wouldn’t have worked even if he had. Her constant blather had scared off game. Nearly scared him off too. He’d need to find food tomorrow. They’d eaten almost everything he’d brought from the cave.

  “The boy who was taken,” she said. “Is he your son?”

  “How old do you think I am, Dweller?”

  “I’m a little shaky on the fossil record, but I’d say fifty to sixty thousand years.”

  “Eighteen. And no. He’s not my son.”

  “I’m seventeen.” She cleared her throat. “You don’t look eighteen,” she said after a few moments. “I mean, you do and you don’t.”

  Perry figured she was waiting for him to ask why. He didn’t care.

  “I’m feeling fine, by the way. I have a headache that won’t go away and my feet hurt like mad. But I think I’ll live to see another day. I can’t be sure, though. The stories say diseases can creep up quietly.”

  Perry bit down into his teeth, thinking of Talon and Mila. Was he supposed to feel sorry for her because she might fall ill? He couldn’t imagine a life without disease or illness. He took the two blankets from his bag. Sleep would bring morning and morning would bring him closer to reaching Marron.

  “Why do you avoid looking at me?” she asked. “Because I’m a Dweller? Are we ugly to Outsiders?”

  “Which question do you want me to answer first?”

  “It doesn’t matter. You won’t answer anyway. You don’t answer questions.”

  “You don’t stop asking them.”

  “See what I mean? You avoid answering and you avoid looking. You’re an avoider.”

  Perry flung the blanket at her. She hadn’t been ready. It hit her on the face. “You’re not.”

  She snatched it away, shooting him a fierce look. Perry could see her perfectly, though she sat beyond the circle of firelight.

  In the cover of darkness, he let the corner of his mouth lift.

  Hours later he woke to the sound of singing. Quiet words, sung in a language he didn’t know, but that seemed familiar. He’d never heard a voice like that. So clear and rich. He thought he might still be dreaming until he saw the girl. She’d moved closer to the fire. To him. She hugged her legs as she rocked back and forth. He caught the salty tang of tears in the air, and a cold slash of fear.

  “Aria,” Perry said. He surprised himself by using her name. He decided it suited her. There was a curious sound about it. Like her very name was a question. “What is it?”

  “I saw Soren. The one from the fire that night.”

  Perry jumped to his feet and searched into the fog. He’d never liked fog. It robbed him of one of his Senses, but he still had the other, his strongest. He breathed in deeply, careful to keep his movements subtle. Her fear wove with the woodsmoke, but there were no other Dweller scents.

  “You dreamed it. There’s no one here except us.”

  “We don’t dream,” she said.

  Perry frowned but decided not to mull over the strangeness of that now. “There’s no trace of him here.”

  “I saw him,” she said. “It felt real. It felt just like being with him in a Realm.” She brushed the blanket over her wet cheeks. “I couldn’t get away from him again.”

  Now he didn’t know what to do. If she were his sister or Brooke, he would have held her. He thought about telling her he’d keep her safe, but that wouldn’t be entirely true. He would protect her. But only as long as it took to get Talon back.

  “Could it have been a message through your eyepiece?” he asked.

  “No,” she said firmly. “It’s still not working. But the strange thing is, I saw what I recorded that night. I recorded Soren when he was . . . attacking me.” She cleared her throat. “And that’s what I saw. It’s like my mind played the recording back on its own.”

  That was called a dream, but Perry wasn’t going to argue over it. “Is that why the Dwellers want it back? Because of the recording?”

  She hesitated and then nodded. “Yes. It could ruin both Soren and his father.”

  He ran a hand over his hair. Now he understood why the Dwellers wanted the eyepiece. Had they taken Talon as barter? “So we have leverage?”

  “If we can fix the Smarteye.”

  Perry exhaled slowly, feeling a surge of hope. He’d been prepared to surrender himself to the Dwellers in exchange for Talon. Maybe he wouldn’t have to. If the Dwellers wanted that eyepiece badly enough, it might be enough to get Talon back.

  The girl’s temper was beginning to ease. He threw on a fresh piece of wood and sat on the far side of the fire. He couldn’t avoid looking at the eyepiece on her face now. “Why do you wear that thing if it’s broken?” he asked.

  “It’s part of me. It’s how we see the Realms.”

  He had no idea what Realms were. He didn’t even know what to ask about them.

  “Realms are virtual places,” she said. “Created with computer programming.”

  He picked up a stick and poked at the embers. She’d explained without him asking. Like she knew he had no idea. That streaked him a bit, but she kept talking so he listened.

  “They’re places as real as this is. If my Smarteye was working, I could go to any part of the world and beyond too, from right here. Without going anywhere. There are Realms for times that have passed. Last year the Medieval Realms were champ. You’d be great in one of those. And then there are Fantasy Realms and Future Realms. Realms for hobbies and any kind of interest you can think of.”

  “So . . . it’s like watching a video?” He’d seen those at Marron’s. Images like memories playing out on a screen.

  “No, that’s only a visual. The Realms are multidimensional. If you go to a party, you feel the people dancing around you, and you can smell them and hear the music. And you can just change things, like choose more comfortable shoes to dance in. Or change your hair color. Or choose another body style. You can do anything you want.”

  Perry crossed his arms. It sounded like she was describing a daydream. “What happens to you when you go to one of these fake places? Do you fall asleep?”

  “No, you’re just fractioning. Doing two things at once.” She shrugged. “Like walking and talking at the same time.”

  Perry fought back a smile. Her words from yesterday sprang to mind. That explains a lot. “What’s the point of going to a fake place?” he asked.

  “The Realms are the only places we can go. They were created when the Pods were built. Without them, we’d probably go insane with boredom. And they’re pseudo, not fake. They feel exactly real. Well, some things I’m not sure about anymore. There are a few things out here that aren’t what I expected.”

  She dug into one of her pockets. She’d collected about a dozen rocks yesterday. None of them looked special to him. They looked like rocks.

  “Each one of these is unique,” she said. “Their shape. Their weight and composition. It’s amazing. In the Realms, there are formulas for randomness. I can always pick them out, though. Spot how every twelfth rock is a modified version of the first one’s color or density, or whatever the variation might be.

  “But rocks aren’t the only thing. When I was out in that desert, and then when . . .” The way she looked at him, he knew whatever she’d say next, he was part of it. “I’ve never felt that way. We don’t have fear like
that. But if those two things are different, then there has to be more, right? Other things besides fear and rocks that are different in the real?”

  Perry nodded absently, imagining a world without fear. Was that possible? If there was no fear, how could there be comfort? Or courage?

  She took his nod as encouragement to continue, which he was fine with. She had a good voice. He hadn’t realized until he’d heard her sing. He’d rather she sang more instead of talked, but he wasn’t going to ask.

  “See, it’s all energy, like everything. The Eye sends impulses that flow right into the brain, fooling it. Telling it, ‘You’re seeing this and touching that.’ But maybe some things haven’t been perfected yet. Maybe they’re close to the real thing, but not the same. Anyway, that’s not what you asked. I wear it because I’m not myself without it.”

  Perry scratched his cheek and winced, forgetting about the bruise there. “Our Markings are like that. I wouldn’t be myself without them.”

  Right away he regretted saying the words. Daylight streaked over the ridgeline in long beams, slicing through the fog. He shouldn’t be sitting there talking with a Dweller when Talon was dying somewhere, away from home.

  “Do your tattoos have to do with your name?”

  “Yes,” he said, stuffing his blanket into his satchel.

  “Are you named Falcon? Or Hawk?”

  “No and no.” He stood and buckled his belt. Grabbed his bow and quiver. “I’ll take the eyepiece now.”

  Her eyebrows drew together, creasing the pale skin between. “No.”

  “Mole, if you’re seen with that device, there won’t be any way to pass you off as one of us.”

  “But I wore it yesterday.”

  “Yesterday was yesterday. Here on it’ll be different.”

  “Take your tattoos off first, Savage.”

  Perry froze, grinding down into his teeth. The funny thing about being called a Savage was that it made him want to act like one. “We’re not in your world anymore, Dweller. People die here and it’s not pseudo. It’s very, very real.”

  She tipped her chin up, daring him. “You do it then. You’ve seen how it’s done.”