Charlotte Nicole Davis - The Sisters of Reckoning

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For Danielle and Theresa,

my own sisters in arms

There was a world outside Arketta, of coursebut you never felt the full weight of that truth until you stood at its border yourself.

It looked no different to Aster on the other side. The same trees grew in Ferron, their spring green leaves shimmering in the wind, and the same road snaked between them like a wide, brown river. But here, in Arketta, there were dustblood debts, and raveners on hellhorses, and welcome houses full of children, and vengeants to cry out at the cruelty of it all.

And there, in Ferron: freedom.

Aster shifted in the delivery wagons drivers seat, gripping the reins tightly in her sweat-slicked hands. Raven, always a girl of few words, was even quieter than usual, her face set in a carefully neutral expression as they approached the border checkpoint. This wasnt the first time for either of them smuggling a girl into Ferron for the Lady Ghosts, but it hadnt gotten any easier with experience. Aster had never known the border agents to be lax in their duties.

The crates in the back jumped as Aster brought their wagon to a stop. There was one wagon ahead of them in the inspection line. Beyond it stood an armymans guard tower, one of dozens lining the border and standing high as the tree line. Aster could just make out a gray-uniformed Arkettan soldier standing atop the nearest tower, a voltric rifle in his hands, pointed down at the line of wagons below. That was the arrangement the two nations had struck to protect their borderArketta provided the men, and Ferron provided the weapons.

One shot from that gun would arc through a man like lightning.

Do me a favor and double-check the guarants are still in your bag, will you? Aster mumbled under her breath.

You know damn well I just checked for them a mile back, Raven reminded her.

Well, check again. I dont need us getting up there and finding out we lost them between there and here.

Ravens lips twitched up in a smirk, but she complied, sifting through her satchel with slender fingers to make sure that the government documents were there. Raven had always been a striking girltall, lithe, with russet brown skin that was dappled with patches of white. Her long black hair was twisted into sisterlocks, and her favor, a cascade of raven feathers that shimmered in the light, was only partially obscured by the high collar of her dress. She and Aster were dressed as merchants fortunas, and the guarants were the official papers, signed in bewitched ink, that would prove their identity. It was illegal for a dustblood to cross the border into Ferron without one, and the Arkettan government usually only issued them to the few extraordinary dustbloods who had worked off their debt and earned their freedom. But there were rare exceptions to the rule, and one such was for Good Luck Girls who had been purchased outright by a brag as his personal consortor fortunaand who might need to cross the border with him.

Not that Aster belonged to anyone, not anymore. The guarants had been given to her by the Lady Ghosts, secured for them by one of their anonymous allies in the government. The papers were impossible to forge and had been incredibly expensive for the ally to obtain. If they didnt stand up to scrutiny, it wasnt just Aster and Ravens lives on the lineit was the whole network the Ladies had built.

See? Right where we left them, Raven murmured, showing Aster the documents. Aster felt her expression relax ever so slightly. Nothing to worry about, boss.

Boss. The word rang false in Asters ears. At nineteen, Raven was a year older than Aster, and she had been with the Ladies longer, too. But Aster had been put in charge of their missions given her experience on the roadas if herding her half-feral friends across the Scab was anything like trying to lead organized rebels. She took pride in the respect the other Ladies paid her, but the expectations that came with it could be overwhelming. She couldnt afford to fail.

It had been near a year since Aster and the other Green Creek runaways found the Lady Ghosts. Since then, the public had been told that all of them were dead, captured and killed by the brave lawmen on their trail. Aster suspected that Jerrod McClennon, head of the wealthiest landmaster family in Arketta, had spun the lie to save his own reputation after theyd escaped his estate. In truth, Clementine, Tansy, and Mallow had all been borderjumped into Ferron.

The only exception, of course, was Violet, whom theyd had to leave behind.

But Aster, in her stubbornness, could not bring herself to believe that Violet was dead.

If McClennon was lying about the rest of them, then he was lying about her, too. He had to be. Violet would have survived that night. She would have survived whatever McClennon had put her through since. Maybe she would have even escaped on her own, somehow. And as soon as Aster got proof, she was going back for her. Her conscience would not let her rest until she did, no matter how many other Good Luck Girls she borderjumped to safety.

Focus on the task at hand, Aster thought roughly, before her guilt could sink its teeth in any deeper. The girl in the back of their wagon now was hardly safe yet.

The good news was that these border agents, along with most of the rest of the world, believed Aster was dead. Beyond that, she looked completely different now. She had shorn her hair into a military crop. She had changed her favor from an aster flower to a sunburst. And she was dressed like a high-end fortuna, not a bandit on the run. There was no reason for anyone to recognize her or suspect she was anyone other than who she said she was.

But still

Two armymen waved the wagon ahead of them through. Aster snapped the reins and led the horse forward, tightening her mouth as one of the armymen approached. He was tall, clear-eyed, cut like canyon rock, with no shadow at his feet: a dustblood, like the majority of the rank and file of Arkettas armed forcesa lifetime of service would see his familys debts forgiven. The gold buttons on the mans immaculate slate gray uniform winked in the late afternoon sunlight. Like his companion in the guard tower, he was armed with voltric weapons: twin pistols that whined at the edge of Asters hearing like the drone of flies.

Papers, he said to Aster in a bored tone, holding out a hairy hand. Then his eyes widened as they fell on Asters and Ravens favors. You girls have guarants? he asked more roughly.

Yes, sir, right here, Aster answered evenly. Were transporting goods for our keeper. Be meeting him right on the other side of the border. She handed the guarants over to the armyman, along with export documents for the cargo. He fixed a lens over his eye and scanned the papers slowly. If the guarants were legitimate, the bewitched ink, seen through the lens, would glow.