Chasing the Valley by Skye Melki-Wegner

Author:Skye Melki-Wegner [Melki-Wegner, Skye]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FICTION
ISBN: 9781742759555
Publisher: Random House Australia
Published: 2012-09-25T04:00:00+00:00

Gunning has a city wall, but the gate isn’t manned. Actually, there’s no sign of guards at all – and that worries me more than if there’d been a fifty-man platoon to greet us. I know how to handle myself with Rourton’s guards, but an unguarded city is a foreign experience.

‘Looks like security’s a bit slack.’

Teddy grins. ‘I like this place already.’

‘It’s a smuggling town, isn’t it?’ says Clementine, as we pass through the gate. ‘That’s what Radnor –’

Her voice hitches on the name.

A long moment passes. She takes a quiet breath and tries again. ‘That’s what Radnor said. People come here to do deals, and make money. Maybe the palace turns a blind eye to this area a bit, since it’s not a major security risk.’

‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Because it’s much more important to drop alchemy bombs on Rourton than to keep a lid on a town full of criminals.’

‘Well, people here aren’t a threat, are they?’ says Teddy. ‘They’re happy making money their own way, and the current system suits them just fine. I reckon it’s the normal people, in places like Rourton, that are dangerous to the king.’

‘Why?’

‘Because they’re the ones desperate enough to do something stupid.’

‘Like what, run away with a refugee crew?’ says Clementine.

‘Yeah, exactly,’ Teddy says. ‘Or start a revolution.’

A revolution? I try to picture my parents or my brother rising up against the palace. I can’t see it. They were no threat to King Morrigan – they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Collateral damage in the palace’s fight to remind us who has control. And suddenly I hate the royal family, with loathing stronger than I’ve felt in years.

When you’re struggling for survival, it’s easy to forget who put you there. I’ve focused on filling my belly, not wasting my energy on fury. But just for a moment, I feel like I did in the early days. I think of the bombs falling, my family dying. I think of star-shine blooming above the rubble. Of scruffers starving in the streets, and soldiers dying in distant wars.

Of Radnor’s body slipping over that waterfall.

And suddenly I wish someone would drop an alchemy bomb on the royals’ palace, and teach the stinking Morrigans what it feels like to lose someone.

‘Look!’ whispers Maisy. ‘Danika, it’s you!’

I follow her gaze. Sure enough, a dozen posters hang from a nearby wall: ‘Wanted Fugitive.’ There is a picture of me in the centre of the design: a still taken from the wall’s picture spell recording. I’m crouched in the turret of a guard tower, lighting the fuse of my stolen flare.

Or, in the eyes of the palace, preparing to take a biplane out of the sky.

I sidle closer and strain to read the smaller text beneath my picture.

On behalf of His Majesty, King Francis Morrigan of Taladia, we announce the offering of a reward of ONE THOUSAND GOLD COINS for the capture or SEVEN HUNDRED GOLD COINS for the killing of this fugitive. Sources upon the streets of Rourton confirm the fugitive’s identity as DANIKA GLYNN of NO FIXED ADDRESS.

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