Hey there! I'm back with a new chapter - this one's going to be the last one about Law and Savenna in Flevance. To all the people who took the time to read and review this story, you are the best! I am so grateful for your support and wouldn't be able to update so quickly if it weren't for you! :-D
To TheTwilitNight : Wow… I almost cried when I read your review. I don't even know what to say… Thank you sooo much for giving the story so much thought. I'll do my best to keep the story going!
To the Guest with the long review: Thanks a lot for your suggestions and observations, they were super helpful! I corrected the things you mentioned right away! And don't hesitate to tell me if you see any thing else.
To Apple Bloom : Thank you so much for sticking with this story for so long! :-)
To lunakins13 : Thank you so much for your reviews! I'm truly glad you like this story. I'll try my best to keep it interesting!
"Holy Roger…" In the hour they had spent in Savenna's house the face of the city had changed drastically. Tongues of flame erupted from broken windows, sending towers of black smoke billowing into the winter sky. Savenna didn't need those matches anymore. Fire jumped from one roof to the next, feeding away at the silver gables and melting Amber Lead foundations into the ground. Suitcases were piling up on boardwalks, where mothers hurriedly dressed their children and the remaining Flevance merchant fleet tried breaking down doors to evacuate those stuck inside.
There was nothing they could do here. Savenna and Law dove into the crowd moving toward the city gates. She could feel the fever rising under his skin but they couldn't afford to stop. Heavily she threaded one foot in front of the other as the shape of the hospital finally appeared against the reddish night sky.
Smoke was coming out of the south wing. They had been away for too long.
"Law! Wait!" A high-pitched voice stopped them in their tracks. Confused, Savenna was spun around to face the school's headmistress wrapped in a nightgown and a marine overcoat. A group of terrified looking children had gathered behind her, clinging to her skirt. Savenna recognized some of her old classmates. Their eyes were wide, bulging out of gray, hungry faces. They didn't look up.
"And Savenna! You can't imagine how glad I am to see you," the woman sighed. "There is a ship in the harbor that has agreed to take children on board. But we have to hurry. The captain won't wait."
When Savenna scanned the little group she realized it wasn't even an entire class, no parents or siblings. She hadn't been the only one to lose someone.
"Are you two coming? We need to move."
Next to her, Law shook his head silently. Before she could say anything, he was looking at her. She knew what he was suggesting. She had no family left, nothing to keep her here. But instead of joining the group like she would have a month ago, Savenna's eyes hardened. "I'm not going anywhere without Lamie and Magdalena."
They were on their way before the headmistress could object. They had already turned a corner when Savenna remembered. Either her mother had been lying, or there was no ship left in the harbor to make the crossing. All Flevance vessels had been sunk hours ago. Whoever the headmistress had paid off to bring her students to safety must have been from the wrong side of the border. They were walking right into a trap.
Savenna considered turning back. Someone needed to warn them. But her feet kept on walking and her mind followed suit. She looked at fires rising on both sides of the street, without feeling the heat.
The hospital was surrounded. Only this time it wasn't townspeople banging on Trafalgar's doors. Savenna gasped when she caught a look of them. They looked like monsters, long faces and bulbous, deformed bodies. Immediately she pulled Law behind an ash-covered bush. "Something is wrong with them," Savenna breathed.
"Gas masks and hazmat suits. They still think we are contagious," Law concluded.
"Who are they?"
"Soldiers, I think there's a crest on their shoulders..."
Before Savenna could identify which army had sent them, the gray men got into formation and encircled the building. The doors must have been shut from the inside. Whoever they were, Trafalgar didn't want them inside the hospital. When they reached into crates to unload stacks of guns she saw why.
Beside her, Law had remained suspiciously silent. "What's that look on your face? You're not going to do something stupid, are you?" He didn't squirm when her fingers clutched his arm. "Magdalena missed my mother at the docks. She and Lamie are probably still inside. I have to find them before they do."
This time Savenna didn't scan his features for signs of insanity. Lamie was alone, trapped inside a closet, the building around her on fire. There was no chance Law was going to leave her there. But she couldn't ignore the fact that the hospital housed most of Flevance's sick. If that was the threat the army wanted to destroy, they would take it apart until the very last brick. "They are armed, Law. You will be dead before you know it…"
He was already gone. Ducking behind the trees, he sneaked off into the direction of the back door. Savenna remembered it from the night her father had brought her in for the first time. It was a narrow entryway only a few feet away, but once Law stepped onto the driveway he'd been in the soldiers' field of vision. Cursing underneath her breath, Savenna was about to rush in after him when a sharp, breathless croak made her stop in her tracks.
One of the nurses was running toward the main entrance, her white skirt caked with mud. "Roger… ! What is this?" From the distance Savenna could see her stare at the fire, cold sweat on her brow. She didn't get far. Two soldiers barred the way as she hurried toward the door. "Who do you think you are? You have to let me through! My patients are in danger!"
Savenna had never seen the young woman before but she felt the urge to press her hands over her mouth. The bang echoed through the freezing air before another demand could be made. The woman stiffened before her limbs gave way and she collapsed in the middle of the driveway. Savenna pressed her hands over her own mouth, when a small stream of blood made its way through the cobblestones before trickling past the heel of her left shoe.
The men fanned out. Guns were slammed against the emergency room door until it flew off the hinges. The shots were dulled by the heavy walls but the screams rang viciously sharp.
Savenna started running the moment Law stepped out of his hiding place. She was ready to tackle him to the ground when the backdoor opened from the inside.
Magdalena's hair was undone, the face under the hood pale. Where had she come from? How had she even managed to get inside? Law barely had time to move when the governess pulled him off the driveway, remaining perfectly still when Savenna flung her arms around her.
"I found your sister," she said quietly, looking at Law. "But I was too late, there was too much smoke..."
"No… she was in the basement. The basement is safe…"
"I'm so sorry, Law." She didn't mention the Trafalgar couple or the rest of the hospital staff and Savenna didn't ask. The smoke must have traveled through the vents. It was a miracle Magdalena had made it out.
His elbow pressing hard into her side, Law looked like a wall about to crack. Even if Savenna had known what to say, she didn't get the chance.
Hard steps were approaching. Magdalena took a deep breath. "They have surrounded the building but you'll be safe." The governess lowered the hood into her face. "Promise me you will be very quiet. Especially you, miss." There was a hint of a smile on her lips. Savenna didn't know why it made her angry. "What are you talking about? We need to leave!"
"Sh… Come closer. Under the cloak, hurry," the governess ordered. "And remember, stay still."
Before either of them could voice any complaints, Magdalena buttoned up the cloak over their heads and started walking. Savenna bit the inside of her cheek when Law stepped on her foot, and concentrated not to stumble over the hem of her governess' skirt.
The hard footsteps subsided. Savenna couldn't tell when exactly their sole, cloaked figure had crossed the soldiers' path. There was no interrogation, no orders. Magdalena gasped when the first bullet grazed her shoulder. Three more followed. Two in the stomach, one in the head.
Trapped under the cloak, Savenna winced under the sudden weight of the body when Law's fingernails dug into her arm. Stay still. Something warm and sticky oozed through the fabric of the cloak before making its way inside her nose and mouth. Savenna urged to spit it out but forced herself not to. Sharp pain rose in the arm trapped under Magdalena's hipbone. Savenna bit the inside of her cheek. Harder this time.
Beside her she could feel Law's shallow breath, the most terrifying and comforting of all sounds. The pounding in her ears dampened, her thoughts numb, when she moved closer to share the pocket of hot, metallic air.
Above them shots were fired. Footsteps approached and receded in the darkness. Cheek to cheek, they waited.
"I can't breathe…" Law was pinching her but Savenna's arm had fallen asleep. Dried blood had formed a crust over her lips and eyelashes. She was dreaming about crawling on top of Magdalena's corpse, wondering if she could still trap some of her soul inside. The nasty, yelling part. Maybe she could hide it in a jar…
"Savenna…"
"What…" A cough burned its way down her throat. Savenna realized her lungs were filled with smoke. The stiff body that was supposed to be cold was radiating heat. The sound reached her hard; her own wheezing breath, Law's dry coughing and the brittle hospital walls fighting against the rising flames. "We need to go…"
"What about the soldiers? What if they come back?" Law croaked. Savenna tried to think but her head was spinning. It was impossible to tell how long they had stayed in hiding. It could have been one hour or it could have been six. "We have to try."
Both of them had dragged corpses before but clawing their way from under Magdalena's weight was harder than expected. After two attempts they managed to heave the body to the side and crawl out from under it.
Apart from the bodies lining the driveway, it was deserted. Bullet casings, discarded masks and debris littered the pavement. The soldiers were gone. Knees and elbows bloody, Savenna rolled on her back, burning eyes looking up to the sky. Sparks danced like fireflies against the dirty clouds, engulfing the stars above Flevance.
A violent cough from Law's direction forced her back on her feet. Fingers clutching his battered hat, he was standing in the line of the smoke, staring bleary-eyed into the fire engulfing the hospital. The entire south wing had collapsed, leaving behind the fuming wreckage of rubble, broken glass and electric wires.
"They're dead… Everybody is dead!" Voice shrill, he kept repeating it like a broken record. In a dark place of her mind, Savenns was glad she had no need to convince herself of the truth. She had had a head start on that. With as much tenderness as she could muster, she tried pulling him away from the scene.
"Don't touch me!" he cried and pushed her away. "This is all your fault! I left Lamie behind because I was worried about you! And you knew she wouldn't have been able to climb out of that closet on her own, and now she's dead! I should have known better than to leave her!" He was shouting, but his voice barely drowned out the roaring of the flames.
The ground seemed to move under Savenna's feet. She eyed him with painful disbelief. "And you would have been dead too!"
"Maybe I should be!"
"Go on, then!" she spat. "There are enough guns lying around here. Why don't you find one and shoot yourself with it? Then Magdalena's death would have been for nothing, just like Lamie's. Do whatever you want but never call me selfish again!"
Turning her back on him, she paused at her governess' dead body. Grief hit her in the face like a slap. She felt the urge to yell, slap those round, wrinkled cheeks with rage but her face remained still. She had refused to mourn her mother, and now that she had someone worth crying over she couldn't do it. Instead, she pulled the hood over the governess' bloodied scalp, and fueled by anger, the only emotion she knew how to feel, she started walking.
Left alone, Law watched the fire grow bigger. Face sore from crying, he was waiting for the pain to kill or at least knock him out. He didn't understand why he was still standing. Why couldn't it just be over now? He wanted to walk right into the flames but his feet wouldn't budge.
Arms hanging low, he kicked a gas mask into the fire. Even though Savenna was long gone, her steps still lingered in his ear. It was so easy to blame her. He had already forgotten how many times he had done it. Whatever hurt he couldn't face, she would take head on. Not only hadn't she always been stronger than him but she was incapable of surrendering. Law had silently admired every ounce of that force, but now he hated her for it.
Why couldn't she give up and allow him to do the same? She knew he couldn't do it alone. With barely any lifespan left and nowhere to go, he hated her for having to keep fighting a battle he'd never be able to win. He pretended he still hated her when he turned around and limped after the only thing left of home.
Savenna was certain she'd walked a thousand miles but as she heard hasty steps behind her, she realized it had barely covered any ground at all. "Savenna! Wait…"
Law was panting, his cheeks pale and dirty. She had been practicing one of her spiteful speeches curated especially for him but her anger evaporated at the sight of him. Wordlessly, she stretched out her hand. It closed like a glove around his cold fingers. With the furry hat falling onto his forehead, they continued their way through the remnants of Flevance.
The only streets that had remained undamaged by the bombs led them north and past the Trafalgar house. The flames had already worked their way through the house at the bottom of the hill, leaving only skeletal foundations behind. Although they hadn't seen a soldier since leaving the hospital grounds, they held their breath at every corner and avoided open squares and crossroads. Air smelled like blood and ash, leaving a gray layer of dust on their faces.
Savenna thought the corpses left on boardwalks and doorways would scare her but soon she realized they weren't much different from the one she'd helped burn. They hoped for other survivors but found none. Sick or healthy, the army had shot them all. After searching the last huts at the city wall, they finally accepted that they were the last ones.
Law pressed his back against the thick stone wall and frowned past the exhaustion.
"What is it?" Savenna wanted to know.
"Something isn't right…"
"What do you mean?"
"Wasn't this supposed to be an invasion? I get why all those people are dead, but where did the soldiers go?" He eyed the long, sinuous road leading beyond the city gate into the country.
Savenna shrugged. "I don't care as long as they don't come back." She glanced at the empty observation posts on the wall and stepped on the ice-covered pavement. If everyone had left, at least there was no one to stop them.
Law didn't share her optimism. "I don't have a good feeling about this…"
Still, there wasn't much to think about when they stepped outside of the city. The northern border was the closest. Traveling in midwinter without food or shelter would make it an especially hard journey but they didn't have a choice. Staying in Flevance was suicide and as dangerous as it was, they needed to find some kind of civilization to have a chance at survival.
Savenna remembered the last time she had taken the north road. She had been sitting in Magdalena's lap, her father navigating their carriage through vast fields of North Blue wildflowers. But like everything else, the face of the Flevance countryside had changed within hours. Smoke rose from the groves, birch and fir trees reduced to singed fingers pointing toward the reddish sky. Parts of the road had been destroyed and only one of the two bridges had survived the attack. They scaled dark craters left behind by foreign artillery and crossed the river one rock after another, while soundless snow blanketed the landscape in layers of cold.
Law and Savenna walked in deep silence. The ghostly calm cast over the land buried even the sound of their footsteps. The longer they marched, the further Flevance seemed to slip from their minds. When trudging after Savenna through the empty city streets, Law couldn't stop imagining what Lamie had been thinking as the smoke progressively filled her closet, but now his head was empty as the fields in front of him, his only focus on his hand where Savenna's fingers remained tangled with his.
Beside him, Savenna watched dawn creep over the horizon. She'd forgotten how much time had gone by, if she was hurt or hungry. All that she could think of was getting as far away from Flevance as she could before dropping dead.
After cresting a small hilltop, Savenna froze. The cold morning twilight revealed a line of snow-covered coaches, scattered on the remains of the road. Broken wheels and shattered glass littered the pavement. Two horses lay dead on the side of the road. "What the hell happened here?"
"Dead," the boy diagnosed, after climbing into the vehicle. There were six people inside, each with a bullet wound in the head. "This wasn't an accident."
"But why…" Savenna frowned. Then she glanced past the carriage into the valley where the vehicles multiplied. Some had driven off the road, some had been overthrown. "We're getting closer to the border," Law said. "These people probably tried to flee the country before the army marched in. This means we can't be far."
Again, they found no survivors, or food or water. Whatever the people had had on them had been taken away. Savenna managed to steal a blanket out of a cabin before they moved on.
Law was right. After they had made their way past the coach cemetery, a lonely fence appeared atop of a second, steeper hill. The landscape was still deserted, so they started climbing. Soon the road turned into a mire of mud and snow and heavy fog settled on the few deserted rocks. Law was about to take a break when he stiffened, staring into the distance.
"What?" Savenna croaked.
Wordlessly he pointed at something in the fog. Savenna squinted and shuddered. A mountain plateau that had opened up in front of them. Hundreds of bodies, pressed against each other, covered the plain like a carpet of dead flowers. Discarded clothes and abandoned suitcases added color to the grim picture. Even though Savenna couldn't take her eyes off the motionless scene, she could hardly distinguish the faces in the snow. They all looked the same; white, hollow cheeks and hard, bluish lips.
"I can't even remember all those people leaving the city. They must have walked all the way out here," Savenna said quietly. "They'd almost reached the border."
"It wasn't the rough weather that killed them," Law established, examining a gunshot wound similar to the ones in the carriages.
The same thought crossed their mind. Their eyes darted toward the observation posts above the iron fence. "The remaining soldiers must be up there, waiting for survivors." Law said. The old unreadable expression had returned to his face. "We must get past those towers."
Savenna eyed the hostile construction and nodded. "We're small, so chances are they won't see us. There must be at least one hole in that fence where we can fit through." After short reasoning, they headed east, away from the tower, climbing and tripping over rows of hard, dead bodies, looking at them like large, glassy-eyed dolls.
Further up the slopes, snowfall bellowed into a blizzard. The white cloaks that served them as camouflage weren't much of a protection when snow slid down their necks and crept to the soles of their shoes. A crust of ice had formed on Savenna's hair and eye-lashes, when she stumbled to a halt. "Wait… stop!" she called over the howling of the mountain wind.
Law reached for her arm and pulled her along. "If we stay here, we'll die!"
"No, look!" She pointed at the shape of a second tower rising up in front of them. "That wasn't the only tower. They must have guards everywhere along the border. We have to find another way to get through the fence."
They needed to if they didn't want to become another set of Flevance corpses. Then, eyes drifting over the coats and suitcases, she spotted something. She scrambled towards it, falling twice until her fingers closed around the object. Law wasn't pleased. "If you keep spending that much energy, you'll freeze to death in no time!"
Savenna wasn't listening and shoved a white fur ball into his face instead. "What is this?"
"A polar bear!"
"You stole a toy from a dead child? Congratulations."
She pulled the bear closer to her chest and shook her head. "You don't understand. It's like in the story." She could read the look of recognition on his face, before it was replaced with annoyance. "So? You made that up yourself."
"It doesn't matter. I know how to get to the fence."
"How?"
"Like the polar bear. We only have to disappear from the surface."
Looking around, Law shook his head. "You can't be serious… That's insane." Savenna shrugged and hid the stuffed animal underneath her cloak. "It's the only real chance we've got. We escaped like this before and we can do it again."
Once the words had crossed her lips she could read true terror in Law's eyes. All the horrible words he might call her in the future, echoed in her head but she put them aside. Respect for the dead wasn't something they could afford right now. And she'd find a way to regain his admiration once they had crossed the border.
"You win." She thought she saw a light going out in him, when they started walking. Soon both observation towers loomed above the. "This is far enough. If we go any further they'll spot us." Savenna thought her plan through. Hopefully this was the worst thing she'd ever do, she thought, then rolled the first body to the side.
Her first assumption proved itself right: so many had tried to cross the border that there were several layers of bodies, with space enough to crawl in between. Law's expression was grim when he knelt down in the snow beside her. They started digging.
If Magdalena's death had made her want to cry with rage, the cold limbs pressing down on Savenna left her indifferent. As far as they were concerned, the only thing she cared about was their weight that she couldn't wait to get off her, for there were only a few children or light-boned adults who'd made it to the border. Most of the killed refugees were grown men, challenging the little strength she had left. Sometimes their elbows touched the frozen ground, another time they got tangled up in coats or scarfs, moving through the crowd limb by limb.
Law had been a dedicated student of ethics, all of which he'd left behind after the Amber Lead outbreak. He was glad the bodies provided shelter from the blizzard, and that it had been too cold for them to decompose. He stayed close to Savenna who stuck her head out from time to time to make sure they hadn't veered from their path.
Luck was on their side. Before being shot the refugees had managed to tear a hole in the fence that hadn't been mended yet. "Maybe five more bodies and we're through," Savenna whispered, cowering down next to Law and covering her head with a forearm.
"What's on the other side?" Law wanted to know.
"Nothing."
"No corpses?"
"No. Just white plains. We'll have to make a run for it…" Savenna pressed the stuffed polar bear closer to her chest. There was hardly any chance they would get out of the country unseen, but they had come too far to stop at the possibility of being dragged back into Flevance or killed on the spot.
Approaching the fence, the bodies grew scarce, blowing holes into their cover. The blizzard had settled, leaving behind a thick layer of snow on the top of the towers. The rising sun shot bloody morning rays over the infinite landscape, snow clouds dispersing rapidly.
Law gritted his teeth when his fingers finally caught hold of the metal fence. He went in head-first, climbing through the hole on all fours. Savenna followed, holding her breath. On the other side, they grabbed each other by the hand and started running.
Dehydrated and shaking with exhaustion, Savenna felt like she was about to fly away when something closed in on her right foot. With a painful shriek she landed in the now. Law froze in his tracks. "What happened? Are you hurt?"
"Dammit! I tripped… !"
There was no worse time for her feet to fail her. Clutching her ankle, she scanned the snow for whatever had made her trip but Law was quicker. Grimly he held up a chain, fine-edged and white as snow. "It's war machinery," he deduced. "One of our own…"
Savenna knew she had no time to appreciate the irony behind this. She reached out for Law's arm to pull herself up and failed. "Shit… It hurts too much. I'll never be able to run fast enough!"
"You have to try…" He wasn't done when a gunshot pierced the crisp mountain air.
"Bloody Roger!" Savenna pressed her hands over her ears. An echo ran through the hills, leaving her head ringing. Law stood perfectly still. "They're coming."
Painfully, Savenna swiveled. Two soldiers dressed in gray came rushing down the slope. With the blizzard gone, there was nothing to divert the aim of the gun hoisted onto their shoulders. Bullets whistled past them.
"You have to go! They'll never land a hit from that distance." There was a new tone in Savenna's voice. She was begging. "You can still make it. Cross the plain and hide in the snow until they're gone."
"There's no way I'm going without you!" The option of saving his own skin hadn't occurred to Law. It was his duty to help others, and she was the only one left. Even though Savenna had pushed him past his breaking point more times than he could count, there was no point taking a single step without her.
The cold determination in her eyes frightened him. "But it's like in the story! I got the drug out of your system, the polar bear has done his job and now it's your turn. Can't you just do what you did with Pablo? Knock them out and we'll have enough time to escape!"
Like imploring a higher power, Law stared at her with a desperate, anxious plea, convinced that her mercy was all it took. "The princess only has to remove her hood, right?"
There were many things Savenna would have told him. That she had no idea how her power worked, or if it was even a power at all. She had no control over it and if it hadn't been for Amber Lead, it would have been the thing she feared most. But even knowing this, Law missed the essential point. According to the story, love was supposed to save their lives. And Savenna had none left to give.
Before her hand even reached the rim of her hood, two bullets hit her in the back. Law flew to her side but she used her last strength to push him away. "Go! What the hell are you waiting for? Run!" Hot tears ran down her face as she heard the soldiers trudging through the snow.
"I'm not leaving you here!"
"Mushroom Head!" Fighting the pain spreading through her body, she suppressed the urge to cling to him. If there was an ounce of selflessness left in her, she had to make him leave. "How many times do I have to tell you, I don't need you! I never wanted to be your friend and I never cared about you. Why can't you leave me alone for once? I swear on my father's soul, I will come back and haunt every single night of your miserable existence, if I have to look into your stupid face one more second. The soldiers might not find you but I will!"
Savenna might have masterfully curated threats over the years, now she hated every word coming out of her mouth. Something in Law's face crumbled. She forced herself not to care. "Get lost!" She shoved the polar bear into his hands and gave him one last push.
When she finally saw Law's figure stumbling into the snow, her knees gave way. Pain and regret tore at her insides. She told herself this was good. If he feared and despised her, he wouldn't come back.
He would be safe.
A creeping, welcome numbness covered Savenna like a blanket and she drifted into oblivion.