Free Unicorn Tracks by Julia Ember Page A

capture two. They’re building… and kidnapping laborers, hundreds of them.” My voice trembled as I remembered what we had seen.
    Suddenly, I didn’t care if he was angry with me. I stepped up to him and rested my head on his broad chest. My head fit perfectly under his chin. Tricky, mercantile bastard that he was, Tumelo had always been the family member I trusted. When everyone else had pressured me to just forget and live my life as a shell, he offered me a new start. Even when I thought any chance of a real life had vanished. His strong arms wrapped around me, and I poured out my soul, telling him everything.
    “Hey,” he said, petting my hair gently when I finished. “What you saw out there. It’s all right. It didn’t come back with you.”
    I shook my head. “We have to go back.”
    Tumelo pushed me off his chest to look in my face. “Why would you go back there? They have guns; they’re kidnapping people. We should stay as far away as possible and go to your father. He has the General’s ear.”
    “I don’t have enough facts yet. We don’t have proof that they’re kidnapping the people or that the General doesn’t already know. Like I said, we only had a quick glance around…. My father won’t listen to us unless we have actual facts and know why they’re building that railway.” My voice trailed off, and I cleared my throat. “We need you. You and Mr. Harving. To pose as dealers.”
    He spat out his cigar midpuff. “Have you lost your mind? We can’t ask a tourist to infiltrate something like this. It’s bad enough you dragged his daughter into this.”
    “These unicorns mean the world to him. And to his daughter. Their life is studying these creatures. Plus, I didn’t ‘drag’ Kara into anything. She wanted to go after them. She begged me.”
    Tumelo thought for a long moment, studying me. I squirmed under his scrutiny. “I’ve been thinking this whole thing, this tracking the poachers… it’s not like you. You’re like me. We leave well enough alone, unless it affects us,” he said. “Why go after the unicorns at all? Why camp to watch these poachers? It’s not the creatures themselves, I know. It has to be something else. So tell me, cousin, what is this girl to you?”
    “A friend.” It was the truth and a lie at the same time. “And I do care about the unicorns. You didn’t see what happened to that stallion.”
    Tumelo cupped my chin, a knowing twinkle deep in his brown eyes. “Be careful. I brought you away here to see you happy, not to let you get broken again.”

 
     
    I FOUND Kara reclining in her bath, hair draped over the side of the bronze tub. She didn’t look up when I pushed back the hut’s flap. Her head lolled to the side, and she dozed on her arm, while the steam rose in smoky white tendrils around her. Her flesh was bright pink with the heat, like the feathers on a hoopoe’s crest. Bi Trembla sat on a low stool in the corner and darned the holes in Tumelo’s woolen socks.
    She looked up when I came in, cooing, “Poor lamb. Fell asleep almost as soon as she got in the water.” Her brows furrowed, and she scowled at me. It wasn’t fair that I got all the blame, and Kara was the “poor lamb,” when she’d been the instigator. “You exhausted her in the heat. They’re not used to it like us. You have to take each day slowly. I’ve just been watching here to make sure she doesn’t drown. Her father is anxious to see her. She didn’t want to go in until she washed.”
    “Don’t you have cooking to do?” I asked, ignoring her accusations the best I could. The sun had almost entirely disappeared. Sometimes Bi Trembla insisted on doing too many things herself, which did nothing to make her sweeter. “I can make sure she doesn’t sink.”
    Bi Trembla peered out through the flap, sighing. “So many things to do. Yes, I should start the cooking. Tumelo will get moody without his supper, and we’re getting some more guests tonight—a couple,