Read Online Infinity by Andria Buchanan - Free Book Online Page A

gone. I thought we were finally going to get a chance to just, I don’t know what… But whatever we were going to become, it was supposed to be better than this.”
    “It will be better.” I rested my head against her shoulder, taking comfort from the way her tree warmed in my presence. “I’m going to make it right.”
    “How?”
    “We’re raising an army, and when they’re ready, I’m taking them over the mountains to confront my aunt face-to-face. I promise, I won’t let anyone ever hurt you again. I can’t help Darinda and the rest of your sisters, but I promise you, Bavasama will never hurt anyone else that way. I’ll kill her before I let do that again.”
    “You can’t kill them all. You can’t destroy an entire kingdom over me.”
    “Why? Why can’t I do the same thing to them that they’ve been doing to us since we got here?”
    “Because we aren’t them, and we can’t become them, either. We shouldn’t want to become them. You weren’t there. You didn’t see them. You didn’t see what they were like.”
    “Winston and I found Bavasama’s soldiers when we were looking for you. I saw her men in the mountains, hurrying across the border, trying to escape.”
    “In the forest.” She turned to look at me. “You didn’t see them in the forest, Al. They were laughing. They had us trapped, and all they could do was laugh and point. How evil do you have to be to know you’re going to kill people and laugh at them first? To them we weren’t even real. We were things. Animals.”
    “You’re not an animal!”
    “No, I’m not. I’m Mercedes Garcia, second daughter of Joseph and Rosalie Garcia, last Sapling of the Dryad Order of Nerissette. I’m best friends with a queen, I once dyed my hair green on accident, and I used to get my term papers on famous Olympians for gym class by copying from Wikipedia because I knew Coach Wilkie wouldn’t catch on.”
    “I know you’re—”
    “I’m not an animal,” she said forcefully, “but today—in that clearing—all I was to them was a creature they’d been sent to hunt down. You can’t do that, Allie. You can’t become the type of person who’s so twisted inside that you can do those sorts of things. We can’t become those people. You want to know why?”
    “Why?” I muttered.
    “Because I refuse to be the type of monster that rounds up strangers and kills them for no reason, laughing the entire time, and I refuse to let you become that type of person, either. You’re my best friend, and I won’t lose you to that kind of darkness. I don’t care if you are a queen, you’re my best friend first, and it’s my job to protect you from that.”
    “What are we supposed to do then? Wait for them to invade us? Hope that they decide to stop killing people? That we’ll be safe somehow?”
    “No. We can’t be those people, either. We can’t pretend that we don’t see what’s coming. That would be worse because then it would be our people who were murdered in the meantime. We can’t pretend that nothing bad is ever going to happen. We just have to go out and meet it, and when we’re face-to-face with it, we have to be brave enough to be better than they are.”
    “You think that’s going to win us a war? Being good? Being merciful toward our enemies?” I sniffled, feeling tears prickling at the back of my eyes.
    “Aquella told me today that the Nymphiad can no longer sit back and watch as the world burns. We have to go out and face evil so that we can stop it, but the only way we could do that was if we didn’t become evil ourselves in the process.”
    “What did Boreas say?”
    “Nothing.” She shook her head silently. “He didn’t say anything at all.”
    “So what am I supposed to do then? March the army to the border and then sit there? To lay siege to her border and just wait again?”
    “No.” Mercedes lifted her head from the bark and stared, her silver eyes piercing me. “No siege. Take the army to Bavasama.