Chapter 14
Chapter
Fourteen
ALLIE
T hree days.
Three days of losing my mind with worry over my cousins and Clan, mapping out back alleys in a strange frozen city, and trying to cobble together an escape plan that could go wrong in so many ways, I doubted each step.
Three long, confusing days since I’d awoken in this frozen crater that defied all logic and nature.
This menacing hole in the ground was stuck in a perpetual winter, even though the sun shined for more hours than normal.
Midnight here was like a crisp six in the morning back in Aquila, when the sun was barely climbing through the clouds and the light was still in that blueish spectrum that made Marea Luminaria’s surface seem darker than the turquoise waves I’d grown up in and around.
The almost constant light–which never seemed to stray too far from nuances of grey–filtering in through the large balcony doors in my room didn’t help with the fatigue which still hadn’t left my body.
But that was the least of my problems.
I’d snatched a butter knife from one of the dinners Mrs. Thornbrew had brought up to my room–“ you need to rest and recuperate, dear, no point in walking up and down stairs until then. Ry would have wanted you to join him for supper. Oh, no, he didn’t say anything, I could tell ”–and sharpened it on the stone floor of the balcony until it could slice clean through one of the fancy towels in the washroom.
I kept it under my pillow, clutching it even in those rare, lone hours my body finally gave into a restless sleep plagued by images of bloody olive trees and a familiar voice I couldn’t identify cackling in the background, like it was glad I’d failed.
I’d hidden my tattered, bloody dress under my bed, and when I was absolutely sure nobody was listening, when even the night owls didn’t hoot, I clutched it to my chest and howled harder than the moon.
I swear I could still smell my father’s last embrace on the silk, underneath his blood.
Even then, I used a pillow to muffle my cries, acutely aware only a door separated me from the bloody Commander.
I’d never heard him come in or out and hadn’t been analyzed by his blue eyes since that first day, but knowing he was in the same building was enough to keep me on a weird edge.
Worse, my powers were still as dormant as that horrid day on Sanctua Sirena.
I barely managed to slink out of bed each morning and crawl back in at night, my body protesting each movement.
Even with a steady diet of delicious venison steaks and stews so rich, they had small golden dimes of fat floating in them, I was starting to lose weight I desperately needed to survive in a climate which could chill me to the bone.
My veins stuck out on my forearms, like that damn poison had slithered inside my veins and left its grim signature on me.
Maybe I’d inhaled too much of that mist back in the garden.
Perhaps I was cursed.
This whole damn place felt cursed.
The city streets were…strange.
A few times, I swore I could see a strange purplish light pulsing underneath the cobblestones at the oddest times, with a distorted hum beating against my bones. But when I looked more closely, there was nothing but perfectly polished stones and the frozen wind hissing underneath the wooden eaves.
Yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone–or something–was constantly watching.
Waiting.
None of that stopped me.
The sooner I escaped this place, the faster I could distance myself from whatever simmered in this damn crater. It couldn’t have been anything good.
Each day, I put on my borrowed clothes, laced up my gifted boots, pulled up my hood, and slunk through the streets of the city, the sharpened knife hidden in the fuzzy inside of my sleeve.
Begrudgingly, I could admit these Blood Brotherhood clothes were impressive. The coats didn’t let a whiff of cold penetrate and the boots were sturdier than any I’d worn, mercilessly crunching the snow, yet somehow not sinking into it.
Navigating the rare icy patches stubbornly sticking to the shadowy back alleys I frequented was another story. The first time I marched on top of one, I skidded straight into the first wall.
Luckily, I didn’t fall.
Now, whenever I couldn’t bypass the ice, I walked over it as slow as a snail, arms unfamiliarly outstretched, like I was walking on a tightrope.
Ice in Aquila was a rarity, usually brought in by official convoys as an offering and used to loosen their unending drinks at the banquets. Even when I hunted in the snowy mountains, the ice didn’t have time to settle into more than a thin layer that crunched under the softest step.
Everything around me was unfamiliar.
I didn’t wander down the main streets, sticking to the paths where I met nobody but fluffy stray cats–even then, they watched me like they knew I wasn’t from around here.
The warriors watched me when I left the fortress, too, their questioning stares stuck to the back of my hood long after they were out of my sight.
I didn’t know whether I should have been glad or insulted that the Commander had kept his word and let me roam around the city unimpeded.
As if I wasn’t a danger to him and his people.
As if I hadn’t faced a rain of arrows with nothing but courage and half a ceremonial arch.
Three days skulking around these narrowed paths, the grey houses towering over me with their menacing height, and I already knew which third left turn to take to end up right behind the tanning barrels from the hide shop, nestled right at the lip between the alley and the circular market place.
My hiding spot smelled something awful, the stench clawing into my throat.
But I saw everything while nobody noticed me–except for the dogs.
Or wolves. They were much too large to be pets, one of their paws the size of my head and their fur as long as my hair, but the Blood Brotherhood civilians in this crater didn’t seem to think so.
Each time one of them prowled past the barrels, they stuck their glistening noses in the air and barked straight at me.
Like they could smell the Protectorate stranger in their midst, even while dressed in the Blood Brotherhood’s best.
Or maybe they heard my stomach growling from crouching in one place from when the sun rose to the moment the market closed, legs stinging from the strain, eyes watering from the smell.
But I wouldn’t have given up this vantage point for anything.
This crater had to have at least one entry and one exit.
The Commander had carried my coffin in this bleeding place somehow.
There was no way this city could survive inside this crater without some resources coming in.
Meat and pelts were easy to come by in a forested area, even one as dangerous as snowy as the one surrounding us.
Fish could always be found underneath the ice in healthy lakes and rivers, though I’d seen none from my balcony or the fortress roof.
Roots and vegetables could be grown in hidden hothouses and rope could be twisted from the bark of young trees.
But honey, sweet, decadent honey I could never get enough of…honey needed bees. Bees needed flowers, large fields, and sun to create it. Even the stiff breeze which sometimes blew through Aquila kept the little critters away from our gardens.
There was no way–absolutely none–that honey could be produced locally under all this snow. Especially not the jars upon jars that got transported each day to the only sweets shop in the entire market, a beacon for my sweets-loving–and currently sweets-deprived–self.
My mouth watered every time I saw the courier heave the crates of jars, the swaying golden honey calling my name. The courier was always the same tall, blond man, with at least seven decades etched on his smiling face.
The delivery carriage–a creaky thing half-covered by worn wooden planks with rust marks around the nails–came in every day at seven.
Which meant it could make the trip to and back a flower field–and a pretty large one to supply such a constant demand–all within less than a day.
If there was a way out of this crater, that rickety carriage would bring me to it.
Or close enough to it that I could manage the rest of the way.
I’d have to find a satchel and start squirreling away some of Mrs. Thornbrew’s homemade bread for the journey.
Maybe snatch some of the silver ornaments in my room in case I needed to barter on the way home; I’d send the Commander the money for them once I got back to Aquila.
I might have been forced to borrow in a dire situation, but I was no thief–and I needed to be prepared for anything.
I could be halfway across the continent for all I knew.
This crater and its location was still one big mystery.
No maps, nobody whispering about directions on the streets, no names on the store fronts–and there were many, many stores. The people in this crater were absolutely thriving, which was so–
A crunch behind me set my entire body on edge.
I slid the knife down my sleeve, jumped up, and barreled against the shadow. I’d pinned her and had my elbow pressing against her neck, improvised knife aimed at her vein, before I’d recognized the girl as the one who’d been training with the Commander.
He’d taught her well–the girl had her ax’s blade pressed against my ribs, right underneath my heart.
Any movement could mean death for both of us.
The wind hissed with that strange hum, rattling my bones.
“I have a higher chance of surviving if you eviscerate me than if I plunge this little thing in your neck,” I said.
“Do it.” She sneered, pressing the mean-looking ax harder against me. “Then the Commander can have a real reason to throw you out of our city.”
I would defend myself if needed, but I didn’t want to hurt her.
She’d done nothing to me except scowl and skulk.
I also didn’t want to lose my roaming privileges by hurting one of the Commander’s people.
This girl looked only a few years older than me, but she had enough hatred in her eyes for someone twice her age–and all of it directed my way.