Chapter 4 #2
“No,” Rheave says brightly. “I came to you because you helped me with the butterfly. Even though I could see you were nervous about being near me, you helped. And I could sense by then that you didn’t really like what they were doing. I didn’t tell them that either.”
I can’t help glancing over my shoulder at him. His beautiful face is utterly placid, as if he doesn’t find anything about what he just said all that meaningful. But my chest has constricted around my heart.
He isn’t wrong, is he? I lent him a hand with the injured butterfly that’d landed on his sleeve—because it realized he was something more than human?—for pretty much the same reason I haven’t yet told him to take a hike.
My monstrous magic has left me with one firm principle I’ve never strayed from. If I can do some good for the people around me, balance the scales of the harm I’ve dealt and might deal in the future a little, then I do it.
Well, Julita says doubtfully. I suppose that makes a certain kind of sense.
Casimir lets out a soft laugh. “I think he sees the same things in you that we all do, Kindness.”
I shoot him a teasing grimace at the nickname, but before I can say anything in return, a slim figure bursts through the doorway.
“There’s a patrol coming this way,” Luzia says breathlessly. “They’ll be here in less than five minutes. You’d better get going.”
She gives me a hasty but encouraging nod. As soon as she heard that her father had agreed to help me, she insisted on pitching in.
The men clamber onto their mounts, and we hurry out onto the street at a trot. If we go any faster, we’ll only give away that we’re fleeing rather than a patrol ourselves.
Clouds have congealed overhead, dimming the sun. A distant rumble of thunder sends a quiver through my nerves.
I set up our escape. My men are all counting on me.
What if Garom’s tactic fails, and we end up arrested?
I’ve been prepared for that final fate for years. It won’t feel so much like a tragedy as an inevitability.
But if I drag the men I’ve come to care about so much down with me…
Shaking off my worries, I will myself to stay focused.
We take the first side street and continue on a winding path to ensure the soldiers behind us don’t catch sight of our group. It’s only a short ride to the outer walls.
Garom monitors the schedule of the guards at the city gates and knows that they usually change at the sixth bell. If we get there right before the current sentinels are due to be relieved of duty, they’ll be at their most restless. Eager to get on with things so their work can be done.
As we come out onto the main thoroughfare that leads to the gate we’re aiming for, we arrange ourselves into a more formal procession.
Rheave, who’s still technically an actual guard, takes the lead with Casimir and I behind him.
Stavros and Alek, in their heavier disguises, bring up the rear where they’ll be less visible.
I hold my posture stiffly straight, as if I can add a few inches to my meager height, and form an expression with the sort of arrogant disdain I’ve witnessed on dozens of Crown’s Watch soldiers in the past. With my chin raised, I peer down my nose at the pedestrians we pass.
There’s a line of civilians along the right side of the road—mostly merchants with carts or wagons of goods they’re hoping they can still take out of the city today, as well as a couple of carriages.
They’ve been waiting long enough that many of them have perched amid their merchandise to talk with their neighbors in line.
The muttering intensifies as we trot by.
Then a voice catches my ears, one I haven’t heard in years but so familiar it cuts right down the center of me. “Oh, we were supposed to have these tracts to the Temple of Sunlit Skies three hours ago. I don’t see why they can’t let legitimate business people like us through.”
My gaze flicks to the side before I can catch it. And there she is.
My mother perches on our old cart next to several stacks of thin books. Her pale hair is wound back in one of her usual buns, as much gray as blond now. Her thin lips slant at the disgruntled angle I can still vividly remember deepening into outright fury.
A prickle runs down my back through the scars she inflicted with the regular lashes of her belt. My breath freezes in my lungs.
I yank my gaze away, but Casimir has already picked up on my reaction. He peers at me with concern, keeping his voice low. “Ivy, what is it? Do we need to divert course?”
It takes far too much effort to drag the humid air into my chest. I grip my reins and will my voice to stay steady. “It’s fine. I just didn’t expect—I saw my mother.”
There’s a rustle as Stavros shifts in his saddle behind me. His words come out in a dark mutter. “What? Where is she?”
Alek speaks in a similarly hardened tone. “The cart with the books, I’d imagine? That’s the woman who—”
He cuts himself off with a muted growl.
Their obvious agitation only rattles my nerves more. “It’s not like you can do anything about it right now. It’s not as if I’d want you to.”
Rheave glances back at us. “What’s wrong? Why’s everyone upset?”
Casimir manages to make the explanation simple. “We passed by a woman who used to hurt Ivy when she was a child.”
Rheave’s posture goes rigid, his eyes flashing as he searches the line. “Where? Why hasn’t she been punished?”
The fierceness of the words makes my heart skip a beat. “Gods above, not you too. It’s my mother. We’re not doing anything.”
The daimon-man catches my gaze with a frown, his hands still balled into fists around the reins. “If she hurt you, then she’s an enemy more than anything else.”
Alek lets out a low, raw chuckle. “Hear, hear.”
I aim a glare around at all of them. “In case you’ve forgotten, we’ve got much bigger enemies to worry about. Can we please focus on getting through that gate alive?”
Rheave makes a chagrinned expression and tugs his body back around. Stavros growls something under his breath that I don’t ask him to clarify, but no one makes any further attempts to inflict justice on the woman who raised me.
Men, Julita murmurs with a hint of amusement. I suppose it’s a good thing for both of us they’re so committed to defending you.
It’s a good thing they’ve remembered the larger problem, because we’re just a few buildings from the gate now. I inhale and exhale slowly, gathering myself.
We’re not fugitives. We have every right to pass through. We carry the full authority of Silana’s military order.
Ha.
Normally there are only two guards monitoring each gate, maybe one on the wall overhead. Today, four blue-uniformed figures stand in front of the barred doors, with three others monitoring the situation from above.
My throat constricts, but I lift my chin again with my false haughty airs. More thunder rumbles in the ever-darkening clouds overhead.
Rheave rides right up to the row of soldiers as if he can’t imagine them stopping him. At least he knows how to play this part well.
“We need to get through,” he says in a commanding tone. “We have orders to search the countryside.”
The woman in the middle frowns. “The lockdown hasn’t been lifted.”
The daimon-man lets a more urgent note creep into his voice. “There are concerns that the fugitives may have escaped before it was enforced. If that’s the case, we must track them down quickly.”
She still looks hesitant, and her colleagues peer along our procession, eyeing the bunch of us with critical gazes. My skin itches with apprehension.
The longer they take to ponder our story, the harder it’ll be to convince them.
I nudge Toast half a step forward and summon all my memories of past Crown’s Watch soldiers who’ve sneered and stomped their way through the outer wards.
“We’ve been delayed enough already! Let us through, or the king will have your heads for your idiocy.
We have a job to carry out even if you’re struggling to do yours. ”
The guards stiffen, but my domineering attitude appears to do the trick. The woman mutters an apology and reaches with one of the men to heave open the crossbar.
My heart thuds ever louder as the doors swing open. We tap our horses into a trot, Rheave passing beneath the arch in the wall first, then Casimir and me. The hammering against my ribs doesn’t start to ease until I hear the clops of Stavros’s and Alek’s steeds emerging behind me.
Then, in a deafening warble of thunder, the clouds open up with the first deluge of rain.
The drops splatter across our bodies. I spare a panicked glance behind me in time to see the make-up running on the faces of both of the men at my back.
And I’m not the only one who sees it.
“There’s something wrong with them,” one of the guards atop the wall hollers to his fellow soldiers. “They were disguising their faces!”
“Halt!” someone bellows from behind us, just as Stavros barks out, “Ride!”
We all prefer the former general’s suggestion. I dig my heels into Toast’s sides, and he takes off like his tail’s on fire.
More rain pelts down on us, pounding almost as loud as the horses’ hooves. Stavros urges his stallion to the head of the group, veering to lead us toward the nearest stretch of forest where we can disappear from view.
With an unnerving whine, an arrow shoots through the air just inches from his shoulder. It thuds into the grass instead.
“Faster!” Alek calls out raggedly.
I don’t think Toast can gallop any harder than he already is. Clutching the reins, I sneak a peek over my shoulder in time to see all three of the guards on the wall drawing bows, with more soldiers racing to join them.
The arrows careen through the rain. Two fly wide, but the third is shooting straight toward Stavros’s back.
Panic jolts through my veins with a chill that has nothing to do with the water seeping down my back. My magic leaps up alongside it.
Before I can second-guess the decision, I fling my arm out.
Like with the king this morning, there’s no time to beg Kosmel for guidance, no time to even question the decision. I can’t stand to see Stavros killed over my mistakes.
So possibly I make another.
My power slams the arrow to the side. It hisses harmlessly into the grass.
And on the wall behind us, a cry of pain rings out.
The backlash of my magical shove must have struck one of the guards. My head is whirling too fast for me to rejoice or regret the act.
I duck low against the growing downpour and hurtle between the welcoming trees.