52. CHAPTER 52
Miya
The Territories
Archai, Caspador
Miya’s head bounced when the truck jolted to a stop. She gasped awake and sat up, catching the back of the driver’s seat.
“Someone cut us off,” Lance said.
“How long was I out?”
“An hour. We made it to Archai.”
Miya peered out the back window at the vehicles surrounding them.
People crept forward on the sidewalk where merchants had packed away their shops even though it was broad daylight.
Pedestrians weaved between uneven lanes of cars, sliding over the hoods, ignoring the honks that followed them across the city.
What was this?
“Do we know what's going on?” Miya asked.
“No,” the driver said. “No events today.” He rolled his window down, yelling questions at those passing by, but no one answered.
This wasn't good. Miya needed to return to Krowe's as soon as possible.
By now, Ashantae should have already sent the message through to the United.
With the Captain's eyes on her, she didn't risk traveling to deliver her letter, but asked Hakym for help instead.
He visited the other villages every week as the Takja, giving him an easy cover for making the delivery.
Before they even left for Krowe's, Hakym called Lance to tell him to be safe.
He'd left earlier than they had and used the call as a signal to let Miya know it was finished.
Lance knew nothing of their plans. There was no reason to implicate him more than he already was. When he was truly safe, Miya would tell him everything.
In the meantime, the captain waited for her at the Krowe Estate, and she wanted one last chance to gain any further information from him before the Royal Guard or the United forced her back to the palace.
In Miya's message, she asked Ashantae not to tell them where she was, only that she was alive and personally witnessed the captain's schemes.
They'd find her, though. Possibly before she even made it back to Krowe's, especially if this traffic slowed them down too much.
The driver leaned on his horn when the car in front of him failed to inch forward. Miya grabbed the door handle.
“You’re not going out there, are you?” Lance asked.
“Of course, I am.” She rolled down the window when she saw a boy sprinting past. “Stop! I have money!”
The kid turned on his heel. “What do I have to do?”
“Tell me everything you know about what’s going on here.”
“There’s a huge crowd at town square. I mean huge. I heard people are climbing on the roof to see.”
“See what?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out, lady. Can I have my money? I gotta go before all the roofs are flooded.”
“A lot of help you were.”
“It’s all I know. Pay up.” He stuck his hand through the open window.
Miya dropped a few coins. “Scram.”
What if the captain intercepted her message, and Ashantae never received it? Or if the United acted on the information, giving themselves away, so the captain did something to this city to make a statement?
She pushed the door open, her heart beating fast.
“Wait!” Lance reached across her and closed it. “Whatever they’re crowded around… It’s nothing good.”
“I can’t hide anymore, Lance. Let me go.”
“Am I supposed to understand what that means?”
She opened the door again. It no longer mattered whether she had the power to change anything. She had a responsibility. Always had. “We'll separate here.”
“Right. Like I’m going to sit here while you go alone.” Lance clapped the driver’s shoulder. “Thanks for the ride. We’re fine from here. Take whatever you want from the greenhouse as payment.”
Miya held back her smile. She’d been fighting to make him leave. Despite that, relief hit her at not having to face this alone, no matter how selfish that might be.
As they walked, she looked around for the captain, feeling his presence as if he was right behind her with his hands wrapped around her neck. She couldn’t imagine what had stopped this city in its tracks, but it had to be him.
The closer they walked to the town square, the wilder the crowd became. People shouted at one another as they rushed forward until their words morphed into one loud roar. It drowned out all else, so Miya missed what should have been clear until she ran right into it.
Ahead of them, at the mouth of the alley, the people had stopped talking. Stopped moving.
The chaos behind her continued, ignorant and unabated. She stumbled to a stop, and Lance backtracked toward her. Didn’t they see it? Didn’t they feel it?
Miya clutched her hands to her chest, struggling to breathe. The captain was strangling her again even though he wasn’t here.
“Miya!” Lance caught her elbow, wrestling her out of the flow of people toward the wall. “Are you okay?”
“He’s here.” She dug her nails into her neck. “I think… I think I did this. I think I made him do this. He knows.”
The captain promised she would regret betraying him and that was what she’d done. Betrayed him.
Was this her fault?
Running had never worked for her in the past. Fighting hadn’t.
Why did she think this would be any different?
A man knocked into her, and she stumbled limply.
Lance nudged her back against the wall, bending down to level his face with hers. “Okay. I don’t know what you did, or what these people are staring at. It doesn’t matter right now. The captain can’t see us. We're lost in the crowd.”
“Go, Lance. It’s time. You’ll be the last thing on anyone’s mind. Disappear and stay gone.”
“We’ll go. We'll find a place to hide in one of these buildings and figure out a plan.”
“I have someone I can call.” Miya opened her phone and dialed the line for Ashantae by memory. But it didn't ring. No, no, no. “There isn't any service. Let's try a rooftop and see if that helps.”
As she rushed forward, Lance grabbed her hand and dragged her back to his side.
“We stay together.” He laced his fingers with hers and held tight.
“I'm not ditching you.” Miya ripped her hand away, but Lance extended his again.
“I don't want to let go of you. Lead me off a cliff. Whatever. Just don’t ask me to leave you.”
She dropped her head against his arm and groaned. “I really wasn't lying.”
They walked hand-in-hand to a nearby ladder to climb to the top of a roof. Up here, silence encased the crowd. The sounds of the city and those who didn’t know what had happened faded into the background.
Lance's expression dropped like a curtain. Miya wasn’t ready to see and was thankful to be shorter than him. It bought her a few more seconds to prepare herself.
They squeezed through a few people before stopping, her eyes on her shoes, until she looked up to see a tear slide down Lance's cheek.
Bracing herself, Miya rose onto her toes and looked out at the town square.
Ciondian soldiers lined the government offices, standing alert between the people and anyone inside.
As if cut off by an invisible perimeter, the crowd stopped in a perfect circle around a stage that had been erected where the flowers would sprout in spring.
Boots had trampled snow and grass into ruddy mud.
Mud that reddened the closer it drew to the stage.
No one moved.
No one spoke.
Miya saw him then.
The whites of Governor Krowe's eyes stared at the people of Archai, crusted and clouded. Face bloated, swells of black and purple painted his ivory skin. Red holes dotted his chest around his heart, painting a target on him. His mouth hung open, stretched in an eternal scream. Others lined the stage alongside him, posted as human signs, faceless blurs Miya’s mind refused to see. A message written in carnage.
The captain vowed to string up Krowe's entire family in the town square. Miya recognized his wife's heels but couldn't bear to look at the woman who stood up for her when so few ever did.
Blood dripped from the stage.
Miya bowed as if a fist had socked her in the gut.
They'd executed the governor and his family the way they did convicts in Ciondo.
Miya turned against the crowd, the only person with her back to the murdered family.
All around, the people froze with the stillness of a person in hiding. On the run from a killer who dared them to breathe too loudly, move too quickly, give their position away.
They gathered helplessly, their somber company the sole comfort left to a city in a kingdom that cared nothing for them and an empire that only wanted to use them.
The Phaedra could slaughter them any time.
Who would hear their cries? Who would even care?
What good could their screams or wailing or speeches of indignation and fury do?
The only consequence would be no invitation to a summit he wasn't likely to be invited to anyway, unless the oceanic colonies were as corrupt as this empire.
These people didn't even have the hope of rebellion. They saw what happened to their neighboring kingdom, Antor, for joining hands with the United.
Miya always figured war was the worst thing in the world, but it was this.
The silence.
When a people could no longer fight.
When they could only stand by each other’s side and wait to see who would be lucky enough to survive.
This was all they had. Resigned grief in the streets of Archai, muted by the threat of death. Forced into silence. Hiding in their own bodies. Hiding in plain sight.
Try as she might, Miya would never be one of them. She’d spent a decade pretending she was. Unlike the innocent people who faced the wrath of the Phaedra alone, Miya bore the power of a throne. She bore the responsibility. The culpability.
And Lance held onto her as if she had nothing, just like him. This was all he could cling to, and she’d tried to make him let go.
Five minutes crawled by. Ten. No one moved. Where could they go when the governor, who the emperor had installed, had been slaughtered in the middle of his own city? Miya kept trying her phone, but it never rang, and she didn't know where to go or how to travel through this crowd fast enough.
The United and Royal Guard would search for her. But the captain would too.