2. The Stowaway
The Stowaway
Larissa
T he wail of Helga’s engine rose to an indignant moan. She had held the last several hours of the drive, but Larissa was starting to worry if they would reach the Wall.
“Come on, old girl,” she muttered, rubbing her hand against the opened window-sill. “You can do it.”
Minutes passed, and the moan died into a familiar grumble.
Larissa sighed in relief, her hands patting the ripped and stained seats.
Helga would make it. She always did. Or, at least, she had since Larissa had taken over the deliveries this season.
At first, Pappa refused to let Larissa take the dropoffs, but there was always work to be done in the fields, and he hated the mandatory visits to the Wall that surrounded Havsiden, the city of the Safírian commonwealth.
Larissa had offered—begged, really—to let her take over the deliveries. Call it a seventeenth birthday gift, she’d told him. Larissa would never tell Halla that she also wanted to explore beyond the boundaries of their fields. Eventually, Pappa gave in, as Larissa knew he would.
He couldn’t stand the sight of the Wall. “An unnatural blight placed there by the Empress’ hands,” Pappa would say.
“Don’t,” Mamma would respond, leaving the rest unsaid. We don’t speak of the Empress, not even within our own homes .
The thought of the Empress turned Larissa’s stomach.
Although the Empress was a vague figure in the back of her mind, the Empire and its effect on her family were an everyday reality.
The Empress reigned over the five commonwealths of Evrópa from her northern palace within Diamant.
From Pappa’s stories, Larissa knew only that Diamant was a frozen wasteland, as cold as its mistress.
The other four commonwealths consisted of Smaragd, nestled in the western forests of Myrkvier; Rubin, settled amidst the volcanoes of the eastern seas; Perle, situated just south of Smaragd; and Safír, stretched along the cliffs of the southeast shores of Rán’s seas.
It was Safír that Larissa called home, although living out on her farm, she saw little to nothing of the famous shoreline.
Fifty years ago, the Empress had overthrown the other kingdoms, killing or imprisoning their monarchs and replacing them with her own chosen regents.
Although the Empress held more power, it was the regents, with their firing squads and gallows, that scared Larissa most. It was the regents who would take Halla and kill her family for violating the Empress’ policies.
Halla is safe.
Larissa repeated this phrase again and again as if it would form a prayer that the gods might actually hear. She blew air from her mouth, forcing her thoughts away from the farm. The sooner she reached the Wall, the sooner she could return home to see what had become of the Inspection.
Distracted by her thoughts, Larissa swerved just in time to avoid a tree branch lying in the road. In the bed of the truck, crates shifted. Larissa checked her rear view mirror, scanning for any lost produce. Those crates would be counted once she reached the Wall. The quota had to be met.
Produce Day will go perfectly . It has to .
Salty air drifted in through the open windows; she was close. Larissa shifted in her seat to waken long-sleeping limbs. The road—once asphalt, now a poor mix of dirt and rock—would pain her body for days after a delivery, but even the brief respite from her daily farm life was worth it.
The world hadn’t always been like this, Pappa told her. Before Ragnarok , the world had been beautiful, civilized, and safe. Larissa snorted as the truck bounced out of a particularly deep pothole. The world before was just another one of Pappa’s stories.
Again, she heard the crates shift in the bed and frowned. It wasn’t like Pappa to loosely pack the crates. Larissa pulled at one of her braids while keeping her other hand on the wheel. She needed to focus on doing what Pappa always said.
Get in, get out, and get home.
The sun reached its peak just as the Wall came into sight.
The sheer size of the Wall caused Larissa’s heart to thump against her ribcage.
Pappa was right; it was unnatural, the way the Wall blotted out the sky and land.
Although she knew the innermost part of the city sat on a cliff overlooking the sea, Larissa couldn’t see it due to the trees and the great Wall.
The city of Havsiden, the only city of Safír, was built in concentric half circles.
The outer section encapsulated the majority of the land’s population with separately tiered communities.
Within each segment lay residences, shops, and markets.
In the higher levels, there were even schools, or so Larissa had been told.
She’d never been beyond the produce Intake Yard.
Looking at the Wall, Larissa couldn’t comprehend the power it must have taken the Empress to overtake not only this land, but three others as well.
Each of the commonwealths’ central cities were similarly enclosed by their own Wall, placed there by the Empress’ decrees.
In hissed whispers, Larissa had heard rumors of the Empress’ galdr. It was said to be some magical force bestowed upon her by the Norn , those three fickle goddesses of fate, that gave her the right to rule and have a long-lasting life.
Larissa scoffed at the thought. If that were true, it was only another reason to distrust the gods.
A mile from the Wall, the tree line broke and opened into a vast field that had been cleared in every direction, ensuring the sentries could see anyone approaching or leaving.
Larissa took her spot in the line of trucks waiting to enter the city and reached for the papers on the dash.
They listed how much produce was to be expected, where it was coming from, and most importantly, her credentials as Larissa Daldóttir, the first-born and only daughter of Dal, stamped with the royal seal.
It was for this reason that Halla could never leave her farm and never enter the city.
Children born within the Wall were not easily concealed.
Pappa and Mamma would talk in hushed tones about how such children were ripped from their homes and sold on the auction block.
That is, until they realized Larissa was listening.
Larissa vowed she would never let that happen to Halla.
The truck ahead of her crawled forward. Larissa released the brake ever so slightly, but a thump from the bed of the truck caused her to slam the pedal down again. Spinning to look out the back window, Larissa expected to see produce tumbling about in the truck bed. What she found was far worse.
Staring back at her were two wide green eyes set above a familiar freckled nose.
A curse slipped through Larissa’s lips. “Kings and Queens!”
Halla’s green eyes disappeared. Larissa’s foot slipped; boxes shifted. Halla yelped as a box collided against her. What in Mimir’s name was Halla doing in the truck?
“Move it along, slápr !”
Larissa’s eyes swung back to the growing gap in front of Helga.
A sentry stood there, beckoning her forward with his other hand resting near his holster.
With numb fingers, Larissa clenched the steering wheel and closed the gap between her and the truck.
The Wall loomed closer, five stories tall, with sentries surveying the incoming trucks from their positions on top.
Sweat gathered at the base of Larissa’s hairline and beaded down her neck. Her thoughts raced as she considered her options. Halla couldn’t run. The tree line had been cut back miles ago, leaving nothing but open fields. Halla would be spotted if she fled the truck.
Larissa’s fingers twitched in her gloves against the steering wheel. She couldn’t flee any more than Halla could. Any deviation from the line would draw unwanted attention from the sentries. They would want to know why she was veering from her normal course. They would stop her and search her.
They would take Halla.
She glanced in the rear view mirror again and sent a silent prayer that Halla would have the sense to remain hidden. This day was determined to make a believer of Larissa after all.
The line surged forward, leaving only two trucks ahead of her. The gates of the Wall hung open, allowing a big enough gap for trucks to move both in and out at the same time. Sentries on each side of the gate checked those who were coming in and made sure that only those approved were going out.
There was no other choice. Larissa would have to enter the city and figure out what to do once inside. But first, she had to calm down. If the sentries noticed her unease, they would not hesitate to investigate it further.
Halla’s safety depended on her.
Only one truck remained ahead of her. Larissa grabbed the paperwork, shifting it to line up the edges, and dropping them when they sliced through her skin.
“Njorer’s beard,” she muttered Pappa’s favorite phrase, the one he never used in front of Mamma.
The truck in front of her pulled through the open gates. This was her last chance to try and flee. She sucked at the cut finger, weighing each option and its consequences.
The sentry beckoned her forward. Did she dare flee?
They would never make it.
Larissa breathed out, releasing her finger and the brake simultaneously.
She waited for the sentry to approach the opened window. Dressed in all black, the sentry pushed back his visor, revealing dark eyes that peered into Helga’s cab.
“Identification.”
She handed it to him without a word, praying that the sweat running down her back wouldn’t show through the shirt, or that the sentry would attribute it to the rising warmth of a late-summer day.
“Where are you coming from?” the sentry asked, his voice cold and demanding.
Larissa swallowed, determined to keep her voice from shaking. “Dal’s Berry Farm.”
“Name.”
“Larissa Daldóttir.”
“Is this your first trip inside the Wall?”
Larissa tried to swallow, but her throat was too dry. She coughed at the attempt. “No, sir, my sixth.”
“Then you know the procedure.” He shoved the papers back through the window. “Follow the previous truck into the unloading area. Once you are finished, you may collect your family’s rations at the next station.”
“Thank you.” Larissa released the brake.
“Wait.”
Her foot collided with the brake. Another thump sounded from the bed. Larissa could only hope the sentry would think it was the fruit shifting. “Yes, sir?”
He wasn’t looking at Larissa. He was standing next to the bed of the truck, peering in between the slatted wooden walls. Had he seen something? A flash of green eyes? Halla’s golden hair?
The sentry’s arm shot through one of the slats. Larissa tensed, wishing for a knife, something from home to protect Halla, but weapons were strictly forbidden. Anyone carrying one was immediately sentenced to death, but that didn't stop Larissa from daydreaming about running him over with Helga.
The sentry withdrew a handful of strawberries. He bit into the largest one, tossing the stem into the dirt. “You may go.”
Not trusting herself to speak, Larissa pulled through the gates.
On the other side of the Wall, the Intake Yard was filled with trucks and the overwhelming sound of voices shouting, talking, and overlapping with one another.
More sentries walked between trucks, facilitating the unloading of produce and the reloading of family rations.
More often than not, the cracks of their whips snapped in the air, hurrying the slaves that rushed from truck to truck, their backs bent under submission and shame.
Metal bracelets wrapped around their wrists identified the slaves for what they were: someone else’s property.
A young boy with shorn hair ran past Helga’s cab, his metal bracelets glinting in the sunlight.
A glance in the mirror reassured Larissa that Halla had hidden herself well.
They had made it in.
But Larissa wasn’t sure how they would make it out.