Chapter 2
I sit up, breath coming quick. I glance toward the balcony, the dressing table, the door. Nothing is unusual but the lumpy piles of roses in the dark. The nearest one could be someone crouching. I stare until it is only roses again.
But something is very, very wrong.
Is someone here, in the room, breathing more quietly than I am?
I strain to listen, but I can’t hear anything over my pounding heart.
Is there a body tucked into the gap beneath the bed, close enough to feel the mattress give under my weight?
I can’t bring myself to lean over the edge and look.
My eyes bounce around the room, but the darkness reveals nothing amiss.
Cold needles prickle up my spine. It’s like lips whisper in my ear: you’re in danger.
I kick free of the sheets and leap to the marble. I back toward the door. My heart is thundering so hard I can feel it in my teeth. I’m certain if I look long enough into any shadow, I’ll see a face peering out.
I fumble for the handle behind my back, yank it open, and run.
I race down the shadowed corridor. It feels longer than it did an hour ago, the end of it stretching away from me. If I stop, whatever is chasing me will catch up. I turn toward the stairs and slam into a figure coming the other way.
A maid and I both crash to the floor.
“Your highness.” The maid scrambles upright, doing her best curtsy from her knees. Wine spreads around her on the marble, the tray she was carrying overturned. She curls her shoulders—she thinks I’ll burn her. “Forgive me, I didn’t see you. Are you hurt?”
It’s one of Rinalda’s maids; I think her name is Portia.
“It’s alright.” I force myself up, pain shooting through my elbow. “It’s alright. It was my fault.”
Portia breathes again. Her shoulders relax. She gets her feet under her, takes my good arm, and eases me up. “Let me help you back to your rooms, your highness.”
She steers me in the direction I came from.
I wrench free. “No! I’m not going back there.”
She stumbles a step, both palms coming up between us, her expression tight. I see my panic reflected in her eyes, alongside confusion. But I don’t have time to explain. Even as I stand here, it’s like someone runs a finger up my spine and whispers: run, run, run.
I’m about to obey that voice when another calls from the end of the corridor: “What’s going on out here?”
Rinalda glides toward us, long red hair glinting in perfect waves, her robe draped as elegantly as the gown she wore to the banquet earlier. Her eyes rove over the mess, then land on the maid. “You. Leave.”
Portia curtsies and hurries down the stairs.
Now Rinalda turns to me, eyes flashing. “What are you doing, Lysandra? Go back to your room.”
I don’t obey, but I don’t run either. Do I feel safer now that Rinalda’s here? Or am I just frozen to the spot because of her icy glare?
“Rinalda.” My voice shakes, her name a plea. She was my only comfort at one time, and something small in me aches for her to make sense of this. “Something bad is happening. I need…I need to leave.”
Her eyes widen the barest flicker. “Leave? Why?”
“If I don’t get out of the palace, I’ll die.” As soon as I speak the words, I know they’re true. My lips quiver.
Her brow wrinkles. “Did something happen? Is there someone in your room?”
“No…I just know. I woke up and I knew. Something terrible is going to happen to me here.”
Her eyes narrow. “What are you talking about? That’s ridiculous.”
I hear how it sounds. “You’re right. It’s ridiculous.”
It’s ridiculous, even as phantom fingers curl around my throat. The voice inside my head is chanting again: go, go, go. I can’t stay here another second.
“You had a nightmare.” Her haughty expression makes it clear she expects me to relent the way I always do and remove myself from her presence. “Stop acting like a child.”
“You’re right, I’m sorry,” I say. She’s between me and the stairs. “I’m sorry. I’ll just go…”
Confusion ripples across her face. “Go back to your room, Lysandra.”
I keep sidestepping, shaking my head. “Just ignore me. Pretend you didn’t see me.” Just a few more steps toward the stairs…
“Stop.” Her eyes fly wide, and blue sparks flash at her fingertips. They are not a bluff.
I stop, then. “Please, Rinalda. You don’t have to help me.” Why can’t she be the cold, standoffish sister she always is and just go back to her room and forget I exist? “You don’t need to get involved…”
She watches me, expression cycling between disbelief, confusion, and disdain. “Guards! Guards, come here! Princess Lysandra is having a fit.”
That cracks through the last bit of my composure.
“No!” I lunge toward her and grab her arm. Guards won’t let me go—they’ll keep me in. “Rinalda please! I’ve never asked anything of you. Please let me leave right now, or I’m going to die.”
“Let go, Lysandra,” she hisses. “Let go, or I’ll burn you.”
I release her, but I can’t give up. The guards’ feet pound up the stairs, their armor jangling. Despite her threats, I dart past her and race down the corridor.
“Guards, come quickly!” she calls behind me. “Take Princess Lysandra to her rooms and lock the door.”
I speed up, but metal steps clang after me and rough hands close around my arms.
“No! Please!” I struggle, but the grip I’m fighting is too strong.
Rinalda watches as they drag me toward my room, her face a familiar, disdainful mask. “I’m getting Seran.”
“No!” I whimper as the barricading bar clangs into place outside my door. I slam my hands on the wood. This whole palace is poison. This room most of all. And with guards outside and Seran on the way, I’ll never get out of here.
I don’t understand what is happening to me.
I made a scene in the hallway and pawed at Rinalda, but for once, I can’t wrestle down my impulses. The fear is too strong, driving my voice and my feet, while my sense lags a step behind.
Even when I know a lick of fire is on the way, I’ve always managed to bury fear deep enough to stand straight with a smile. When I try to shove this fear down, it crawls right back up my throat like a spider.
I curl my fingers against the door, as I try to negotiate with the fear: I should not leave the palace.
I should stay in my room and wait for Seran.
Seran doesn’t want me to die. He’ll have the guards search every closet and corridor, and if there is some real danger, he’ll take action to protect me.
But if the guards find nothing, he’ll think it’s the end of it. And I’ll know it’s not. I don’t know how I know, but I need to leave the palace right now to survive.
I push away from the door and pace. Can I convince Seran to help me leave? He won’t listen if I babble on the way I did with Rinalda, but is there a plausible reason I can present?
Rather than letting him search, I can tell him I saw an intruder. An assassin. I could pretend there was a man with a knife on my balcony. But if Seran believes me, he won’t let me leave…he’ll post more guards between me and the exits.
My eyes fall on the lantern. I could light a fire. It would get me out of this bedroom, and maybe even out of the Sunrise Palace. But my thudding heart tells me leaving the Sunrise Palace is not enough. I need to get away from the Citadel entirely.
Something bad is going to happen to me here.
With the door barricaded, my only option is the balcony.
I throw on a simple dress and cloak. I tie up my long light hair and cover it with a large scarf. The shade might only have a pale hint of the family’s ignarian red, but it is rare enough to get me noticed.
I grab a velvet bag and stuff more clothes and a handful of gold jewelry inside.
The stables are too far to consider taking a horse.
Even though I plan to go on foot, my riding boots are sturdier than my silk slippers or heels.
I pack my jar of lobellum and the seeds from my latest crop.
If the palace really does come down behind me, at least I’ll be able to start fresh.
Seran won’t be long now. I hurry out the balcony doors.
The private gardens stretch below me, silver and black in the moonlight. Hedges form shadowed geometric patterns. The white outer wall of the Citadel encloses the garden. Beyond that is Illios, the Burning City.
My cloak tangles around me as I swing one leg over the railing, then the other, and perch on the narrow ledge.
I can jump to the sloped roof above the garden entrance, then climb from there.
I look down and my stomach drops, the dizzy pull of gravity tugging at my toes.
The ground is farther than I thought. For a second, my body locks, my fingers fusing to the railing.
The whisper in my mind becomes a roar. Whatever is waiting for me in this palace is worse than the ground.
As if there is a beast in my room or a raging fire or an archer with an arrow pointed at my head, I believe with all my heart that gravity is the safer opponent.
The fall might kill me. Staying definitely will.
Terror moves my legs for me and I jump.
My chest and arms smack into the roof, but my legs swing beneath me, feet scuffling uselessly against the wall. The tiles slide under my palms, and I skid off the edge.
I hit the ground hard, pain flashing as my ankle rolls under me. I hold back a scream.
When I’m sure I can stand, I hobble, then run through the dark garden, my lungs heaving. If any guard looks out and sees me, they’ll drag me back and lock me in.
It takes some time to find the dried fountain with a sun carved on the edge of its basin.
There is a tunnel here, known only to the heirs of Ignar.
Even Captain Orso doesn’t know about it.
It will take me under the wall and down into the city.
A turn of the stone sun opens the trap door in the bed of the fountain and admits me into the depths.
The narrow passage is pitch black, and I have to brace my hands on either wall to keep my balance as I find each step.
I cringe as spiderwebs break against my face and arms. It feels like I’m descending farther into the ground, when really I’m following the shape of the city downhill.
I try not to think about all the dirt and stone piled on top of me, as the tunnel keeps going, and going, and going.
This is bad. This is so bad. I’m breaking so many rules. I would never leave like this. I feel like I’m in a nightmare where nothing quite makes sense.
I finally emerge in the crypt beneath Ignar’s temple, the door unlocked from the side where only the dead should be. The crypt opens behind the giant golden statue of the sun god and his Eternal Flame.
As I stumble out of the temple, a dog howls in the distance, and another answers. When Captain Orso and his men do not find me in the palace, they will search the city.
Which means I can’t stay in Illios. I need to get to the river.
I head through the temple district, grand houses lining the spotless streets.
The wide roads narrow, and the homes grow humbler, marble houses traded for rough stone and mortar.
I smell the waterfront before I reach it.
After about five more turns I spot the river, cutting through the city like a shimmering lifeline.
Even at this hour, a few men unload cargo under swaying lanterns. A lone man is bent over a smaller vessel, coiling a rope. I limp straight toward him.
“I need a boat.” My voice comes out steadier than I feel.
The smell of fish and sweat rolls off him as he faces me. His gaze finds me slowly and he grunts. “Not a ferryman.”
“Then where can I catch a ferry?”
“Here, sometime.”
“When?”
“Morning.” He shrugs at the stars. “Not a timekeeper either.”
I can’t wait until morning. By now, they will have found my room empty. By dawn, the city will be full of dogs and Orso’s soldiers, every gate watched, every boat stopped.
“I can pay.” I reach into my bag and pull out a gold chain with pearls dripping from it. I hold it between us. “I need to get somewhere else I can catch a ferry. A different port. Right now.”
His focus narrows on the necklace, and I can tell I have his interest. “What trouble comes with that gold?”
“No trouble. If we leave now.” I keep my voice low and hope it’s convincing. “So where to?”
His gaze flicks from me to the pearls and back again. After another moment, the necklace disappears into his fist.
“Any place you can put yourself below deck is yours. It’ll be a few hours to Sessia.”
Sessia. A neighboring city. “There are ferries in Sessia?”
“Ferries to everywhere. Many as you like.” He gives a little hand flourish, stepping aside to make room for me to climb onto the swaying boat.
I clutch the railing and plant each foot as I descend below. There is almost no space amidst the crates and canvas and nets, but I wedge into a nook. My muscles tense as I wait, ears straining for the shouts of soldiers or the baying of dogs.
Just when I’m about to go above deck and tell the man we need to leave, the boat creaks into motion. We rock our way out of the harbor and join the smoother flow of the river. I don’t relax until a few more minutes have passed and no soldiers from the shoreline have shouted for the boat to return.
I close my eyes and tuck my cheek against my knee.
I’ve left my room, the palace, the only home I’ve ever known. Now what?