Between Starfalls

by S Kaeth

  -letter fragment found in the palace of the City of the Lost

  Kaemada gave Eian an extra squeeze as she finished the story of Āssipos’s faith and then loosened her hold, checking to see if he was ready to be let go. He snuggled closer and pressed his cheek against hers, his unruly curls getting in her eyes. She wrapped her arms around him tightly once again, trying not to stiffen at the pain of his weight on her bruises. She ached everywhere. Sitting on the cold, hard floor telling stories didn’t help.

  Eian straightened, pushing away from her. His too-serious brown eyes searched hers. “Mahkae, you saved me.” He hugged her again. “I was so scared.”

  “I will always save you, acha’iyih. I would do anything for you.”

  But would she? She still hadn’t found an escape, and it was becoming clear that befriending a guard wasn’t the way out. Theron hadn’t helped at all, though at least he’d been honest about that moons ago. She couldn’t expect him to help when it was her against the king.

  She shivered, the events of that night’s dinner flashing before her eyes again. How quickly she’d nearly lost her son. The king had become bored, he’d said, and with a flick of his hand had ordered a guard to stab Eian. The words hadn’t made sense to Kaemada’s horrified ears, not until the guard was nearly on them. She’d flung Eian out of the way and the knife struck her just below the shoulder. Theron had simply watched.

  The king had been furious with her for bleeding on her gown. Once they were back in their rooms, Theron had come to visit. She had decided to forgive him, but he’d been furious with her for embarrassing him. Fortunately, Eian had been hiding, so he hadn’t seen Theron beat her. She hadn’t been able to fend off the blows. He was so much bigger than her. So much stronger.

  She drew in a deep, slow breath. Where were Taunos, Takiyah, and Ra’ael? She was tired of being confused, tired of being frightened. She wasn’t strong enough. She hadn’t even been able to save Tannevar, and her heart still hurt for missing him. Her back ached, especially between her shoulder blades, from all the tension she’d held over the moons. Her bruises hurt all the way to her bones. No, deeper than that. The pain went to her very song.

  She should have been more careful, shouldn’t have frustrated Theron so much. Would he continue to protect them from the other guards? He was a good man, deep down inside. The stacks of teas, salves, and balms in her rooms were made from the plants he gave her as gifts, and they, in turn, did much good when she gave them out to servants and the other captive women. Deep inside, Theron wasn’t bad.

  She repeated that like a mantra, desperately needing it to be true. And yet, she’d never left Eian alone with him. Part of her always rebelled against fully opening up to him. She squeezed her eyes shut. Perhaps if she had trusted him, things would be different. Was it too late? She could keep Eian safer if only she didn’t frustrate Theron so much that he left them. Everything would be better if only she was better, more open toward the only safety in this place. More loving even. Surely that would not be too great a sacrifice, convincing him she loved him back? So why couldn’t she respond to his affections?

  Theron had begun kissing her before leaving—except tonight—but she always froze, remembering Tikatae. Perhaps that was driving him away, inhibiting the good man inside of him. Such a poet as he was, such an artist, could not truly be evil, could he? No, not Theron. He was only misguided.

  He only hurt her when she provoked him. She should be wiser than that. The pain came from her mistakes.

  She deserved it.

  “Mahkae, is it my fault?” Eian’s small voice brought her back to the present. “Did I do wrong? Is that why we’re here?”

  Anger smashed through her confusion, guilt, grief, and pain, rolling over them like a thunderstorm in the sky. “No, my Eian. No. That isn’t how life is written.”

  She busied herself helping him out of his dirty shirt, her motions careful to avoid opening her wound and bleeding through her bandages, then handed him a clean one.

  “Teros said the path is easy for those who do no wrong. This place is horrible. I hate it here. It’s hard, not easy, and I want to go home!” The new shirt muffled Eian’s voice as he struggled into it.

  “Ra’ael says Teros is full of idle chatter like a tailosae,” she reminded him.

  “But Teros is the head priest!”

  “That does not mean he cannot be wrong.”

  Eian frowned, and Kaemada sighed, tousling his hair. “Would you say Āssipos deserved his trials? All that long time waiting, hoping his sons would return? No life is ever perfect, but it’s important to choose the best we can.”

  “But how?”

  Kaemada shrugged. She wished she had that answer. “The bad spirits are tricky and will disguise their way as good and right, especially if you let fear, pride, and anger sway your thinking. Sometimes a bad choice will at first seem like a good one…” Kaemada trailed off, her words turning to dirt in her mouth. So many of her own mistakes had landed them here. Decisions fueled by fear, anger, pride. Choices she had thought were good but had landed her son in this place of torment.

  They needed a way out. And she was weary to her bones of not being able to see a way. Weary of every escape plan she thought of being too risky. Weary of the palace’s casual cruelty. Weary of trying to hold on to hope in a place where hope was murdered on a daily basis.

  The words poured out of her before she could think better of them, raw and passionate. ”This is wrong. You were never meant to be here, Eian. This part of your story is wrong.”

  Eian clung to her, panic contorting his face, and she clutched him, kissing the top of his head as tears fell from her eyes. It was wrong here. All of it was wrong.

  A soft knock sounded on the door. Kaemada’s breath caught and her muscles tensed. Theron was on patrol duty. Was it the psions, finally coming to take her away? It could be one of the women asking for medicine, or it could be danger. Life in the palace had taught her that her imagination was not nearly broad enough to contain all the cruelty people could think of, and now she might have driven away their only protection. The door was left unlocked these days, but she’d learned all too well that was not a chance for freedom—it was a trap.

  Leaving Eian in the sleeping room, Kaemada crept to the door. Her hand trembled as she slowly opened it.

  As soon as the door cracked open, a figure swept in, spinning around and shoving the door shut behind her. Kaemada stepped back in a half-crouch. Her visitor was one of the captive women she often saw at dinner, someone she’d given tea to a few days ago to soothe a cough. Olorah.

  “Forgive me,” Olorah said. “When you took so long for answering…”

  “Do you need more tea?” Kaemada ventured, willing herself not to cast a glance back at the sleeping room.

  “He took him away! He said the cough was bothering him, and he took him away. Oh, will I ever see him again?” The woman dropped into a chair and buried her face in her hands. The muffled sounds of weeping escaped.

  Sympathy won over fear, and Kaemada knelt beside Olorah, her hand on one shoulder. “Who?”

  “My son! My little Ilos! The king took him, and I fear I’ll never see him again!” she sobbed. Ilos had about twelve summers and was one of the oldest captive boys she had seen in the palace. Kaemada embraced her from the side. Olorah clung to her and Kaemada rubbed her shoulder, hiding a wince as her bruises protested. She knew all too well how quickly a mother could lose a child here.

  “I sorrow with you,” Kaemada whispered, knowing the words were not enough. She looked over toward the sleeping room. Eian stood wide-eyed at the threshold. Her heart lurched. Finally, Olorah released her, and Kaemada gave her a small cloth to wipe her eyes and nose.

  “We must get out. You and the others as well,” Kaemada murmured. Somehow.

  “I have a plan. But… I can’t do it alone.” Olorah clamped her mouth shut. Tremors wracked her and the knuckles of her clenched hands white.

  Her fear of risking E
ian had not kept them safe. The king could kill them at any moment and Theron would not stop it. In the past moons, Theron had received many black eyes, bruises, and cuts. She wasn’t sure it was entirely selfish for her to think they were wounds taken on her behalf. At any moment, the psions could find her out. Surely her powers had returned, hadn’t they? Or was she doomed to never get them back?

  Rinaryn did not leave others to suffer. Even in the hard winter three summers ago, she and Ra’ael and Eian had clung together until the thaw, drawing on each other’s strengths.

  Spirits above, let her not bring doom upon them in taking this chance.

  Kaemada nodded. “Tell me how I can help. I would do anything to keep Eian safe. And your other children need you now more than ever.”

  Relief flashed across Olorah’s face. In whispers, they cobbled together a plan, and Olorah named several other captives to help escape, people who wanted out and would not betray their plans. “Not like Aleis,” Olorah explained. “That girl’ll turn any situation for her advantage if she can see a way.”

  The next few days held an odd sort of relief. It was good to have a purpose again rather than the moons of idle terror. She kept her thoughts firmly on their goals: get out with the other captives, and find her brother and friends. It made it easier to deal with the numerous tortures the dinners served up for them and to deal with her confusion over Theron. It seemed like he was still mad at her, and that anger didn’t make sense. Surely, he would never expect her to stand by and allow harm to come to Eian.

  She ripped the bedsheets she had never used into strips and wove them into long ropes. Other women occasionally visited her room, strips of bedsheets hidden under their gowns. Olorah was doing the same work, separately so as not to draw attention. Some sheets she made into slings for the babies and small children, using Eian to size them.

  It was difficult to go about her days as if nothing had changed. The worst was two days after Olorah had come to see her, when Ilos’s body was found outside the palace. Her heart ached as she passed Olorah in the corridor. Any show of compassion would only doom them both and risk their children, but Olorah’s stern, cold face masked such pain. She wept that night, feeling awful for Olorah and even worse for withholding her sympathies.

  The risk of being discovered increased with each day that passed. It was a relief when Olorah popped into her room one morning and said “Tonight,” disappearing as quickly as she’d come.

  Kaemada continued washing the floor as if nothing had happened, cautioning herself to remain as calm as possible. Eian cheered, making her smile even as she hushed him. A knock sounded on the door a heartbeat later, and Kaemada dropped her cloth. Had someone heard Olorah? Heart pounding in her ears, she started to climb to her feet, bruises and stiff limbs protesting, when Theron entered. She froze, watching out of the corner of her eye as Eian dropped to the floor and crept away. He’d become terrified of Theron again ever since she’d taken the knife for him.

  Theron scowled. “The servants wash the floor.”

  “So do I.” She raised her chin. Had she said the wrong thing? Was it all over now? Her head felt light as she kept her expression still. She couldn’t let him see her panic.

  Theron shook his head with a sigh. His boots were loud on the stone floor as he approached her. He raised a hand, and she flinched, gritting her teeth.

  Pain pinched his mouth and shone in his eyes as he stroked her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “You know I don’t like hurting you. We’ll talk tonight, after I return.”

  “Return?”

  “I’m out for getting taxes. Please, stay in your room and don’t make trouble while I’m gone.”

  She nodded. This might be the last time she saw him. “Theron, I’m sorry.”

  He turned back with a smile. “I know.”

  A confusion of riotous fear, sorrow, anger, joy spun through her mind, chasing each other over her heart. She wanted to invite him to escape with them. It would be good for him—he would be a good man if only he was free from the influence of the king. And yet, her tongue seemed glued to her mouth, revolting against the idea.

  She followed him to the door, struggling to breathe, struggling to make sense of everything. He’d protected her and Eian. He’d hit her. He made art and wrote poems like her father had. He was loyal to a monster. He was only trying to survive. Eian was afraid of him.

  So, as he left, she said only, “Goodbye, Theron.”

  “Goodbye,” he said with a little smile. His footsteps receded down the hallway as she shut the door.

  Kaemada leaned her back against it, struggling for calm. If Theron was out for taxes, that meant many of the guards would be out of the palace with him. No wonder Olorah wanted to escape tonight. They’d agreed sundown would be the best time, as they could use the darkness of night and the presence of Angels to cover them. And tonight, the loyal women would be entertaining the king.

  It was hard to wait. Jittery and unsettled, Kaemada poured herself into washing the floor and checking her ropes and dressing Eian in clean, warm clothes. They couldn’t take anything with them—that would be far too suspicious. When everything was done, she told Eian stories and tried not to worry.

  Finally, the sun descended beyond the wall. There would be no dressers tonight, no dinner without the majority of the guards. Women had been coming to her for basic medicines any Rinaryn should know for some time now, so it made sense to use her room. But the waiting stretched out, thin as her nerves.

  A knock sounded on her door. She opened it, and Olorah whirled inside, her toddler in her arms and an older boy quick on her heels.

  “Finally!” Kaemada whispered. “Did you have any trouble?”

  Olorah shook her head, unwinding handmade ropes from under her dress. “Can you pull the others up on the roof?”

  Kaemada winced and shook her head. Between the weakness that remained in the left half of her body, the lingering stiffness from her bruises, and the still-healing would in her shoulder, she’d never be able to climb up alone.

  Olorah turned to the oldest of her two remaining children. “Taban, up you go. Rope around your waist, remember? I’ll come after you. Kaemada, can you fit my little one with a sling? I’ll pull her up next.”

  Kaemada nodded. “And then, I will watch the door.”

  While she tied the sling snug around the toddler’s chest, Eian scrambled into the chimney, feeding the ropes upward and making sure they didn’t get caught on anything. Within moments, Olorah was up top with her son, and two ropes hung down the brick opening. Kaemada led her daughter into the chimney and attached the ropes to the sling, fighting the strangling claustrophobia that threatened to overwhelm her. She breathed a sigh of relief as she stepped out, and the little girl was pulled up the chimney.

  While Eian watched the ascent, Kaemada went to the door. She’d hardly gotten there before there was a soft knock, and Kaemada cautiously opened it, hardly daring to breathe. Another of the captive women darted inside as soon as the door opened, along with two small children.

  “Hurry, to the fireplace.” Kaemada shut the door behind them.

  She fitted the children with the slings while showing the woman how to use the ropes to help with the climb. As more of them got to the roof, there would be more help available for the climbers, and as long as they stayed low, they should be fairly safe from discovery. Just so long as no guards or servants came. After gaining the roof, the next bit of danger would be coming down and evading recapture and the Angels.

  But they had to succeed. They had to. Kaemada darted back and forth from the door to the fireplace, letting in captives and then helping with slings and ropes. Before long, Eian was helping them on his own, and while pride filled Kaemada’s heart, worry also simmered there.

  “Eian, climb up. I will join you once everyone has come,” Kaemada said.

  He paled and shook his head. “I want to stay with you.”

  “Please, Eian. I want you safe.”

 
“No! I’m staying with you!”

  Kaemada winced at his shout and sighed, leaving the argument for now. If someone heard, it would doom them all. Another knock sounded at the door, then another. The captives streamed in, all white-faced and worried, and Kaemada’s heart leapt with fear of discovery every time.

  A loud rap on the door startled Kaemada, so much different from the timid taps of the captives. Terror seized her and Kaemada ran to the fireplace, where Eian stood covered in soot and a woman holding her infant waited for the ropes to be lowered once again.

  “Masa, hide!” Kaemada hissed. Her gaze went to Eian. Maybe, just maybe, she could boost him up, and Olorah could pull him out. It had to work.

  “Eian, grab the ropes!” She lifted him with a groan, her body protesting, and Eian clutched at her neck in sudden fear. “Shareil, Eian. Can you reach them?”

  She struggled to balance him as they teetered against the walls of the chimney, but the ropes were too high.

  Someone grabbed her arm, yanking her out into the room, and Eian fell with a scream. She barely managed to grab his arm and steady his fall, but her head slammed against the edge of the fireplace. She blinked hard, trying to focus her eyes as she held one hand to her forehead and clutched Eian in her other arm.

  Theron scowled at her.

  “Theron, please!” she begged. “If you could lift Eian, maybe he could reach the ropes. Surely you can see this is no place for a boy.”

  “You two’re in a lot of trouble,” Theron said, tucking Eian under one arm. But he did not step into the chimney. He gripped Kaemada’s elbow and dragged her out of the room—a room that seemed empty. Had Masa been able to hide? What was Theron doing?

  Eian shouted, kicking and squirming.

  “Theron, please. You could say no one was here when you got here. Please, please, help me protect Eian!”