by Liz Delton
He should have kissed her. It had been the perfect moment, and he should have kissed her. He cursed under his breath as he replayed the scene in his head. The images continued to surface no matter how hard he tried to forget.
What if she had been expecting him to kiss her? Or even worse, what if something happened to her in Lightcity? Had he lost his best and last opportunity to show her how much she meant to him?
Since she had announced her journey, Sylvia had grown distant. The time they used to spend together had dwindled down to nothing. She was caught up in planning meetings with Gero and the council—pouring over maps of Lightcity and Arcera, picking apart Greyling’s motives and actions, and trying to find the key to ending this war.
He didn’t fault her for it. He knew he shouldn’t.
A sudden breeze filtered through the bare branches of the treewall as he passed the treegate. The two ancient trees towered over him, their trunks disappearing into the black night sky far above.
He hated himself for wanting Sylvia to stay. How could he be so selfish, wanting her here instead of out there, risking her life to keep Meadowcity safe?
But that was what he liked about her—the burning ember of determination that glinted in her eyes, the fierce love she held for her family, for Meadowcity. He simply couldn’t compete.
The rest of his night was quiet, with only a brief encounter with another guard up on the parapet. They exchanged a few words and walked on through the night.
Ven wondered if Sylvia had yet breached the walls of Lightcity, and what it would take for her to return to Meadowcity unharmed.
Four
Sylvia landed perfectly on both feet, her knees bent to absorb the impact from the jump.
But she was not alone.
A girl stood staring at her in the dark street that had been empty seconds ago.
The girl opened her mouth, but Sylvia was quicker. In two steps she was behind the girl, the sharp dagger Ven had given her at the girl’s throat. The dark-haired girl gasped, frozen now.
Sylvia pulled the girl deeper into the shadow of the wall. She had blown out the lights so no one would see her climbing over, but that plan had obviously failed. What was she to do, now that she had been spotted?
Sylvia spoke, low, “Open your mouth and you’re dead.” Convincing enough, she thought.
The girl started trembling, and Sylvia could smell ale and smoke on her. She must have been walking home from a night in a pub. What luck! Perhaps she wouldn’t remember seeing Sylvia.
“What are you doing out so late?” she asked the girl, trying to gauge her level of coherence.
“I—I was out walking—I didn’t want to go home after the pub—but who are you? Are you attacking the city?”
The dagger almost slipped, but Sylvia gripped it tighter and finally pulled it away from the girl’s throat. The girl was panicked, but coherent. She would remember this encounter. Sylvia changed tack.
“Attack your city?” she hissed, and pulled the girl around to face her. “Do you even know what’s going on?” She kept her dagger raised, pointed at the girl who ruined what would have been a perfect break in.
“Not anymore!” the girl wailed, a little too loudly.
Sylvia shushed her and scanned the streets. Still empty. But someone could look out a window…
“What are you talking about? Quietly,” Sylvia said, busy trying to think of a way out of this.
“Well, I just heard—” the girl paused and narrowed her eyes, perhaps thinking better of trusting a stranger who just jumped over the wall. “But why should I tell you? Who are you?”
This girl was obviously not a Scout, so perhaps she could trust her. Her sleek black cloak brushed the stone street, and beneath it Sylvia could see that she wore heavy leather leggings marred with a few burns. Even in the dim moonlight she could tell the girl’s skin was a pretty golden brown; and her face was sharply featured. Her cheekbones and eyebrows carved sharp shadows across her face. But her eyes were wide, staring at Sylvia with a mix of terror and determination.
Sylvia took a chance. “I’m from Meadowcity,” she whispered.
The girl gasped. “But, Meadowcity,” she said in a matching whisper, “You’ve had a battle, haven’t you?”
“How do you know about that?” Sylvia demanded.
“I just heard—well, I just overhead the Scouts, and—”
“Quiet,” Sylvia said. “Can we get off the streets?” She lowered her dagger, suddenly deciding to trust her.
The girl turned and nodded, pointing down an alley.
Sylvia didn’t know if she was making a huge mistake, but this girl seemed to know a lot more than she imagined anyone in Lightcity would know.
She followed the girl down the streets of the dark city, encountering no one. Even the tiny wedge of a moon disappeared behind some clouds. Finally they stopped in front of a villa, but the girl hesitated. Instead, she led Sylvia to the glass shop next door. She quietly opened the door and beckoned her in.
After a quick glance down the street left and right, she went in, heart in her throat. This could be a big mistake, trusting this girl, she worried. But something in her gut told her to go in.
Sylvia shut the door without turning her back on the girl, who was already drawing the curtains shut on the windows. It smelled of glass and fire. Sylvia kept her dagger drawn.
“Who are you?” the girl whispered as she sunk to sit on the floor, showing far more trust in Sylvia than was probably warranted.
Sylvia remained standing. “I’m a Rider—Sylvia. You?”
“Neve.”
“How do you know about Meadowcity’s battle?”
Neve gave an exasperated sigh and propped her head on her hand. “I was in the pub, sitting in the corner,” she began in a whisper.
“I don’t think they ever noticed me. They were talking about a journey they were taking tomorrow—something important. And then they said—” she paused, and her eyes flicked up to the ceiling in thought, “thanks to that bloody fight in Meadowcity, we don’t have enough boats now.” Neve’s eyes were wide, staring at Sylvia as if she might have the answer.
Sylvia looked away, then smacked her hand to her forehead as her mouth popped open. So they were right! Of course Greyling had wanted Meadowcity to make boats, he had an island to get to!
And now Sylvia’s plans would change, thanks to this girl.
“They’re leaving tomorrow?” she asked, her mind already beginning to churn with waves of new plans for her mission.
Neve nodded. “They didn’t say where, but some of them were sad they couldn’t go, like it was a treat.”
The fifth city. That would be a treat for the Scouts, wouldn’t it? Sylvia was sure that’s where they were headed.
“Can I stay here tonight?” Sylvia asked as she looked around the workshop, taking in the different tools and the enormous furnace, which was still glowing faintly. “I’ll leave tomorrow.”
Neve reached up, perhaps unconsciously, to put a hand on her throat, where Sylvia’s dagger had pressed.
“I’m sorry about that,” Sylvia said immediately. “It’s just…” She paused, wondering how she would explain this mess they were in.
“Look, let me at least tell you what’s happened in the other cities.” Sylvia raised her eyebrows and pointed to the floor next to the girl, and Neve nodded. She sat facing Neve, and noticed in the weak light of the slumbering furnace that the girl was only a bit older than herself.
“Skycity attacked us.”
Neve’s bony eyebrows nearly disappeared into her hair, but Sylvia went on. “They attacked Riftcity too—they’re still there, forcing them to work, mining the limestone for powder to make the bombs. But Meadowcity managed to fight, and they’ve left us alone. We stole some of their bombs.”
“We know Greyling is after something,” she continued. “We think he discovered another city, somewhere south of Meadowcity, on the water. But he needed the Four Cities to do the work so h
e can take the other city by force.”
“But what’s it like here?” Sylvia asked. “Are they forcing you to make the explosives?”
Neve winced, and her brow creased as she spoke, hushed in the darkness of her shop. “There was no attack here,” she shook her head sadly, but her eyes held an even darker emotion.
“Our Governor told us that Skycity was helping the Four Cities, organizing a defense against the threat. She locked down the city, and the Scouts arrived. She made an agreement to produce the orbs for them, there was a contract…”
Lightcity’s Governor had given in to Greyling’s threat. She had bent and given up her city to his control.
Sylvia would always remember that evening when she had delivered Governor Gero the message from Skycity, the one that would have made them into Greyling’s pets, just like Lightcity was now. But Gero hadn’t given in.
“They attacked you with the bombs?” Neve asked in a tiny voice.
Sylvia nodded. “Riftcity was damaged the most. All of the bridges were destroyed, entire parts of the walkways blown from the cliff.” Sylvia stopped as she saw Neve’s eyes become bright, and a tear leak out of one eye.
Neve stared down at her lap, face half-hidden behind her hand.
“Listen, we’re trying to find a way to stop them,” Sylvia said in as soothing a voice she could manage. She had never imagined her spy venture would unfold like this.
Thick tears rolled down Neve’s cheeks, but she whispered, “You can stay in the back workroom, my uncle won’t notice you there.”
Neve wiped her cheeks with the backs of her hands, then got to her feet. She continued on as if nothing was the matter, and quietly led Sylvia into a smaller workroom. The girl left to find a blanket for Sylvia, even though Sylvia protested—she had her own.
When Neve returned, her face was dry, though her eyes were red. She silently handed Sylvia a pillow and blanket.
Sylvia was struck by the girl’s emotion at the tales of the battles. She couldn’t believe her luck in stumbling across this girl, perhaps the one person in Lightcity who had noticed anything wrong.
She studied the room, noting the two exits—one, the door they had come through, and the other, a window above the workbench. She plopped down on the hard stone floor. It would be no worse than sleeping on the trail.
Before Neve left, she turned and spoke.
“I’d like to come with you.”
Five
Neve sat on the hard wooden stool at her desk all night, unable to let herself sleep. At least she had stopped crying.
Her fault.
The other cities had been attacked, with explosives she had helped make—and even worse, that she had created and sold to Skycity. It was all her fault.
How many were dead because of her? How many ripped from their homes?
She had never been to Riftcity, but her mind ran rampant with imaginings of citizens being thrown from the cliff walls into an endless ravine below; of fires that burned the rock face; of the people forced out of their homes.
How many had she sent to death because of her stupidity?
Eyes puffy and swollen, she finally stood, stretching out her aching back. It must be nearly time anyway.
She slipped into the hallway, and her heart twisted as she passed her uncle’s room, his snoring a constant ebb and flow of noise, even through the closed door.
At one point in the night, after the tears had long dried on her cheeks, she had written him a note. A cowardly thing to do, she told herself again as she folded it in half. But not as cowardly as standing by while someone else worked to fix the problem you created. She had to go, she had to make this right.
She placed the note squarely on the floor in front of her uncle’s door, and lifted a hand to rest on the wooden door frame. She pictured his outrage at her desertion; guilt boiled her stomach at the thought of Harry having to hide the fact that she was gone, if anyone noticed.
Falcon might. Neve couldn’t believe she had thought of him as a friend, her first friend in a long time. As if being clumsy weren’t enough, she had always been inept with words, too; never knowing the right thing to say. And when she did speak, it always came out the wrong way. But Falcon had been nice to her; he seemed to like her, and her clumsiness. He said it was charming.
She brushed the thought of Falcon aside, and gave the villa one last miserable glance before she opened the back door, careful not to let it squeak.
She was relieved to find the Rider still in the small workroom, having thought she might leave without her, especially after Neve’s cowardice had shone through last night in front of the younger, braver girl. She had to make it right.
“Ready?” Sylvia whispered as she pulled on her shoulder pack.
Neve nodded. She was as ready as she would ever be. She had stocked a leather satchel with some clothes, and food she didn’t feel too guilty taking from the kitchen.
The pack hung from her shoulders like the new weight she bore in her heart.
Six
The streets of Lightcity were still barren in the early light, and Sylvia’s quick pass by the Scouts’ barracks told her they had not left yet, what with the amount of shouting their captain seemed to be laying on them.
She quickly returned to Neve, who stood in the shadow of a villa by the edge of the wall. The somewhat older girl had taken Sylvia aback last night with her show of emotion at the stories of Skycity’s treachery—and straight out shocked Sylvia when she demanded to accompany her.
But Neve’s resolve seemed authentic, and Sylvia couldn’t have stumbled across a more valuable font of information—just the information she was seeking, seconds after she had infiltrated Lightcity. Now she had a new mission.
They would follow the Scouts at a distance, careful to avoid their trained beasts, who would no doubt be protecting them through the wilds. Sylvia was sure they would lead her to the fifth city—the place that had drawn the eye of Greyling, and drawn his heart down into a place where he could justify enslaving and attacking his fellow cities. Sylvia was genuinely curious as to what was so special about the foreign city, and with any luck, she and Neve would find out.
Neve had suggested they use this part of Lightcity’s wall to make their departure. No one was allowed out of the city—what with the lies Greyling had spun to make them believe this was all in defense—so there was no getting out of the gates.
Sylvia studied the wall as she readied her rope, which had a multi-pronged hook at the end. Lightcity’s wall was built of stone and glass; the alternating bricks wove a pattern of smooth and coarse, light and dark. She had scaled it easily enough last night—until she was discovered, anyway.
With a glance over her shoulder—though Neve was supposed to be watching her back—she hurled the spike over the wall. Neve had brought her to a quiet industrial neighborhood, where she had promised they wouldn’t be noticed.
Sylvia gave a strong tug on the rope. With a grating noise, the hook stuck, anchored into rock on the other side. Sylvia looked back and waved Neve over, wanting the dark-haired girl to go first.
Neve’s eyebrows pinched together, but she took a steadying breath and came over. She grabbed the rope, pausing for a moment as she worked out how to get her feet up on the wall. Sylvia turned to face the street. Still empty.
After a few minutes, Neve hissed down to Sylvia, “What do I do now?” She had reached the top and sat with her legs on either side of the wall, holding the rope.
“Keep the tension on the rope, and then—well—jump,” Sylvia offered, keeping her voice from carrying any further than Neve’s ears.
The rope came down and Sylvia grabbed it, pulling to keep the tension on the hook. She watched Neve slip from the top of the wall, and heard her land seconds later on the other side. She could see vague shadows through the thick blocks of glass in the wall.
Sylvia was eager to get out of sight, and on with the mission. With one last glance over her shoulder, she swiftly placed foot after fo
ot on the wall, and was over and on the other side before the blink of an eye. She landed with a huff and caught her balance.
She pressed her eye to a glass block in the wall and tried to see if there was anyone in the alley. Through the thick glass she couldn’t make out any detail. She would have to assume they hadn’t been seen.
Neve was staring out at the wide open plain. With half a smile, Sylvia wondered if the older girl knew what she had gotten herself into.
“Let’s go,” the Rider said. “We need to get across the plain before the Scouts see us.”
“Now,” she barked, and broke into a run.
* * *
The ornate glass and stone gate of Lightcity sparkled in the mid-morning sun as the contingent of Scouts and their beasts finally marched out onto the plain.
Sylvia could hear their boisterous shouting and guffawing from where she and Neve crouched behind a scattering of bushes. The grassy plain that surrounded the city was a swath of grey that rippled in the slight breeze. Only a hint of green had begun to emerge now that winter was over.
Sylvia toyed with the dagger at her waist as she watched the Scouts head south. Then she held her breath as she saw the wolves and the mountain lions sniff the array of scents on the gust of wind that wove across the plain.
She pulled up the hood of her knit cowl to protect her ears from the stiff breeze, which still blew in the best direction as to hide their scent.
Neve sat crouched next to her, looking fierce for a girl who just last night decided to leave the safety of her city’s walls.
They watched in silence as the men slowly marched across the plain. As the Scouts became smaller and smaller in the distance, Sylvia saw some of the beasts bound off, free of their tethers, and she cringed. They would have to be very, very careful following them.
As the last Scout shrunk to a small dark pinprick on the plain, Sylvia and Neve stood. Sylvia reached up to the sky and stretched her muscles out; her back cried out in joy to be free from the cramped position that they had held for over an hour.
