by Sharon Hinck
Brantley ran to the front door of the inn and peered into the street. “Too late.” He scanned the room. “Upstairs?”
The cook waddled to the stairway and crossed her arms. “Oh, no you don’t. Worse for me if they find you in one of my rented rooms.”
Heavy thumps sounded on the door across the alley, and deep voices demanded entry. Metal scraped, and in the distance a baby wailed and was quickly hushed.
Brantley ran to the dining hall’s cold fireplace and stepped into the wide hearth, staring upward. “Here. Climb.”
Brianna didn’t hesitate. She lifted Nolana, and the girl somehow disappeared upward. With a boost from Brantley, Brianna followed. How had they done that?
He beckoned to me. The splintering of wood and a woman’s startled cry from next door propelled me to Brantley’s waiting arms. Above me, uneven stone climbed to the chimney’s crown. The silhouettes of Nolana and her mother stood out against the early dawn light. Nolana had found enough footholds to scramble up, while Brianna moved more slowly, bracing her back against one side and her feet against the other.
Brantley linked his hands. I placed my foot in the makeshift stirrup and let him hoist me high enough to grip an outcropping stone inside the chimney. Greasy soot coated every surface and years of acrid ash choked my nostrils. My feet grappled for purchase on the slick stone.
I made my way up until I was even with Brianna. Our backs pressed against opposite sides of the chimney, and I was grateful for the strength of my legs that wedged me securely in place. But were we high enough to give Brantley room to hide, and who would boost him?
Beneath us a chair scraped. He stepped up from its seat and grunted as he hefted himself high enough to be out of sight of the approaching soldiers. The chair scraped again, disappearing as the cook shoved it back to a table.
Fists pounded the front door, and the cook grumbled. “Hey, what’s all this noise? My guests pay for a good night’s rest.”
“We have orders to search every building,” one of the men said. “Stand aside.”
The cook’s voice faded as she moved toward the kitchen. “Well, be quick about it. My porridge is burning.”
I scarcely dared to breathe as booted feet tromped throughout the inn and then mounted the stairs. Doors crashed open, voices rose and fell with questions and demands. Their heavy-footed search made the whole inn shake.
One of Brianna’s feet skidded, and a bit of ash loosened and fell to the hearth below. I wrapped an arm under her leg to give her more support. The edge of a brick dug into my back, and my thighs cramped with the effort of holding my position. Nolana had climbed enough to poke her head out the top of the chimney. The modest inn suddenly seemed as dizzyingly tall as the Order tower. I was grateful our bodies created a net that could catch Nolana if she fell. Unless her weight pushed us all down to the ground.
“Are you done yet?” the cook called as footfalls stomped down the steps. “What’s all this about?”
“A dancer went missing. Have you seen one?”
I drew in a silent gasp, and my legs quivered. They weren’t after Nolana. They were looking for me.
“Ha! What would one of them be doing, flitting around in town? They keep to themselves, they do,” the cook answered.
I wanted to kiss her flour-smudged face. I also silently thanked the darkness of the chimney that kept me from seeing Brianna’s expression. As Brantley had feared, I’d complicated the rescue. I pressed my head back against the grimy stone, guilt squeezing my throat.
The soldiers moved on, and still we held our cramped positions. Finally the cook called from below. “They’ve gone.”
Brantley sprang to the ground.
“Nolana,” I called softly. “You can come down now.”
A hiss sounded from Brianna. “That’s not her name.”
“I’m sorry. What’s her true name?”
“None of your business, dancer.” The sneering word held weeks of pent-up resentment.
We inched our way down the chimney, where Brantley assisted us to the hearth.
Blinking in the light of the dining hall, I brushed soot from my hands. My cloak and leggings were coated with the stuff, too. As streaked and filthy as my soul felt. I’d been an eager and faithful part of the Order that was harming our world, and now even my effort to leave had further endangered the others.
The cook stood near the foot of the stairs, waving a few sleepy customers back up to their rooms. “I’ll ring when breakfast is ready. Go away with you. Excitement’s over.”
Again, I wanted to thank her for protecting us, until she turned her angry visage toward us. “You four. Get out now.”
Brantley fumbled in a pocket for more tokens, but the cook pinched her face into a threatening stare. “You don’t have coin enough for me to risk everything. Get out or I’ll call the soldiers back myself.”
Brianna held her daughter to her chest. Dark rivulets lined the path of tears down her face as she turned to Brantley. “What now?”
He pulled fingers through his hair, the blond curls darkened by layers of soot. “We have to hide somewhere. We’ll go back the direction they’ve already searched.” Even though Brianna waited hopefully for his next idea, he looked confounded, weary, even fearful.
I had to find a way to help. This was all my fault. “I have an idea.”
Frowns turned my way, except from Nolana, who offered an encouraging smile of trust. “My friend works for the tender. She could hide us.”
As a testament to how desperate he felt, Brantley didn’t argue. “I know the place.”
He cajoled a few saltcakes from the cook, then led us out into the streets. The first sun was fully risen now, and its brightness felt like a threat. Running, ducking, hiding breathless in dark alcoves, we listened for the sounds of soldiers or even alert shopkeepers or tradesmen who might give us away. Eventually we made our way to the stables. The tender hadn’t risen yet, and the ponies seemed unimpressed with our presence as we crept inside. A few blew breathy greetings or shook their heads making manes fly. We made for the far end of the stable, climbed a pile of hay and burrowed in at the back, hoping no pitchfork would find us when the tender fed his steeds.
“So where is your friend?” Brantley’s breath tickled against my ear.
“She’ll be here.” I hoped. My suggestion led them here, and now Starfire wasn’t at work. Would my effort to help be a complete failure?
Brantley put a protective arm around Brianna, shooting an accusing glare at me. “Are you sure she won’t betray us?”
“I’m not sure of anything anymore,” I said quietly. I sagged, hugging my knees. As my breathing slowed back to normal, energy bled from my muscles like blood from a wound. This idea was all I had to offer. My own safety was no longer important. I had to help the others escape Middlemost. The aggressive search through town was my fault. “Maybe I should turn myself in. Perhaps they’ll stop the search.”
“What would they do to you?” Brantley asked, a little too eager to consider the suggestion.
Hobble me? Send me out to the center ground over and over until I went mad? Throw me down a hidden well to disappear in the deep ocean?
“They kill the bad ones,” Nolana said, her wispy, innocent voice so wrong for the dark words she shared. “The prefect told me.”
I bit my lip. “He was trying to scare you. I’m sure they don’t . . .” No, I wasn’t sure of anything. Only that we were in danger, that my entire world had turned upside down, that everything I’d taken pride in was now a source of shame. “Let’s focus on getting you and your mother away from here.”
Brantley plucked a piece of straw from my hair, his teeth flashing in the dimness of our stable hiding place. He seemed to find me a source of humor, an object of mockery. I couldn’t blame him. Surely, I looked ridiculous.
When he focused on his sister and niece, his expression turned serious. “I’ve enough tokens to rent a pony. Bri, you’ll be able to reach Windswell well ahead of a
ny searchers.”
“What about you?” Brianna asked him.
“I’ll head a different direction and lead them away from you.”
Which left me on my own. How long could Starfire hide me in the stables—if she ever showed up, and if she was even willing? And once I found a way out of Middlemost, where would I go?
The clang of a bucket outside hushed us into tense silence. Light flickered over us as the stable door creaked open. I wished I dared stand and peek over the haystack to see who had entered, but I couldn’t risk it.
Grain whispered into troughs. Ponies snorted. “You’re hungry this morning, Ablehoof.” Starfire laughed.
Relief washed over me, and I eased to my feet. Starfire was making her way toward us, and there was no sign of the tender.
“Star,” I hissed.
She startled and dropped her bucket, then squinted into the shadows where I stood. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”
I clambered over the hay and slid to the floor in front of Starfire. “It’s me. Calara. I need your help.”
She grasped her chest and gave a relieved laugh. “You scared me worse than a saltar on test day. What are you doing here? And why”—her gaze coasted over me head to toe—“do you look like that?”
I brushed stable grime from my tunic, only spreading the smudges. “It’s a long story. I have friends who need help.”
Brantley emerged, and Star’s eyes grew rounder.
“I need to rent a pony,” he said. “I have the coin.”
Star backed away a few steps, shaking her head. “The tender handles those transactions. You’ll have to wait until he wakes.”
I reached out to Starfire. “Remember the girl in first form I was worried about? She was stolen from her family to be brought to the Order. He’s trying to help her and her mother get away.”
Starfire rubbed her forehead. “A few weeks ago I wouldn’t have believed the Order would take a child against her will. Was anything we were told the truth?”
Tears caught in my throat. “I haven’t figured that out yet.”
Starfire closed the distance between us and hugged me. “Maybe I can help. The tender is probably sleeping off another night of drinking. If your friend pays enough, he may not care that I helped a customer on my own.” She tossed back her auburn mop of hair and grinned at Brantley. “You protected me on my walks back to the Order in the evenings. I owe you. Ablehoof is the fastest we have.”
“Thank you.” Brantley dipped his chin.
“Are you sure you won’t get in trouble?” I asked Starfire. She’d been a true friend throughout the years. Could I bear even more guilt if she suffered because of helping us? Why did all my choices seem to bring others pain?
Lines around her eyes tightened, accentuating the dark circles, but she hid it with a short laugh. “I studied at the Order. Think I can’t manage a drunken old tender?”
Brantley didn’t allow time for me to wrestle with misgivings. He paid her a generous amount, got Brianna and her daughter settled, stocked a saddlebag with supplies, and led them out of the stable. While he was giving them directions for the best route out of Middlemost, I huddled with Starfire in the stable, absently stroking the warm muzzle of a dappled pony.
“When I left for work this morning, there were soldiers at the Order. Big ruckus.” Star frowned and nudged me. “It’s you they’re looking for, isn’t it?”
“Perhaps.” The enormity of my choice to flee rolled through me, leaving hopelessness in its wake. The soft jangle of tack and muted clopping of hooves faded into the distance, and my heart sent a wish for Nolana’s safety.
Brantley strode back into the stable. He shook his head, sending up a cloud of straw dust. “With the pony they’ll reach help sooner. You may have actually had a good idea this time, dancer.”
“Don’t call me that.” My voice broke. I wasn’t a dancer. I wasn’t a novitiate. I wasn’t even a worker like Starfire. I’d run from my role, the role I’d prepared for all my life. Now I was nothing.
Brantley leaned against the stable doorframe and crossed his arms. The streaks of soot and dirt didn’t look as harsh against his coarse, travel-worn clothes as they did on mine. His sturdy boots, longknife in his belt, sack of supplies, and strong jaw all spoke of confidence and strength. Unlike me, he knew who he was and where he belonged.
He sighed, gaze raking over me. “Now, what are we going to do about you?”
Two days later, punishing rain beat down on Brantley and me, soaking through my cloak. Although it was midday, clouds blocked both suns and created a gloom like a shuttered chamber. The ground roiled unpredictably under my feet, nothing like the subtle shifts of the Order’s grounds. I struggled to avoid falling.
Ahead of me, Brantley sprang over a large fallen tree and tromped forward at a relentless pace. I struggled over the trunk, tangling in the long, narrow skirt of my peasant garb.
“I can’t move in this,” I muttered, missing the freedom of the tunic and leggings I’d worn most of my life. The wind cast my words forward for Brantley to hear.
“You should be grateful Starfire found you a disguise,” he tossed over his shoulder without slowing.
I was grateful. Grateful for her help and his. Even though I’d complicated his rescue of Nolana, ultimately he was too kindhearted to leave me behind. After he sent his sister and niece safely on their way, he let me accompany him as he fled the town a different direction. We crisscrossed pastures and forests, stopping only for quick drinks or a bite of saltcake. His plan was working. The soldiers struggled to follow our trail.
The hard pace hadn’t bothered me, but the raw earth and open spaces made my stomach churn. Trees and underbrush grew in haphazard clusters so different from the tidy arrangement of the cultivated stone beds in the Order’s gardens. Everything was foreign. Nature was wild and fierce and uncontrolled.
Today’s thunder reinforced that impression as it grumbled downward. Pine trees shook like wet hounds, flinging more water into our faces. In the past two days, the weather seemed to attack us at every turn. Was the High Saltar ordering the dancers to produce storm patterns to punish me for leaving? Or was the Order’s ability to shape the weather another lie and this was simply a normal hardship of traveling in the wild? If only I knew what to believe.
“Stay here,” Brantley said.
I dragged my gaze upward, dashing raindrops from my face and tucking wet strands of hair under the equally wet hood of my cloak. Brantley waited beside a low outcropping of jagged stone. I hurried under the small shelter, crouching to escape the downpour. “I need to check how close the patrol is,” he said, then disappeared before I could protest.
Why risk stumbling into the middle of armed soldiers? Brantley was far too reckless. Surely we’d kept our pursuers busy long enough with our circuitous route. Wasn’t a steady pace rimward the best plan now?
Even if Brantley had waited for my response, I wouldn’t have raised those queries. Years as a novitiate had taught me unquestioning obedience. The attitude served me well traveling with the landkeeper. Brantley’s earlier exasperation and reluctance toward me had mellowed into grudging tolerance because I refused to slow his pace or complain.
Except about this wretched dress. I hiked up the hem to wring water from it, a futile effort when everything I wore was soaked.
Footsteps sounded nearby. That was fast. Perhaps Brantley had decided not to venture too far back in this miserable weather.
I was about to call out to him, but men’s voices and heavy footsteps stopped me. Cold dread clenched all my muscles, and I crouched even lower in the rocky alcove, trembling in the effort to hold still.
“I’m telling you, we’ve lost her trail,” one man said, so near I could hear him brushing rain off his leather-clad arms.
“I’m not telling the High Saltar that,” said another.
“But she could be anywhere in the wide world. For all we know the dancer could still be hiding in Middlemost.” The man�
�s voice took on a whine like an untrained first-form child. “What’s so special about this one, anyway? We bring the Order new girls all the time. So what if a few run off?”
“Dunno, but Saltar High and Mighty sure has a nettle in her backside about this one.”
Leather creaked and their steps moved back the way they’d come. Their retreat could be a ruse to draw me out, so I pulled farther back under the stone, trying to shape my body into the rock, to dissolve into it like salt into dough. I would never leave this haven. I’d hide here until I grew old and gray.
They won’t take me back. They won’t take me.
I squeezed my eyes shut, only to confront images of the outcomes I feared most: soldiers dragging me back through the doors of the Order, a sharp knife cutting my tendon as Tiarel smiled, being forced out onto the central ground while the voice of the world thundered and condemned me.
I shrank into a tighter ball. Why was I even running? I had nowhere to go. Nowhere to belong. I was only delaying the inevitable. The cold stone offered no comfort, and my body trembled.
Minutes or hours later, Brantley found me shaking uncontrollably in the crevice. He peered into the darkness. “You all right? Dancer?”
He’d never bothered to call me Calara. The rare times he spoke to me, he called me ‘dancer,’ in a tone that made the title sound like a curse. This time, though, his voice held only concern. My throat clogged and my eyes burned. I couldn’t speak.
His hand thrust toward me, and I recoiled.
He eased as far under the outcropping as he could. The warmth of his body reached out to me like a comforting fireplace.
Still, I couldn’t stop shivering.
“They’ve gone,” he crooned. “Let’s move. Now’s our chance to lose them for good.”
I nodded, but my limbs wouldn’t unlock.
He placed a cautious hand on my shoulder. When I didn’t flinch away, he rubbed small circles and made tsking sounds that reminded me of Ginerva comforting me after an exhausting rehearsal.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I wouldn’t have left you if I’d known they were so close. Gave you a start, did they?”
