Kess practically ran down the dim hallway into the fading light of the evening. She passed two bored guards who watched the swirling clouds overhead, and made her way down the busy street. Only when she was several blocks away did she allow herself to feel any sense of relief.
I did it. I convinced Mattes. It was unbelievable. Kess had never been good with people, but it seemed like Fanas herself smiled on Kess that evening. She breathed deeply of the night air as she walked, the weather swirling and cloudy but with none of the dampness of a Floodstorm or the violence of a Lightstorm. Mattes was taken care of, but that left her with a distinct problem: tomorrow night she would fight a Fulminancer. If she won, it would mean her freedom. Kess didn’t know what lay beyond Hillcrest, but it had to be better than this running, this hiding.
If she lost it would mean her life.
She tried not to think about that part as she approached the edge of the city. It was something she was fairly good at after all these years, though tonight was not a good night for forgetting. She’d have to visit Draven to let him know, but first—
"Kess?” Bolair’s voice echoed down the stairwell where Kess climbed, though she couldn’t see him yet. The city wall was several stories high, and Kess was still close to the bottom, but Bolair had a knack for hearing noises well out of range of normal human hearing. Maybe that’s why he was picked for wall guard duty, she thought.
“It’s me,” she called up the staircase as she climbed.
“Lot’s only gone for another few minutes, so you’d better hurry.” His voice was tinny and unnatural around the stone, and as Kess emerged from the stairwell, the lanky youth shuffled his feet a little as he stared out beyond Hillcrest.
Kess joined him at the wall, momentarily stunned. Clouds crept away from the mountain, thick, swirling, and almost solid even as they nudged up against the city wall. There was land down there supposedly, but Kess had never seen it.
“Is there more out there?” she asked, voice quiet. Bolair yawned next to her, spear leaning against a nearby wall.
“If there is I’ve never seen it,” he said. “The clouds never clear, so you either get to watch them while wet or dry. Makes no sense to me why we watch them at all.”
“Hillcrest gets visitors, though,” Kess pointed out. There had been a few in her childhood at least, though it was a small bunch.
“Not enough to watch for them if you ask me,” Bolair said. His eyes settled on the horizon where an obscured sun began to sink below the clouds. “Anyway you’ve got maybe ten minutes before Lot’s back from lunch. I’d get to talking if I were you.”
“I’ve got it taken care of,” Kess said, unable to hide her grin. “Mattes agreed to pay the full amount, so you’ll have what we agreed upon— and more.”
Bolair said nothing, his eyes still on the horizon. The man was odd sometimes— not quiet exactly, but contemplative, and never in a rush. Kess had spoken to him perhaps a dozen times, but something felt off about him tonight.
“What?” she finally asked, grin falling away. He shuffled for another moment with his feet, and inspected a patch of stone on the wall.
“Things have changed, Kess,” he said. “It’s not just about whether it’s dangerous for you or me anymore. The Uphill sent out a proclamation yesterday— they want anyone without a Fulminant sash barred from leaving the city. It’s too dangerous, supposedly.”
He pulled a cigar from his pocket and lit it on a nearby torch, puffing a cloud of smoke that joined those below. Kess shook her head, slowly.
“It’s always been dangerous,” she said. “Why would they change it now?”
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Bolair shrugged, drawing on the cigar again. “Beats me. I don’t make the rules. But that gold you promised?” He shook his head. “Not going to be enough anymore. Smuggling you out was bad enough, but doing it right after they’ve changed the rules is worse. Can’t afford to lose wall guard duty.”
“I thought you didn’t even like wall guard duty,” Kess said, unbelieving. Bolair sighed and turned to look at her, his eyes sleepy.
“Just because I don’t show enjoyment in the same way that you might doesn’t mean I don’t like it,” he said. “It’s quiet up here. People leave me alone— until you came along, anyway.”
He regarded her for a moment more, then puffed his cigar smoke into her face. “Look, you want out? Get a Fulminant sash. Shouldn’t be hard with that. Clouds, I don’t think they could deny you at that point.”
“I’m not Fulminant,” Kess said immediately. “Someone would catch me with an invalid sash even if I was lucky enough to steal one. It’s not like swapping out the Dud sashes.”
“I wasn’t suggesting that you steal,” he said, solemn eyes back on her. “Earn one the old fashioned way. You’re good enough. You’ve got that fight coming up tomorrow, right? Show her that the Downhill doesn’t need Fulminancy to win.”
Bolair turned back to the wall, the glow of his cigar blooming into life along with the other lights of the city. As he let out another breath, Kess tried to quell the sensation that her chances of escape were drifting away like the smoke on the breeze.
“I— I’ll think about it,” she said, then hurried away from the man. She was rewarded with another shrug as she passed him and descended into the dark stairwell below.
What am I going to do now? She tried to keep her face straight as she gave a therapy parlor a wide berth, even as the shopkeep tried to wave her inside, likely noting her bruises and slight limp. She swore she could feel the Fulminancy crackling within.
Her deal with Bolair had been her only reasonable way out of the city. Normal citizens didn’t leave, and Kess certainly wouldn’t be chosen for any sort of diplomatic mission outside of Hillcrest. I don’t even remember anyone leaving in my lifetime, she thought. A clawing, panicked sensation welled up inside of her, but she forced it aside. I’ll figure out something, she thought. Something not involving a Fulminant sash.
Kess stuck to the edge of the city, keeping to the shadows. That thing followed her as usual from the rooftops, a tiny zipping light in the corner of her vision. It was one more reason she needed to leave. She couldn’t protect her brother or Draven from something like that. Clouds, she wasn’t even sure she could protect herself from whatever that was.
Tonight, however, the Shadow seemed content just to follow her, so she let it. She’d tried to slip it before with no luck. Best to simply let it be, whatever it was.
As twilight fell and the glowing amber lights of the Downhill came alive with lit fuel, Kess made her way up a set of steps set into a hillside. Here, trees grew over a series of rolling hills, and the plateau was higher than most of the lower city, though still firmly within the Dawnring. Piles of rocks decorated the ground, and Kess picked her way over the grass towards a tree at the very edge of the terrace overlooking the mountains. In the distance, a lake sparkled through the clouds, barely visible. And at her feet, two piles of small, unassuming rocks poked out from near the base of the tree.
The Shadow crouched on a nearby building, presumably watching. Let it watch, Kess thought. There was no point in hiding what she was doing anyway. She pulled two small glass globes from her pocket and lit the two small candles inside with a match from her pocket. Many Hillcrest citizens used Fulminancy to light these, but Kess couldn’t think of anything less personal than that eerie light that destroyed nearly everything it touched. Instead, hers glowed a pleasant amber— the same as the lamp fuel throughout the city. She nestled them into the piles of rock and settled back against a nearby tree, watching the golden glow in the blue twilight. The glass prevented her candles from being blown out, and she watched that twinkling light as the sun set over the mountains, leaving her in the dusk with the two mounds.
She gathered her locket into her hands, feeling the metal warm her skin as the flames shied away, then tucked it beneath her shirt. The sun sank behind the cloudy horizon, the wind blew, and Kess stared at those two lights, fighting the screams she heard in her head until the candles snuffed out, drowning in their own wax, a whisper in the night, and then nothing.