It was near dawn when they reached the wide, cobblestone road drew a stark, uncompromising line between the squat, cobbled-together shelters of Paradise Hill and the white-washed brick of the Order’s opulent residential district. They lingered within the slum, tucked beneath a lopsided overhang made of what appeared to be shipping crates and a sheet of worn canvas. Two overturned buckets sat beneath canvas shelter, an ash-caked ceramic bowl between them. Mara sat on one of the two buckets and felt the echo of the usual inhabitants–two woman, sitting on the buckets, pipe smoke curling over their heads as they laughed together.
There was joy here, she knew.
Just not right now.
Eli sat on one of the buckets and so did she, and for a moment they both simply studied the cobblestone street, colored sickly yellow by the streetlamps that stood like sentries on the far side, spaced perfectly, every twenty strides, so that no shadow was allowed to creep in between them.
“The next guard should pass by soon,” Eli said. “We’ll need to move quickly. The Hive only opens at dawn.”
They weren’t far, Mara knew. Rather than cluster its officers together, the Order had spaced them out into a narrow ring that encircled the city, just inside the wall. “To stay connected with the people,” the outreach officers said. “To keep us from losing touch with what’s important.” But Mara knew, everyone capable of free thought knew that it was just another means of control. No part of the city was out of sight of the Order’s decision-makers. The crow’s nests jutting from the roof of each palatial townhome weren’t for show. They kept watch on the city within just as the towers along the outer wall kept watch on the farmland and forests without. One couldn’t leave the city without passing through the clean, well-lit streets of the officer’s quarters.
To reach The Hive—an enclave built into the outer wall—they had to walk those streets. There were no dark back alleys, no secret passages.
“How?” she asked. “We’ll be caught.”
“The guards travel in pairs, this far from the main gate, and nobody comes this way who doesn’t belong. Especially not after curfew”
“But there’s still guards.”
“I can handle two guards at a time. We just need to get past the main road.”
She wanted to argue, but his eyes flicked to her and her mouth fell shut.
They waited in silence. Nick began to stir, just as movement caught Mara’s eye, two shadows stretching across the cobblestones, bobbing as they lengthened. Her heart squeezed and stuttered, but Eli ducked his head and whispered something in her son’s ear and the boy subsided back into heavy sleep, hands curled into loose fists.
Odd, her brain insisted, but the thought went to tatters before she could grasp it, floating away like a dream.
Their hiding spot was too far back from the road, too masked in shadow for the guards to make them out, but she still felt exposed as the duo meandered into sight. They wore uniforms not unlike Eli’s—riding trousers, loose shirts, leather breastplates stamped with the Order’s stylistic torch. Their uniforms were crimson, though, designating their role as city guards. Eli and Davy wore brown, their jurisdiction beyond the wall rather than within it. The guards on the wall, she knew, wore gray, training officers green, and palace guards white. Everything in its place. Everything neat, distinct, orderly. Disorder begat chaos and chaos begat evil.
So claimed the Order.
The crimson-clad guards passed out of view, and a few heartbeats later Eli stood. “Stay close,” he whispered, and she nodded.
They crept to the edge of the light and hesitated there for a breath, listening, sensing. Then, without ceremony, Eli stepped out onto the street and Mara followed. Immediately, a sense of nakedness came over her and her muscles threatened to seize. She squinted against the light, her steps fumbling as she hurried in Eli’s wake. They were so exposed, whitewashed walls looming over them. A powerful, animal urge came over her, to snatch Nick from Eli’s arms and run back into the safety of the slums. She could build a decent life for them there. She had valuable skills. She could help people.
The curb on the far side of the street rose up and tripped her, and she’d have fallen if not for Eli’s hand gripping the strap of her rucksack.
“Stay sharp,” he whispered, and her mind immediately turned outward, senses peeled. Suspicion pricked at the back of her mind, but just as quickly as it rose she dismissed it. Eli didn’t have persuasive magic. He was just a healer, and a weak one at that. This strange effect he had on her tonight was a product of her own shock, not of magic. Or was that belief itself a result of persuasion?
She couldn’t parse through the mystery with so much of her mind sorting through outside stimuli. The pale yellow lamplight glancing off white-washed brick walls. The deafening shuffle of their footsteps in the expansive, polished silence, so different from the suffocating quiet of Paradise Hill. A townhouse loomed over them to the right, CAPT | WEST 1 stamped into a gilt plaque above the call bell. The house to their left, across the narrow street, bore a similar designation, this one stamped in silver. LIEUT | 1 WEST 2. Maria’s own home had a similar plaque, albeit smaller and made of copper. SERG | A 3 1 NORTH 2.
Eli stopped so suddenly she ran into him, her ears already capturing what he must have heard.
Footsteps. Just around the corner ahead of them.
They’d come too far to turn back to the darkness of the slum, and there was nowhere to hide. The homes were separated not by alleys but by thick stone walls, each block an unbroken square of houses arranged around a courtyard. By design, there were no safe nooks, no dark crannies, no back doors. There was no hiding so close to the wall.
With no good decision to make, Mara was surprised at how distinctly awful Eli’s managed to be.
After a split second of hesitation, he began walking forward, as if unbothered by their pending discovery. And, as if drawn by a leash, she followed.
Two gray-clad officers rounded the corner and slammed to a halt. They were roughly the same height, the same build, even their hair was the same dusty blond and cut the same way, close at the sides and longer on top. Only age and rank distinguished them. The one on the left was older, two stars glinting on his right lapel. The other’s sleeve bore two parallel lines. A lieutenant and a novice, probably returning from a night shift on the wall. Order officers weren’t permitted to wed or move about unaccompanied at night until they achieved true rank. Davy had married her one month after his promotion to sergeant.
“State your mission,” the lieutenant commanded, one hand resting on the pommel of his sword.
“Widow escort, sir,” Eli answered without pause. A core of truth to every lie. Tenant Three of the rebels’ code. “You heard about the skirmish.”
“Aye,” the novice answered eagerly. “Out Loftland gate. Awful.”
The lieutenant wasn’t quite so easily mollified. “They have Spec Healers running escort over there at North?”
“Not usually, no.” Eli reached back and clasped Mara’s hand, drawing her even with him. “Special circumstances, sir. The deceased was an old friend.”
For a moment, a fragile, hopeful moment, Mara thought they were safe. The lieutenant’s gaze passed over her face, a brief twist of sympathy in his expression as his posture eased, hand relaxing on the pommel of his sword. He drew a breath, and she felt the words forming on his tongue. “Carry on, then. Sympathies, ma’am.”
Then he froze, eyes growing sharp. Somehow, without any actual, perceptible movements, Eli edged in front of her. His grip on her hand flexed in warning.
“Where’s the widow headed, then?” the lieutenant asked.
“The Citadel.”
The lieutenant glanced pointed to his right–Mara and Eli’s left. Left of the direction they traveled. “Heading the wrong way for the Citadel aren’t you?”
Eli shrugged as best he could with one arm still occupied with Nick and the other hand tight on Mara’s. “There’s faster ways, sir, but she was already shaken by the news and the Ring Route’s safest by far.” Again, not exactly a lie. The Ring Route–this narrow band of Order billeting that encircled the city just within the wall–was the safest route. If, of course, one was on currently on the run from Order officers.
The lieutenant turned his attention to Mara, and she tried to look her part, tucking herself a little closer to Eli’s side. She didn’t have to dig deep for the fear she plastered deliberately over her expression. Though it had managed to escape her all night, sandwiched as she was between her confused grief and this unshakable, paradoxical calm, she had every reason to be more than frightened. She ought to be terrified.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
If the Order truly suspected Davy for a rebel, then they would come for her next. She’d be taken to interrogation, where the blood oath she’d sworn when she married Davy would spread its tendrils to her mind the moment they questioned her and erase every trace of their lives together from her brain. She’d be dead within days, tortured to her end over information she was no longer capable of giving.
Mara tucked herself yet closer to Eli as the lieutenant took a casual step to the right, the novice to the left. “Well, you’re right about that, specialist,” the lieutenant said. “But the incident out Loftland way was a North 2 unit, no? Your widow, there, should be quartered on the other side of town with the other North 2 families. Surely there were quicker routes than the one you’re on here.”
The problem with basing one’s lies on a strong core of truth was that the further one got from that truth the flimsier the structure became.
“She was visiting a friend, sir. She didn’t—”
“You’re looking a little rough, specialist. The ferals must have put up quite the fight.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Quite the fight.” The lieutenant exchanged a look with the novice. Tension coiled between Mara’s shoulders as both men adjusted their posture, the movement subtle but distinct, preparing for battle. “Report from Loftland gate claims no survivors from that skirmish.”
Eli’s hand tensed on hers again, an unintentional spasm this time.
The lieutenant took a step forward. “Tell you what, specialist. I’ll wrap up the escort for you, shall I?”
Mara had been in the dark since the moment Eli knocked on her door, but she knew one thing for certain. If she went with the lieutenant, she wouldn’t be escorted to the Citadel for her widow’s due. She would be escorted to a dungeon.
She knew. To the Depths, she knew.
Before she could react—scream, run, fight—Nick’s warm body was transferred to her keeping and her arms wrapped instinctively around him.
“You know the way,” Eli said.
She did. She’d lived in this city her whole life, and the Hive was no obscure little hidey-hole. She didn’t know exactly where she was, but she knew enough to find her way to a landmark so unmissable.
“Yes,” she answered.
“Stay behind me. If this goes south, you run.”
The novice laughed. Even the lieutenant cracked a grin. Healers were trained alongside other Order officers up to the level of novice, but received no further training outside their field and weren’t generally known for their fighting acumen. It was why they never promoted past the rank of specialist, their skills deemed ancillary to the Order’s mission, their opinions unnecessary at the decision-making level. Mara didn’t share their amusement, but she did share their incredulity. Eli couldn’t possibly be planning to fight these two. The lieutenant no doubt had more skill, the novice more youthful strength.
“Eli—”
“Stay behind me, Mara.”
The lieutenant gave a nod as he stepped wide into the street and the novice advanced up the sidewalk, twin rings accompanying the flash of polished steel as they pulled their swords. Mara stepped back. Eli stepped forward, dagger suddenly in his hand. He didn’t carry a sword. Healers never carried swords.
“Eli—”
She blinked and the novice leapt forward. Blinked again and the lieutenant darted in from the side. Stumbled backward, blinked again, and the novice was on the ground, sword clattering to the stones beside him. Blinked again and the lieutenant dropped to his knees, clutching his belly.
She blinked. Blinked. Breathed. The air smelled metallic. Rusty. Her son hadn’t even twitched. Her arms ached. When had Nick gotten so big?
The novice gurgled, blood bubbling from a narrow slice in his throat. His bloody hands clasped at the wound and pink froth spilled from his mouth. The lieutenant groaned and collapsed onto his side, clutching a wrist so badly broken his hand danged backwards, fingers spasming. Eli stepped forward, kicked his sword away, and tipped him onto his back with a boot on his shoulder. Then he knelt, one knee pressed to the man’s chest, and gripped his chin.
“Stay awake.” His words were born on effortless command, no edge of question to them. No doubt they’d be obeyed. The lieutenant’s sagging eyelids lifted. “The widow Swift died in the fire,” Eli said, and Mara blinked, confused. She hadn’t died, and she didn’t remember a fire. Although…. Driven by curiosity, she turned her back on the scene before her, looking the way they’d come. It was hard to make out, bright as the lights were here, dark as the sky was beyond.
But there. Over the formless lump of Paradise Hill, a small spiral of smoke rose against the gray sky of the rising dawn.
She knew. To the Depths, she knew. Her home was gone.
She turned back as the lieutenant dipped his chin in a shallow nod. “Tell me what happened,” Eli said, and his victim’s eyes glazed.
“The widow Swift died in the fire,” he mumbled.
“Who did you see here tonight?”
“Only you,” the man gasped.
“What happened to the widow Swift?”
“Died,” the man breathed, eyelids flickering, “in the fire.”
“Who did you see here tonight?”
Mara took a step back, realization dawning slow but strong. Eli doesn’t have persuasive magic. She’d have known. Davy would have told her.
Unless Davy had been persuaded not to.
“Only you,” the lieutenant whispered.
“What happened to the widow Swift?”
“She died in the fire.”
“Good. Go to sleep now, sir. You must be exhausted.”
As if his strings had been cut, the lieutenant’s body went suddenly, completely limp.
As if her own strings had been yanked, Mara’s body went suddenly, completely taut.
Nick’s unnatural deep sleep. Her own unnatural calm. The way her limbs had seemed to move without her command every time she’d hesitated to follow along with Eli’s plan. Not shock.
Magic.
This man–this liar–had dragged her around all night like a puppet, and she had just let him. She’d let him carry her son! He’d burned her house down! Was anything true? Was Davy really dead, or was this just some Order ploy? But then why fight the Order officer? She hugged Nick’s limp body tighter to her chest. What had he done to her son?
As if sensing the sudden surge of her emotions, Eli shot to his feet and spun.
“Mara,” he said softly, holding out a bloody hand, dagger still clasped in the other. “I know what you’re thinking. But we don’t have time.”
“You—”
“I’m sorry.” He truly looked it too, haggard face twisting with regret even as his eyes sharpened, capturing hers before she could think to look away. “Stay calm, Mara. Trust me.”
She tried to fight the calm, but she had no defenses, no shields. Davy’s shields were meant to protect her from persuasion, but Eli’s slid through them like water through cheesecloth.
Of course she trusted him. He was Davy’s friend, a trusted fellow rebel. And he’d just saved her from two Order officers. Whatever secrets he kept, he kept them for the sake of the rebellion. Her shoulders relaxed as calm oozed from the crown of her head, dripping like warm honey down the back of her neck, stroking the column of her spine.
“Let’s go.”
The novice gurgled faintly as they passed him, but his hands had fallen to the side, a broad puddle of blood spreading out around his head like a halo. He’d be dead before help reached him.
Eli moved quickly, but Mara didn’t struggle to keep up, her blood humming in her veins, her body hot, limbs loose. Even with Nick in her arms, she kept pace, dogging Eli’s heels as they darted first left, then right, then left again, passing rows of identical white brick buildings. They were one block from the wall. She sensed it, though she couldn’t see it, some invisible map in her brain sketching the looming stone monstrosity just over the roof of the townhouse to her right.
“Last stretch,” Eli said as they approached another intersection. “When we turn, heads down and make for the gates. Give me Nick.”
Her arms extended, and rather than cradle her son in his arms as he had all night, Eli draped him over a shoulder.
“When we turn, heads down,” he said, this time holding her gaze.
“When we turn, heads down,” she echoed.
They reached the corner and turned right, and the doors to the Hive loomed solid, blinding white against the dark granite of the wall. She could just make out the bubble of the domed roof beyond. The Hive protruded like a glistening tumor from the eastern portion of the wall, an apt symbol of its relationship with the Order. The Keepers of Truth were outside the law but inextricably bound to the city those laws governed.
The gates to the Hive cracked open in greeting just as a shout echoed from high up to the right. Mara ducked her head as she’d been instructed. Twin watchtowers bookended the Keepers’ sanctuary. The Order might not be able to control what happened within the marble walls, but it could monitor who passed through the doors. It couldn’t assault the Hive, and rarely assaulted those who dared approach it–but there was always the possibility. One those watchtowers forbade anyone from forgetting.
A voice called down from the watchtower to the right, the words indistinguishable, the tone unmistakable. A warning.
“Faster,” Eli murmured, unslinging Nick from his shoulder.
Head ducked, the nape of her neck tingling, Mara strode faster across the exposed area.
“Mara, run.”
She stumbled into a run just as the first arrow shattered against the stones ahead of them. The Order never assaulted those who approached the Hive. Technically they could, but they never did.
Another arrow exploded into splinters just ahead of her, and she didn’t need Eli’s prompting to run harder, arms pumping, boots pounding against the cobblestones. She raised her face to see the gates, the gap between them just wide enough for a single person to pass through. They were so close. Twenty strides. Fifteen.
Fire. Cold fire, like the white-hot bolts that carried thunder down from storm clouds, raced down her arm, up her neck, the epicenter of the pain just above her left breast. She cried out. Stumbled.
Before she could hit the ground, something yanked at her pack, drawing the straps tight. Another shock of pain flashed through her and her vision went white. She heard herself cry out, hoarse and pained, but couldn’t feel the sound leave her throat. She was numb. Numb but for the pain.
Her feet left the ground as one, some divine force lifting her, thrusting her forward through the gap in the white doors. She flew for a heartbeat, glided through air, and then her feet caught on something—the ground—and she fell into red-tinged darkness.