I saw the dark masses of the temples and mausoleums as I came down the bridge. Lamp light was scant, but there were splashes of color in the wet darkness where candlelight pressed out of the colored glass windows. I moved low across the street and scaled a wall to come down in a graveyard. Lightning struck one of the ancient temple towers and the sound of the thunder rattled off the walls.

I headed through the graveyard towards the looming cathedral on its far side, taking paths I found in silver flashes, that existed the rest of the time only in memory. The short headstones around me were draped in dense foliage, and it grabbed my feet as I passed them in the darkness. There were trees everywhere, dripping rain and flicking it out when the wind hit them. Their branches wove sideways above the ground, like black rivers gathering still darkness in their coils. The trees got larger and wider as I got closer to the cathedral. These were great oaks, clan trees planted over the grave of a patriarch and his kin. I wondered what tree they would bury her under, or if they would scatter her ashes to the river.

The branches gave way to odd spaces of open sky where rain fell through onto flat concrete slabs, the grave markers of trees cut down to signify a lineage purged in the revolution. I stepped over a slab that was wide enough for two carriages to cross, its surface still as smooth as the day it was poured. The sky flashed in a blue glow and the cathedral lit up in front of me.

I swung my pack down and took the knives off my body and placed them inside. I knew the caps would ask the sages and elders about anyone who had come looking for sanctuary, but I also knew the clerics liked giving the caps info about as much as they liked giving their lands up to the state in the first place. The caps knew this, so they would just send some plainclothes guys in to search the sanctuaries themselves. I would have to be gone by then.

I reached inside the recessed square in the stone next to the door and found the string. I pulled lightly and could hear the bell through the door and just over the noise of the storm.

Rainwater talked on its way down the stone gutters that had listened for centuries. All around the sounds were made of water and shaped like leaves and stone. Thunder off in the distance reminded me of the expanse of the city, and light smeared on the high branches by lightning miles away reminded me that death was in the air. It felt like the world was closing in around me, and I was almost in the mood to let it have me.

The locks and latches scraped behind the door and I bowed my head in preparation. Warm air rolled out at me as the door opened and I felt just how cold I was. There was a bit of lamplight behind the woman and she held a small candle in a colored glass cup in her hand.

“What do you need, child?” her voice was warmer than the indoor air.

“Shelter, lady. I have lost my home for want of money.”

“Are you armed, child?”

“No, lady.”

“It’s dangerous to walk here unarmed. There have been robberies right up to the walls.” Her words were slightly taunting, in a motherly sort of way.”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Pray, allow me within the walls then, gentle mother.”

A smile rippled under her face.

“Come in, child.”

I did and stood in a small entry room. It was cramped and there was thick straw on the floor, cloaks on hooks and walking sticks and a few garden tools on the walls over a few large chests in a line. The woman pointed to one of them as I took my boots off.

“If you have any weapons you forgot about you can store them in here.”

Not like a knife would do me much good if the caps found me anyway. I set my bag inside one and we went into the main apartment.

The air still had fragments of incense that hadn’t been smothered by the wood smoke from the hearth. The ceiling was high and the loft above fell back into shadow. There were simple chairs and tables for reading and the whole room was sparsely decorated but the intricate stonework cut sharp shadows everywhere.

The woman opened a door on the far side of the room. Inside was just a bed and a small nightstand with a platter of splattered candles. She went in and lit one from a lamp she had picked up in the larger room then turned to me.

“I'll bring you some water. Have you eaten?”

“Yes, mother. I'll sleep now, water can wait till morning, good night.”

She shook her head. “Dark dreams come when you sleep in a dry room.” She brought in a pitcher and cup from the main room, filled the cup and left both on the table.

“Sleep safely, child.” She kissed my cheek and floated out. The door seemed to close itself out of respect. I had thought the “sleep safely” nightly blessing odd when I was a child (what trouble could I get into while sleeping?) but now it seemed a solemn prayer. I put my jacket on the floor, got in bed and was about to pinch the candle out when old superstition got the better of me. I drank the cup of water and poured another before putting the candle out and trying to let sleep take me.

It took its time. Ethelyn’s face flashed before me, alive, then dead. She had been bringing me a name, a name I hadn’t pressed her hard enough for at the café. Marston saw her at the door and that was it. I thought about the things he did to her and how it would feel to peel his skin off. I had to tear my mind away and think about the sound of the rain outside. The sounds slithered under my focus until I pressed my mind against them. Eventually, I fell asleep.

I was walking down the streets of Throne looking for Liana. I knew I was being hunted. I could feel someone watching me but every time I looked there was no one but people and nothing but the same old buildings. The thing watching me knew my thoughts and was angry at me. It wanted me to find Liana so it could get to her. I pretended I was looking for Ethelyn instead but it didn’t work. The thing in my head showed me her dead face and laughed.

I ran and the laughter died away. I looked around and found I was in a different part of town and the suns were setting. It was a strange neighborhood, where buildings of all kinds huddled at the street faces. Ancient manors, republican towers, feudal walled homes. Something flew by me, a flash of red. I followed it and it led me to the inn. I watched it fly up and land on the edge of the window and chirp. I knew Liana was there.

I went inside and up the stairs. There were people, but when I looked at their faces the features fell away as if my memory of them was being destroyed even as it was created. I stopped at the door and I knew it was different.

It was brighter than it should have been and didn’t match the others in the hall. It looked like the door to the bedroom I shared with my brother as a child. I felt the knob in my hand and something in how the metal felt let me realize I was dreaming. I knew that on the other side of the door was something outside the dream.

The Complex. Going through the door would open me up to a kind of danger I couldn’t imagine or understand, but I was sick of moving blind. I remembered, hazily, the events of the days before. I had nothing to go on. I was a fugitive. If the complex took my mind so be it. I opened the door.