Alize and Kell walked in the opposite direction of Parousia’s main gate. Catching Alize’s questioning look, Kell acknowledged her unspoken question, “There are a hundred ways in and out of the old city, and most of them aren’t guarded by the prince’s soldiers. We’ll save ourselves the trouble of a bribe and a potential snitch to Icar.”

The night sat wistful in the city, the cool damp chewing through Alize’s clothing. Kell’s Sargon armor and helmet gave them free passage though the dark streets after curfew. All the doors stood sealed and the windows dark as they trode through the moonlight, but Alize trusted Kell when he said that enforcers hid concealed behind window panes, slouching in the arched doorways.

Whether by chance or Kell’s design, they did not pass the Parousia prison. Alize felt a mixture of gratitude and regret. She felt desperate to reach out to her sisters and for that reason the risk of committing a foolish mistake loomed large. Menah was there now. She would pass along more news than Alize herself had had time to learn. For now that would have to be enough, for their best chance for survival now depended upon Alize’s hasty departure. Icar had been an enemy the Hrumi had not understood, but the Deku were an enemy they did not even know. Not like that. But even the Deku had not yet broken the Hrumi protection magic.

Alize’s dagger rested under Kell’s bed, where it had stayed hidden for the past eight weeks of winter. Alize felt conflicted to leave it in the house with Davram, but he had been safe from it before. And it seemed she had little choice unless she wanted to reveal everything to the Sargons. More secrets, she heard Kell accuse in her mind.

Alize bristled with the thought. I’m trying to help, but I can’t do that and admit to my faults at the same time. She could not imagine what Kell and Davram would do if they knew her Deku blood and reflexes. And Alize was not about to risk compromising her alliance with two Sargons in the city that held her sisters captive.

After much discussion, Davram had agreed to remain behind, to rally support for Prince Tamer. He was older, known in the community, and Kell kept repeating that people trusted him. Knowing how swiftly he had fallen into despair after the Temple battle gave Alize pause until she witnessed the Sargon’s reaction to the responsibility. He seemed to grow stronger with purpose. These smaller steps seemed to lessen the paralysis he felt in the face of his heritage.

Seeing him stand straighter had heartened Alize. Yet she had the power to bring it all crashing down. Davram had mentioned his sister once more before she and Kell left, and Alize had chosen silence. Secrets. Alize decided against telling him what she had learned about the last Ginmae princess, who had not survived her imprisonment in the Deku citadel.

Alize sighed. By all accounts, the citadel prison was fuller than she had ever suspected during her own residency. Probably more still than she knew even now.

Kell’s path took them by the prince’s palace. Behind the windows, the candlelight glowed beneath glass like thick honey. Each palace window held at least one flickering light, but even together they surely did little to ward off the prince’s insecurity, knowing his two living brothers still plotted his death. Here Alize’s footsteps felt heaviest.

Before the palace, a charred stake jutted from a blackened platform. As they approached, Alize could see soot tossed in listless spirals of trapped wind. “Another traitor?” she asked Kell lowly.

Kell gave a terse nod. “Burned this morning. Three more tomorrow.”

Alize shivered. When Davram first proposed their plan, she had objected to the Sargon’s close participation. The Hrumi were her responsibility, and she should be the person who risked being caught. Her sisters would never forgive themselves if a Sargon died for their freedom.

Don’t misconstrue this, Kell had replied, but I’m doing this because I refuse to grant the Parousia throne to a man like Icar. The Hrumi have only helped him demonstrate what a terrible prince he will be.

Still, Alize eyed the pyre warily. She wondered if Kell too pondered his own potential grizzly fate.

Neither Kell nor Alize spoke anymore as the moonlight swallowed their footsteps. Kell led them through several narrow streets until they entered a neighborhood without any shop awnings. Alize stumbled slightly. The road underfoot was old and the stones were in disrepair, in jagged patterns that made for treacherous walking. Like the covered market, the walls of the street rose above them in keel arches, but nearly all of the domes had collapsed. The cloudy sky drifted above them, casting down unwanted supervision through the roof's ruptures.

Hunched figures slinked into the shadows as they saw Alize and Kell approaching. When Alize glanced behind her, they emerged once more, silent witnesses to her and Kell’s clandestine procession. Alize could not trace Kell’s gaze under his helmet, but she noticed he stood tall. Alize endeavored to do the same.

“This is the Oghuz quarter,” he murmured, “some of the best people you’ll ever meet, but, as a rule, also some of the most suspicious. This part of the city has been razed five times in five hundred years, and the princes, on principle, don’t do anything to maintain it.”

“Why?”

“The Oghuz have a convoluted legacy. They call themselves the secret keepers, the servants of sulfur and iron. Whatever the decrees of the day, the Oghuz keep their own counsel and have no qualms subverting the princes, like, for instance, having their own door to the city. So the princes equate all crimes with the Oghuz and punish them collectively. Not surprisingly, this does little to nurture Oghuz loyalty. And so the cycle repeats.” Kell paused to direct Alize to turn a corner. “But the Oghuz have an advantage in these times: arbitrary cruelty has cultivated their wariness. For the rest of us, security can dull both mind and virtue.”

“I know something of that,” Alize said.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“Even the Hrumi?” Kell responded, tilting his helmet towards Alize.

Alize recalled Sosje’s refusal to contest Celillie’s renunciation in the autumn. But Sosje had regretted it, eventually. Regret was an uncomfortable notion for the Hrumi. A Hrumi learned how to behave, and as long as they complied, there was never any reason for regret. It was Alize who had ventured beyond that safe enclosure, and forced Sosje to choose whether or not to follow. But, Alize pondered, she seemed stronger for it. How can that be?

“It is a folly that plagues Parousia’s history, each time humanity favored comfort at our own hazard. It can cost us our freedom without us even noticing we are robbed. The Oghuz remember this even when the rest of us forget.”

The city ramparts soon emerged into view over the slumped rooftops. As they drew closer Alize reviewed Kell’s plan in her mind. She could see the wall weaving an uninterrupted path amongst the buildings and piles of refuse. There was no space for a door. She looked to Kell but again could see nothing through his Sargon helmet. For a moment she permitted herself to stare at it. She was unsure what she wanted to see.

Kell directed her to the left and they passed into a stable.

“This is a private household, Sargon,” a man growled. He was a mess of curly brown hair and a matted beard. His green eyes watched them sharply.

But Kell shrugged out of his helmet and the man’s face softened. “Kell,” he said warmly. Then his eyes turned sorrowful. “We heard of your punishment.”

“I’ve had worse.”

“Still, Yolander said it crushed his heart. You’re looking for passage out then?”

“Please.” Kell nodded. “And Davram will approach the council in the morning with a proposal for the Oghuz.”

“About time.” They followed the man into the stables until he stood before a rotting wooden door. He began twisting the massive bolts and soon hauled it open. Behind it sloped a passage of trodden dirt, tall enough for a horse but with scarcely the berth.

Kell produced two candles from his sac and handed one to Alize.

The man offered them a match. “You can trust in Oghuz silence,” he said as Kell directed Alize into the passage.

“Thank you Hollan. And give Yolander my greetings. I counted it a mercy.”

Alize missed Hollan’s response as she stooped into the passage. The tunnel was unlike the Hrumi tunnels to the children’s camp. Instead of hewn rock, rough soil surrounded their path, reinforced by precariously laid wooden planks. Plant roots dangled lost into the empty space, like a world upsidedown. From this vantage, Alize could not guess the plants. Muffled noises of shifting horses and low voices sounded from somewhere above them. Beyond the soft light of their candles, the darkness pulsed. As Alize stood wondering at the length of the passage, Hollan closed the door behind them.

Instantly the wind in the passage increased. Somewhere before them, Alize heard soft whistling where it depressurized out the other door. Kell had left his helmet off. Like Alize, he cupped his hand around his candle’s flickering flame. The light caught the shadows under his eyes, and the slight frown he could not seem to shake from his face. But he regarded Alize, and for a moment the worry lapsed and his expression became into something gentler. He touched his finger to his lips when Alize opened her mouth.

She found herself responding to a whole new set of instincts as her gaze danced over him. She wanted to take his hand, to feel his torso flush against hers, to press her lips to the place where his jaw met his neck. The realization left her breathless and she abruptly faced forward into the familiar uncertainty of the darkness.

But even though she chastised herself, her wistful smile persevered nonetheless. It was ridiculous, the very idea of such desires. She had chosen her identity, and it made her happier than anything in the world. She had no need for any man’s esteem.

But Kell is not just any man, a voice rang in her mind.

The fire in Alize stomach had still not died down when they finally reached a narrow door at the end of the passage. Kell squeezed past Alize to the door. His palm rested on the small of her back for an instant before he thumped heavily on the wood.

The silence propagated as they stood waiting. It pressed against them, tempting their bodies to draw closer together. Alize breathed through her nose, furrowing her brows as she resisted.

Kell had raised his fist to knock again when the creak of metal followed several clangs. The door lumbered open to reveal a softer darkness beyond.

“Kell,” the man murmured. Alize noticed he had the same curly black hair as Hollan, “can’t say we weren’t expecting to see you.”

“You’re manning the door Ber?”

“Just until Rania finishes her errands.”

“Saves me some embarrassment then. Could you help me out of my armor?”

“Of course, but you’ll not be leaving that here will you? Icar’s men raided us not two nights back.”

“I’ll take it with me, don’t worry.”

Alize watched the large man unhook the buttons on the back of Kell’s cloth armor. Underneath Kell wore a thin shirt. He shivered briefly from the cold before pulling a coat from his sac.

“And who’s your lady friend?”

Alize flashed her eyes to Kell in warning.

But the man only nodded at her reaction. “State secrets, then. Spare me, if you don’t mind, we’ve enough responsibility with this door.”

“Appreciated. Now, did two horses arrive for me?”

The door had opened into another darkened stable. After a terse transaction, Alize and Kell led two horses into the teeming city streets. Gone was the silence of the inner city. Everywhere men and women ambled in all directions carrying jumbling sacs of cabbages and lemons or tinkering jars. The roaring fireplaces lit the profiles of the patrons in the taverns. Their laughter rumbled through the open windows. Here there might have been no war at all.

“The tunnel goes under both walls,” Kell explained as they wove through the crowd. “This is the outer city.”

“Why have so many Sargon guards if passages like these stand open?”

“No single person knows all the passages, and none ever will. It’s a balance against the whims of a cruel prince.”

Around them the houses became sparser and stouter as the road widened and the forest asserted itself between the buildings.

“There,” Kell exhaled as he stretched for the first time on his steed. “I’ve gotten us out of the city. We’re in your realm now. Will the trees keep us safe?”

Alize tried to smile, “I’m sure they would, but the Deku took my magic when they captured me. I won’t ever hear the trees again.”

Kell snapped his head to regard Alize. His bare sympathy, so quiet on his features, matched his words and soft tone. “They took that from you?”

Alize wanted to answer. She wanted to make light of it, to deny the weight of that horror. But she had already spent her courage on too many other things. She pressed her lips together and closed her eyes in acknowledgment.

But Kell seemed to understand. “I know how much your magic meant to you.”

“Indeed.” Surprising herself, Alize forced out a merriless laugh. “Without it, I would never have gotten involved in this mess. But I’ve plenty of other training to fall back on. We’ll survive.”

“Well,” Kell faced forward, “if it’s any consolation, I never thought your gift was your ability to hear, but your ability to listen.”

And for all Alize’s fortifications, Kell’s words cut her deep, not for any resentment or cruelty, but his simple, unadorned kindness. When Alize did not respond, he urged his horse to a trot. She brushed her eyes and drew a deep breath.

The lonelinesso of the silent forest stung like puncture in her chest, but it was not more than she could handle, she was certain. She only needed the time to grow accustomed to it.