Inherit the Flame

Chapter Twenty

Watcher whistles echoed down the lanes of Hond Steading, raising conflicting prickles all over Ripka’s skin. Old instincts urged her to run to that call, to assist her fellows. She pushed those urges aside, focused on what she must do to gain the trust of Latia and Dranik.

The sight of Dranik’s face, bruised and terrified, firmed her resolve. He was into something, something that frightened him. And that fear alone was enough to confirm her suspicions that he meant well for the citizens of Hond Steading. He’d just been misguided about the best methods to achieve that goal.

Distract and evade. What she had to work with wasn’t much – a vague understanding of the city’s streets, the quiet of night. No crowds bustled through this neighborhood, the only nightlife seemed to be centered on the theater. And that was the answer. She mentally saluted the watchers pursuing her, and hoped Lakon hadn’t trained them as well as she’d been trained.

Cloistered in the alley’s shadows, she listened to the clatter of watcher feet, judged the whistle-blower’s distance, and sprinted into view.

He yelped with surprise, and she almost laughed at the sound. She’d cut it a little too close, but she threw power into her legs and widened the distance, diving into the shelter of another alley. He couldn’t ignore that. No way. She paused, panting, wired with tension until she heard the blast of whistles that meant he’d sighted one of the fugitives and was in pursuit. Answering blasts broke the night.

She was prey, and they were hunting dogs.

Feigning uncoordinated panic, she bumped a stack of crates with her hip as she fled the alley, sprawling the wood to the ground with a heavy crash. A neat little trail for them to follow. She couldn’t risk staying too close, lest he suspect her intentions, but by now he must have lost sight of the others. In his position, she’d consider the panicked woman fleeing down random streets a likely target for questioning. Panicky people were quick to talk.

The alley opened up into another narrow lane, and she glanced at the stars. The theater had been to the north, and the sky was clear. She might not know the streets by name or number, but any Scorched girl worth their stones could navigate by starlight. Becoming lost in the Scorched meant death. No exceptions.

She jogged, saving her breath for the moment the watchers would catch sight of her again. No sense in sprinting until she had to, there was a lot of ground yet to cover.

Watcher whistles sounded behind her and to her right, echoing off the crowded buildings. Ripka picked up the pace. A shadow fell across the road, looming from a side-lane. She ducked at the last moment, skittered sideways and just barely avoided the swipe of a baton. The watcher swore, but she was already adjusting course, peeling away, the fear of nearly being caught adding fire to her veins.

Footsteps thundered behind her, closer now, and she risked a more circuitous route, ducking and diving between homes, kicking over the occasional planter to string them forward, but not too much. Ache grew in her legs, her breath came hot in her throat. Her body was slowing down.

They lost sight of her. She heard it in their strained shouts, and though she couldn’t quite hear their words she could intuit their meaning: she went that way, no that way.

Ripka swung closer to the theater. The rock wall they’d escaped through earlier loomed just across the lane, the watcher’s calls tantalizingly close. She pushed to her toes, risked a peek in both directions, then darted across to the wall. The stones were rough beneath her hands, scraping her palms, but she heaved herself over all the same and landed stumbling.

“Who in the pits are you?” a woman demanded.

Ripka froze, jerked her head up to find the voice. The theater’s backdoor stood half open. A woman in a snug robe with a long mass of curls squinted out at her, a smoldering cigarillo between her lips.

The singer. But there was something familiar about that sharp, dark face.

“Laella?”

The woman squinted through a plume of smoke. “Ripka?”

They stared, open-mouthed, for an embarrassing moment, then recovered in synch and pulled themselves up and shut their slack jaws.

“What are you doing here?” Laella asked, a little breathless.

“Quick,” Ripka said as she dashed forward. “Give me your wig.”

“What in the pits for?”

“Just do it.”

Laella rolled her eyes and plucked the long wig from her head, revealing the tight braids that were her usual style. Ripka tugged the mass of curls over her own hair, tucked her natural strands behind her ear, and faced Laella.

“How’s it look?”

“Ridiculous. What is this all about, Ripka? Did Pelkaia send you?”

“Haven’t seen her since we arrived.”

The whistles started up again. Ripka winced, and Laella’s brows shot straight up as she caught the motion. Before Ripka could explain, a panting, red-faced watcher stuck his head over the break in the wall and scowled at them both.

“You seen anyone come through?” he demanded. “Woman, about her height.” He jerked his chin to Ripka.

Laella put on her impervious, Valathean aristocracy act and scoffed as she tossed her head. “Haven’t seen a soul, save those already in the theater.”

“Call out if you see her. Could be dangerous.”

“I’m quaking,” Laella drawled as the watcher snorted in disgust and dove away to pick up Ripka’s false trail.

Ripka breathed out, limp with relief, and almost laughed. “Thanks for the loan, and the cover.”

“Don’t mention it. Mind telling me what’s going on?”

“Rather not,” she admitted. Ripka plucked the wig from her head, made a cursory attempt at arranging it, then handed it back to Laella. She stuffed it under her arm without another glance.

“Didn’t think so.”

“Mind telling me what you’re doing singing on stage? Can’t be part of your, ah, training with Pelkaia.”

Laella’s eyes narrowed. “Rather not.”

“Fair enough.”

They gave each other a good, long side-eye, and Ripka had no reason to doubt that Laella was brimming with just as many questions as she was. It was probably more than fair that Laella had questions – she hadn’t been the one seen running from the watch, after all. Ripka shuffled her feet awkwardly, edging toward the alley that led around to the front of the theater. And to escape.

Laella sent her along with a flick of the wrist. Ripka ducked her head to hide a smirk and turned down the alley, toward the throng of voices gathered just outside the theater. When she was halfway down the alley, on a whim, she glanced over her shoulder and caught Laella’s eye. The girl flicked ash from her cigarillo, frowning.

“You’ve a lovely voice,” Ripka called.

Laella scowled, snatched a pebble from the dusty ground, and hucked it at Ripka all in one smooth movement. Stifling a laugh, Ripka dodged to the side and sped her steps, preparing to lose herself in the crowd gathered out front.

Which was, apparently, a poor plan.

At the mouth of the alley two obvious bruisers gave her a good long once-over, not bothering to obscure their glance Laella’s way. Ripka didn’t dare follow their gazes, but whatever assurance Laella gave them must have been enough. They turned up their noses at her dusty clothes and wind-blown hair, but they eased aside to let her sidle past.

Into a clamor of chaos.

Ripka winced as half of those gathered near the alley spun the second she was through the brutes, eyes avid with interest. They closed on her, all speaking at once. Ripka took an instinctive step backward, brushed up against the solid wall of the bodyguards and sighed. Might as well try to move stone with her mind than to convince those two to let her back to the patio.

She forced a smile, knowing it was more of a grimace, and tried to convince herself this wasn’t any different than leaving the station house after a particularly public, and nasty, crime. Except then, usually, her blue coat and belted weapons were enough to part the crowds like a ship’s prow through a wisp of cloud. It seemed every time she took a step, the theater patrons tightened up.

“Who are you?” the indistinct voices demanded. “How did you get back there?” “Where did you come from?” “Did you break in?” “What’s your name?” “Do you know the songstress?”

Ripka set her posture firm and shouldered her way past a woman with far too much alcohol on her breath.

Of course. Latia had claimed the singer – Laella – was a complete mystery to the local art scene. She’d shown up just a few days ago – no doubt shortly after Pelkaia’s ship took harbor in the north – and allowed no one but her guards and musician to see her outside of the obscuring stretch of the theater curtain. She was a growing local legend, a puzzle to be unraveled. Whatever her motives, Ripka had no desire to out the girl. She’d seen how Laella was treated on Pelkaia’s ship: a second-class citizen, barely tolerated and trusted, all because her family had branched from wealthy Valathean stock.

Couldn’t be much harm in singing a few songs. Ripka schooled her expression to cold neutrality and weaved through the crowd with force. Once they realized she wasn’t going to feed their gossip, the crowd broke up around her, going back to their drinks and snacks and petty rumors. Ripka let the conversations wash over her, trying to pick up any hint that might be useful.

Unless what colors were in vogue for the season, and which art shows were absolutely mandatory, were facts crucial in the fate of Hond Steading, she was without luck. Ripka sighed, kicking at the ground as she blended in with the other theater-goers heading back to their homes for the evening. There was something sweet in the naivete of these people. Something innocent, sincere, that Ripka dreaded to pierce. Though Thratia marched to their homes, though the agents of Valathea lurked in their northern waters, the greatest worry in these peoples’ lives tonight were if they were fashionable enough, if they’d found the greatest art.

Such simple pleasures, simple concerns, made Ripka’s chest ache.

The traffic thinned out as she approached the neighborhood that housed Latia’s studio. The night, now that she wasn’t running for her freedom through it, was nice and crisp. A cool breeze brushed away the sweat and grime she’d picked up during her flight. Pity she’d have to go and spoil the pleasant evening by drilling into Dranik’s activities.

She turned onto the little lane that led to Latia’s house and nearly jumped out of her boots as the door slammed open, spilling light onto the walkway. Light, and Latia. The woman barreled out of her home, skirts flying every which way, and grasped Ripka to her chest in a hug so firm it crushed the air clear out of her lungs.

“Oof, easy!” Ripka squeaked, as she sucked down a replacement breath.

“My dear, we were so very worried about you!”

“I wasn’t.” Honey appeared in the doorway, arms folded lightly over her stomach, her expression bored. From any other woman, Ripka would take offense at that, but she knew full well Honey meant it as a compliment – she trusted Ripka’s skill completely, therefore she wasn’t worried. Simple as that.

“I’m fine,” Ripka said as she peeled herself out of Latia’s arms. “Let’s get inside. We need to talk.”

“Of course, of course.” Latia locked her arm around Ripka’s and herded her into the house. “You must put your feet up, you poor dear. Did they hurt you at all? I bet you sprouted some nasty blisters from all that running. Oh! A cool drink for you, yes? Something strong in it?”

Before Ripka could get a word out, Latia thrust her into a lounge chair on her back patio and stuffed a cup of something cool, with a sharp bite she decided not to think too strongly about. It was good, and she was tired, and that was all that mattered. Wasn’t like she was on duty any more, and honor-bound not to get drunk in the process.

Dranik scuttled out after them, pacing a long loop around the patio as he wrung his hands together. Whatever gentle ministrations Latia offered to Ripka, it was clear from the dirt on Dranik’s face and his nervous ticks that she hadn’t bothered offering him the same. The man must have been brow-beaten the moment he stepped over Latia’s threshold. Probably sooner. Ripka winced and set her cup aside. An anxious man was never a good one to interview.

“Dranik,” she said. His head snapped up, swiveled to find her, eyes wide as if he’d noticed her for the first time. “Please sit, you’re making me dizzy.”

He perched on the seat’s edge as if he were sitting on cactus prickles, and the slightest shift of weight would dig them in.

“Thank you, for what you did. If you hadn’t shaken them off then, then, oh, I don’t know…” He trailed off and took to wringing his hands together again. They’d be red-raw by the end of the night.

She had to calm him down. Get him relaxed enough to spill the details of what had sent him running to them.

“Peace, it’s all right. I shook them good, they won’t find where you’ve gone.” She winked at him. “I bet they’re still out there, chasing the shadows I set up to distract them.”

Dranik’s shoulders eased.

“You owe her everything, Dranik, everything!” Latia clutched her hands together in her lap. “If we hadn’t had dear Ripka then you’d be in the clink now for sure, you daft boy. How you manage to even put your shoes on in the morning I haven’t the foggiest idea. Sweet skies, but mother taught us better than this.”

Dranik tensed right back up again.

Standing to the side of it all, Honey cocked her head and frowned. “I want to know what’s in the frescoes.”

“What?” Latia blinked, throwing her gaze around at all three of them as if seeing them for the first time. “You want a tour of my art? Now is not the time, dear. Now is an emergency!”

“The urgency has passed,” Ripka said, smooth as a calm wind. Then she lowered her voice and tilted her head to stage whisper to Latia. “Honey is frightened by watchers. Couldn’t you show her your art? I’m sure it would soothe her.”

Latia sucked her teeth so loud she sounded like a mud hollow toad, but eventually she jerked her robe straight and nodded, then whispered back to Ripka. “I’ll take care of the poor dear.” Then, raising her voice, said, “Come along, Honey! Let me show you all the strange fishes of my imagination.”

As Honey passed by, Ripka mouthed ‘thank you’ that only she could see, and Honey winked. Actually winked. The move was so startling it took Ripka a moment to gather her wits once the two other women were safely inside.

“Dranik,” she said, soft and slow. His name hooked him like a lure, and he turned to stare at her. “What happened?”

An anguished groan broke free. He leaned over his knees, gripped his face in both hands and rubbed vigorously. “I had no idea the others were doing anything – anything illegal – please, you must understand that.”

“I understand,” she said, possibly a little too fast, but he was too wrapped up in his own pain to notice. “It’s easy to get in over your head.”

“Yes, yes, that’s exactly what happened. I got in over my head, couldn’t figure out what to do once I was in it so deeply.”

He latched onto the line she’d fed him like it was a life rope, and she clasped her hands together to keep from clenching her fists. Dranik was no real criminal. Lines like, ‘in over your head’ and ‘things got out of control’ only ever got the innocent to confess to the crimes they’d stumbled into. They were, however, great anchors to use in sussing out the scope and nature of the criminal activity. Innocent people were quick to talk, often to their own detriment.

“It happens,” she agreed in the soothing voice she’d used on hundreds of witnesses sitting across from her in an interview room over the years. She considered the next line to feed him, then said, “There’s little you could have done.”

“That’s just the thing.” He was suddenly animated, throwing his hands into the air in exasperation. “If I had just heeded my gut, paid attention to all those little smoke wisps, those pre-quakes, I know I could have realized what was really going on sooner. I know it. But I was so – so – wrapped up in the ideal, I made myself blind to the rest. I thought, well, I guess I thought that if anything shady was going on, it was ultimately for a good cause. That’s stupid of me, isn’t it?”

“No,” she said quickly enough so that he wouldn’t have a chance to interpret her silence as insincerity. “Wanting to believe in something good is never stupid.”

“But it is good, I still believe that. I don’t like their methods, but their minds are in the right place.” He groaned, ruffling his hair. “Pits below, those watchers poured right into the middle of us, we never saw them coming. Skies! What if they recognized me?”

“Then they would have already been here.”

That calmed him. He flopped backward, arms dangling along either side of the chair, his head tipped back to stare at the stars. He was working up to something. Rallying his nerve so that he could tell her, confess to her, what had happened. What he’d seen. What he had, though he hadn’t wanted to, been a part of.

“Liberation should never be achieved through bloodshed,” he said to the night sky.

She swallowed. Clenched her hands tighter. She had to find his limits. Had to make him believe she was sympathetic to his so-called mistake. “What if that’s the only way?”

Dranik slammed his fist to the arm of the chair and exploded to his feet, eyes bright with fervor. “It must not be! We are not so oppressed as that. No, I understand why the Desert Wind is decided on the matter, I understand the history better than many others. But we are better than that, we are beyond the petty politics of Valathea. Just because… Because those poor people, the Catari, were unable to establish their freedom from tyranny peacefully does not mean we cannot succeed where they failed. They were few, and unprepared. We are many, some of the greatest minds on the Scorched – if not all Valathea – and we have had warning. There is no reason – none! – that we should reduce ourselves to violence.”

Desert Wind. The importance he lent those words made them glow like a brand in her mind, a key fact to dig into later. If she pushed now, though, when he had whipped himself up so far, he would clam up, embarrassed that he’d let the name slip. She’d seen it dozens of times before. Now, when he was at his most vulnerable – wrought with emotion – was the time to be gentle. To lure him where she wanted him to go.

She thought, a little ruefully, that Detan would be proud of her. Had he been a watcher and received their manipulation training, then that man would have been unstoppable.

“What do you want to happen here, Dranik? What do you want to see Hond Steading become?”

He paced, heels hitting the ground hard enough to leave half-moon divots in the dirt. Under the gleam of the stars, he twisted his hands through his hair, glared at the clear sky, the calm night, as if its peacefulness affronted him. She let him do all this, let him stomp out his anger and wring free his fear. The cup Latia had given her was warm in her palms now, the brew stinging as it slid down her throat. He paced, and paced, and when even the fine edge of her patience began to strain, he stopped.

“I want Hond Steading free.”

“And what does free mean to you?”

He half-turned, glanced down the line of his body at her with fresh awareness in his expression. Maybe she’d revealed too much. Maybe he was beginning to suspect that she was more than she presented herself as. Whatever his thoughts on her, he nodded to himself, and his hands fell slack at his sides.

“A governance chosen by the people. Representative of them.”

“And do you believe that Thratia is likely to allow you that? The woman exiled from Valathea for seizing control of the Saldive Isles – an independent island chain – just because she could?”

The sigh that left him seemed to take all his strength with it. He folded himself back into the chair, hands dangling between bent knees. “No. She won’t. But the Hondings aren’t any better.”

Ripka shook her head, and made her play. “I think you know better than that, Dranik. Think it through, now. Dame Honding is hale, but aging, and her heir is–” Her voice caught, and she covered this by taking a sip from her cup. “– is unpredictable. If you strengthen your forum, make a strong case for your representative government to take control once Dame Honding passes to the endless night, she might just agree. I don’t know much about your city, Dranik, not personally. But I’ve heard of it, all across the Scorched. The Hondings have ruled you all with a fair and even hand, and I don’t believe the Dame would leave you to scramble for the throne, or at the will of the empire, upon her death. This city is precious to her–” She caught herself expressing too much familiarity with the family, saw Dranik’s eyebrows rising, and corrected. “The history of her family is here. She must care deeply for it. She won’t leave you to drift, if you show her a viable alternative.

“But Thratia… I’m from Aransa, you know. Once Thratia has her claws around something she desires, she never lets go. It’s not the people of this city she cares about, anyway.” Ripka dropped her gaze, turned to stare pointedly at the humped silhouettes of the firemounts that lined up back to back along the city’s southern edge.

Dranik pressed his lips together until the blood fled them, staring at those shadows. She needn’t say the truth of the matter out loud. Hond Steading was valuable for its selium. Full stop. The people who lived there were incidental, perhaps worthless, if their lives were not conducive to selium mining.

“Thratia will destroy us.”

Ripka held her tongue, lest he hear the eagerness she felt to encourage this train of thought.

“… I thought. Truly, I thought that she might wake the Dame up. Make her understand that the city is only as valuable as its people, and their input on civic matters is a right. But the Dame has always listened, if not always complied. Thratia will roll over us. Take what she needs. She won’t ever let us be free, and she’s too much the egoist to appoint a plan for after her death. Hond Steading will fall into chaos.”

He was talking himself into it, now. She need only extend a small risk. “When we met, you were all for Thratia’s arrival. What changed your mind?”

He flinched and brushed his fingertips over his bruised cheek. “I was with the Desert Wind, when…” He sighed, shoulders rounding forward as the information he’d feared sharing all night left his lips. “When I realized they were smuggling more than information into and out of the city.”

Fucking got you, Ripka thought. But she kept her expression mostly neutral, allowed a fine line of concern to mark her brow. “What are they smuggling?”

“Into the city? Weapons. Weapons like you wouldn’t believe.”

“And out?”

He jerked backward as if someone had yanked on his hair, stuck his gaze on the sky above so that he would not have to look Ripka in the eye, and said, “People.”

Deviants. They must be. Ripka’s world lurched sideways. She sucked a breath, not needing to fake her shock and disgust, and gripped the cup in her hands hard to hide the shaking in her fingers.

“Will you let me help you undo this, Dranik? Will you let me help you take them down?”

He lowered his head to look at her, tears like stars sparkling in his thick lashes. “Please, gods, yes. Help me.”