Shadowfall

19

“Keep running,”Yaellin snarled.

Dart held Laurelle’s hand as they fled through the dark myrrwood. Thorns tugged and scraped, branches slapped and stung. Dart’s breath rasped ragged in her panicked flight. Laurelle let out soft moans.

Behind them, cries and shrieks grew ever closer. Ilk-beasts, once men and women, pursued them, crashing through the underbrush.

Dart remembered her dream of a few nights back. She had been chased then, as a babe, carried away by the old headmistress of the Conclave. Why?

Yaellin kept behind, urging them onward through bower and glade. The myrrwood seemed without end. Dart risked a glance over her shoulder. She saw nothing but a flowing wall of shadow.

He’s keeping us hidden with his billowing cloak.

Ahead, Pupp raced through the wood, passing ghostly through bush and scrub without a rustle. Dart watched him bump against a bole of the myrrwood and bounce off of it. The trunk was solid to him, like the blood roots below.

She had no time for this mystery and chased after him. His glow helped light her path.

They passed crumbled walls, a moss-covered well, a tiny wooden arbor fallen to ruin. And still the wood continued onward. Grown from a single seed, sown with Chrism’s own blood, the myrrwood’s branches had stretched for four thousand years.

Would they ever escape its shadow?

As they ran, Dart noted the trunks grew thicker. They were not heading back toward the castillion, toward light and people, but deeper into the heart of the myrrwood.

“Where…?” Dart gasped.

“To the back wall of the Eldergarden,” Yaellin answered. “And over. We must reach the city.”

As if hearing their words, a keening shriek erupted to the left. A large form crashed toward them.

“Behind me!” Yaellin called.

Dart twisted. Laurelle froze. With her hand gripping Laurelle’s, Dart tugged her friend back around. Shadows swept over and past them. Pupp wheeled around and raced toward them.

Dart dropped to her knees, sheltered by a bole of the myrrwood.

A dark shape flung itself into their path. Eyes glowing crimson, it ran on all fours, fingers and toes twisted into razored claws. A row of bony spikes pierced through the skin of its arched back. It howled at Yaellin, its jaws hinging its entire head, and leaped at the man.

Yaellin’s cloak sailed to a branch overhead, a flow of living shadow. Snagging purchase, Yaellin flew upward. The beast passed below him, snapping and spitting. With a hiss and a slash, it whirled.

But Yaellin had already dropped beside it. He struck out with his fist-no, not just a fist. He held a dagger with a shining black blade. He struck the ilk-beast in the side, then rolled backward. A lick of fire chased him, like a splash of blood, from the beast.

The creature reared up, claws extended-then collapsed into ash, faintly ruddy, like wood embers from a dying fire.

Yaellin waved to them with his dagger. “Hurry…”

Dart knew the weapon he had employed: the cursed blade from Jacinta. Dart was now glad Yaellin had stolen it. She and Laurelle fled to his side, and the chase continued.

But the pause to dispatch the lone beast had cost them. The howls had drawn closer.

“I… I can’t go on,” Laurelle moaned. Her feet began to trip.

Yaellin was there, scooping her up in arm and cloak. He reached for Dart with the other.

“I can still run,” she said, not wishing to burden Yaellin. Besides, she had the wind for this. She had been running her entire life.

She turned to flee, Pupp at her side.

They dodged around boles as wide as carriage carts. The scent of myrrh grew stifling, trapped under the dense leafy canopy where wind, rain, and sunshine never reached. The underbrush turned skeletal, thorny, with strange red berries aglow in the gloom. Through the upper branches, luminescent butterflits of azure and crimson fluttered lazily, hanging and gliding in the too-still air.

Ahead a wall appeared, lit by the ruddy glow of Pupp’s molten form.

Dart hurried ahead, sensing salvation. What had terrified her before-the empty streets of Chrismferry at night-now seemed a welcome place. At least their pursuers seemed to fall back, losing their track, or maybe they had come upon the smoldering ashes of their fellow beast and now proceeded with more caution.

Either way, they had to find a way over the wall.

Pupp had stopped ahead. Over the millennia, a thick deadfall had blown against the wall, tangled and dark in the night.

“Caution,” Yaellin warned behind her, farther back than she expected.

“Where can we cross the wall?” Dart asked. The deadfall looked treacherous and unstable.

“It’s no wall, Dart.” Yaellin hurried to her, his voice dropped to the barest whisper.

Her foot crunched through brittle twigs and branches as she joined Pupp. She saw Yaellin was right. What she had thought was wall was instead a tree of such immensity that the curve of its trunk could not be easily discerned, appearing more like a wall of smooth, gray bark.

“Quiet now,” Yaellin whispered. “Around to the left. Keep out of the bones.”

Dart frowned, then saw where Yaellin pointed. She stumbled back with a strangled cry, crackling a mouse’s rib cage under her heel. She gaped toward the tree. The snarl of deadfall showed itself to be bones, piled and broken: slender leg bones of deer, cracked skulls of rabbits, ribs of giant woodland slothkins, ivory horns of lothicorns.

“The true heart of the myrrwood,” Yaellin intoned. “The one trunk from which all else spread.”

“The Heartwood,” Dart said, remembering the stories told. She stared around her. Here was Lord Chrism’s private sanctuary, a forbidden, sacred place. None but the god was allowed to enter. Even the sun hid its face from this soil. “What happened?”

“Corruption… like with the men and women.”

They circled its bole, keeping wide of the ring of bones. As they ran, a soft skittering sounded. A skull of a slothkin rose from the pile, lifted by a writhing root. Its empty eye sockets bloomed with a sickly yellow flame.

Yaellin guided them to the side, skirting bushes and trunks. “It wakes.”

More skulls rose, igniting with fire. Riding roots, they pushed out of the pile and snaked outward. Piled bones toppled with a hollow wooden sound as the roots quested into the surrounding wood.

They ran, keeping hidden.

Movement to Dart’s left drew her eye. A cracked skull of a deer, still antlered, teetered up from a beach of bone. It swung around, meeting her gaze. She found the blaze in the sockets fixing to her.

Her feet slowed.

A trilling filled her head, sweet and high. The wood grew darker at the edges. The skull and eyes glowed brighter. Words grew in her head, speaking with her own voice: come, sleep, rest, come…

Fingers gripped her chin and turned her face. “No,” Yaellin said. He had placed Laurelle down. “Don’t look.”

She nodded, but still felt drawn to glance over. Her feet drifted her back toward the deadfall. Motion snaked throughout the pile. Bones skittered and rolled. New fires lit the night as more eyes opened, a dance of fireflits.

Pretty…

She turned to see-but a sweep of darkness dropped like a curtain across the sight.

“No,” Yaellin repeated behind her. “Only a little farther.”

Laurelle stumbled up to her, her face bled of all color.

A shape leaped before them. Both girls yelped, falling into each other’s arms. But it was only a dwarf deerling, no taller than Dart’s waist. Its ears quivered. It stopped on tiny hooves, blind to the three of them, then bounded forward, toward the deadfall.

Dart glanced after it.

It landed, knee deep in the bone pile. The treacherous footing stumbled its perch. It fell forward. Only then did it seem to note where it was. Its head snapped up, neck taut, a confused bleat escaping.

Then a snarl of roots tangled up out of the bones. It lifted the deerling high and swamped over its body. The animal fought, but the roots penetrated flesh as easily as water. A sharp wail squealed forth, but it ended in one heartbeat as yellow flames sprouted from the deerling’s mouth and nose. More fires spat out from its ears and rear quarters.

Flesh roasted from the inside out, falling to ash as the body was shaken and jerked by the roots. All that was left of the deerling were bones, raining down upon the pile, growing the deadfall.

Aghast, Dart stumbled ahead. Through the darkness, other animals came to the call of the Heartwood. Cries rose all around the immense tree.

“This way,” Yaellin said, finally reaching the far side of the tree. “The others must have herded us here, hoping we’d succumb to the tree.”

“What is it?” Laurelle asked.

“Another ilk-beast. Trees are living creatures, like man or beast. As those who served Chrism drank his blood, so the first god once fed this tree. Its Grace was his to corrupt if and when he chose.”

Dart remembered the blood roots in the tunnel. She risked a glance back toward the horror. She now knew where all that blood had come from, sucked by Grace from the woodland creatures.

Yaellin guided them onward. The howl of the other ilk-beasts had grown silent. Dart found the quiet more disturbing than their hunting cries. Were they lying in wait for an ambush?

For another full bell, they fled through the woods, no end in sight.

“Dawn is not far,” Yaellin said. “We’d best be out of these woods and lost into the streets before the sun shows her face.”

“Why are you helping us?” Dart finally asked. She eyed his cloak of shadows. “Who… who are you really?”

He glanced down to her. He had lowered his cloak’s hood.

His black hair, though, remained enough of a cowl, loose to the shoulder and as dark as the night. The only break was the streak of silver from brow to behind his right ear. “It seems, little Dart, we are half siblings in a way.”

Dart frowned. Though the Hand had clearly saved them, she still felt wary.

“The headmistress of the Conclave was my mother,” he said. “Melinda mir Mar. And you were the little one she rescued and raised so long ago. The little stray sheep hidden among a flock of others.”

Dart shook her head in disbelief.

“It’s true, little sister.” A glimmer of a sad smile graced his face. “All was told to me by my father when I was about your age. He set a duty upon me like no other.”

“What was that?”

“To keep watch over the Godsword.”

“This is what Ser Henri told me,” Kathryn said. She leaned closer to Tylar to keep their words private. The flippercraft’s mekanicals chugged in rhythmic fashion. For a moment, his storm-gray eyes caught her gaze and her breath. She glanced down. “He… he told me once.. a half-moon after you were shipped away. He was deep into his cups, of sour and sanguine a mood. Over you. Over my loss.”

“Your loss?” Tylar asked.

“My loss of you…” she mumbled, speaking a half-truth. She was not ready to speak of the other yet.

He nodded. “I’m sorry.”

The anguish in his words drew her eyes up. “I’m as much to blame. Before the adjudicators, I should’ve been more of a lover, less of a knight.”

“The soothmancers would’ve had the truth out of you either way.”

“But what was the truth?” she said, hating herself for sounding so bitter. “I was so distraught. So shaken by the accusations.” She turned away. “You did come to bed bloody that night. Your sword was found at the home of the murdered cobblers.”

“I know. I barely remember even waking that morning…”

“Castellan Mirra said you were fed a draft of drowsing alchemy. Probably in wine.” Kathryn explained what the former castellan had related to her and Perryl, how Tylar was a pawn in a game of power among factions in Tashijan.

“Ser Henri knew my innocence?” Tylar asked at the end, clearly shaken, his voice hardening. “Even as I was sent away?”

“Do not judge him too harshly. He came to that knowledge late, and to speak it aloud at that time would have exposed too many others. Even Henri’s wardenship would have been threatened, and Argent ser Fields and his Fiery Cross would have assumed the Warden’s Eyrie much earlier.”

Tylar seemed little settled, breathing hard. Kathryn knew this mood. She smelled the heat of his skin. It awakened other unwanted memories, but she shoved these down. “Tylar, if Ser Henri had laid this all out, given you the choice of sacrifice or freedom, which would you have chosen?”

He remained silent, staring out the windows. The craft’s aeroskimmers glowed against the night sky. “It was not just my life in that balance,” he mumbled and turned back to her.

Those eyes again… she felt her heart tremble.

“But perhaps you are right…” He released her, glancing down. “At the end, I may have walked of my own volition onto that slave ship. I was not without guilt. I had dealings with the Gray Traders. I placed myself into position to be that pawn.”

Kathryn heard the pain in his voice, but her heart still echoed with his earlier words: It was not just my life in that balance. What if Tylar had known about the child… or even if Ser Henri had known at that time… would matters have changed? Would decisions have been made differently by all? Tears rose to her eyes. They came so fast, a surprise.

“Kathryn…” Tylar said.

“There is something I must speak to you about,” she finally said, “but not here.” She motioned to the cabin door. She needed to move. Though the others had offered some privacy by surreptitiously glancing elsewhere or murmuring in their own conversation, she still felt exposed.

Standing, she led Tylar out the cabin door. The axis hall of the craft led forward to the captain’s deck and backward to a communal room with a viewing window. Checking to ensure the hallway was free of prying eyes, they headed toward the stern.

Once in the vacant back cabin, Kathryn crossed to the curve of blessed glass that opened onto a vista below. A railing bounded a gallery overlooking the lower window. She grabbed it firmly. Below a small village slid by, lit by a central bonfire.

“What is it?” Tylar asked.

“There is one more thing you must know about those awful days.” She girded herself for what she must say. Tylar must have sensed her distress and placed his hand over hers on the railing. It was too much. She slid her hand away, perhaps jerking it too quickly.

“There was a child,” she said, speaking woodenly, trying to be dispassionate. “Our child.”

“What…?” Tylar stiffened.

“A babe… a son. I was to tell you the night you came drunk-what I thought was drunk-and bloody to our bed.” She shook her head. “Then the guards, pounding on the door in the morning… there was no time to tell.”

“Tell me now,” he said in a low voice, thunderous in its depths.

“The trial… the accusations… my testimony… it was too much.” A sob bubbled out of her. She had been holding it in for half a decade. “I was not strong enough.”

Tears flowed. She felt her knees go weak, her entire form trembling. The night coming back to her in full horror. “I lost the baby… my… our little baby boy.”

She was blind now to the view below. All she could see was so much blood, on her, on the sheets, everywhere. She tried to wash it up, alone in her room, so no one would know. Then more cramping, more blood…

“I was not strong enough,” she sobbed.

Tylar tried to put his arm around her, but she shoved him back.

“Not strong enough… not for you, not for our baby.”

Tylar again pulled her to him, with both arms now, hugging her tight. “No one’s that strong,” he whispered in her ear.

She barely heard. She cried into his chest. Words escaped her like frightened birds. “Would you have… would you have…?” She choked.

He pulled her tighter. “I wouldn’t have left. Not for anything.”

She nodded into his chest, continuing to sob, but it was less an aching, wrenching thing and more a release. He held her like that for a long time. She let him. Though too much time had passed between them, though they were not the same young man and woman from before, in this moment, they mourned as one, for a baby… and a larger part for themselves.

Finally Kathryn found she could breathe. She slowly extracted herself from Tylar’s embrace.

“If I had known…” he offered.

Kathryn turned to the window, still blind to the panorama and too tired but knowing there was much still to do. She wiped the last of her tears. “I think that was why Ser Henri told me about Yaellin,” she said slowly. “I don’t even think he ever told Castellan Mirra. I think he sensed the wrong he did to you, to the baby, to the both of us, and sought some peace, sharing his own pain of family lost, of a son born out of wedlock, born out of passion.”

“And this Yaellin was chosen to be a Hand to Chrism?”

“Not exactly.”

“What do you mean?”

“Over many cups of mulled spice wine, Ser Henri told me much. More than he perhaps meant to. But who can say?” Kathryn turned from the rail. “He told me of his love for a woman named Melinda mir Mar, then the headmistress of the Conclave of Chrismferry.”

“I remember her,” Tylar said, surprised. “A tall woman of chestnut hair and comely of feature. She had visited a few times to Tashijan when I was squiring.”

Kathryn nodded. “He was vague on how it all started. He was the warden of Tashijan, she the head of one of Myrillia’s finest schools. The Conclave grounds still holds one of the largest libraries and scholariums. Henri’s interest in alchemy had him visiting its stacks. The two had long talks into the night on a thousand matters large and small. To quote Ser Henri, ‘We were like of mind and spirit.’ ”

Tylar nodded. “Is that not the way it always starts…”

Kathryn glanced to him, realizing that once the same words could have described them. But that was long ago. Was it still true? She cleared her throat and continued. “Though Henri didn’t say it aloud, I think what drew them was a shared passion that went beyond lust. Each was burdened by the responsibility to guide and raise the young of Myrillia, both wanting the best for all. And at some point, they crossed that line from close companions to something warmer. They kept their trysts in secret. He visiting her, she him. Then, despite precautions, she grew with child. She bore a son. She never told anyone who the father was. Henri wanted to marry her, but she had refused. It seemed her duty to the Conclave and Myrillia’s future surpassed all else in her heart. But Henri understood. He would not have given up his wardenship either.”

“And the child? Young Yaellin?”

“His mother raised him in the school, even trained him in the ways to serve a god as a Hand. Then when he was old enough, at eleven birth years, she and Henri told him of his parentage. He was angry, lashed out against his mother. Henri ended up taking him back to Tashijan to learn the ways of the Shadowknight.”

“He trained at Tashijan?”

“For three years,” Kathryn answered. “Then something happened. I don’t know what. Even deep in his cups, Ser Henri would not divulge it. Henri and Melinda took a journey together to the hinterlands.”

Tylar glanced sharply at her. “The hinterlands? Why?”

“They had some duty there, something done in utmost secrecy. In the telling, Henri’s face turned dark and shadowed of brow, clearly remembering that journey. A year after returning from their sojourn, Henri returned Yaellin to his mother.”

“Why?”

Kathryn turned to Tylar. “Henri swore me to secrecy on this next matter, but I think it bears telling now. Whatever happened in the hinterlands required Henri and Melinda to commit an act of great heresy.”

“What?”

“Henri took his son, not even marked with his first stripe, and trained him in secret. He then blessed him with alchemies to give him the full Grace of an ordained knight.”

“Yaellin was knighted?”

“In secret. None knew. Henri was skilled enough in alchemies to gift the boy with shadowplay but still keep the gift hidden. After the boy was ready, Henri sent him back to Melinda and the Conclave. He was presented to the next moon ceremony and was chosen by Chrism’s Oracle.”

“Then what did you mean before that he was not exactly chosen?”

Kathryn licked her lips. “They paid to have him chosen.”

Tylar shook his head-not in denial, but in shock that Henri would participate in such deceit. He knew it was not totally uncommon for a rich family to arrange a position for a son or daughter. While an Oracle, blinded by blood alchemies, served as the eyes of his god, such men were not without a will of their own, without their own vices. Including greed. They could sometimes be plied by gold to sway a choosing.

“So Henri bought a position in Chrism’s court for his son,” Tylar said. “A son secretly blessed into knighthood. Why?”

“Like I said before, some secrets Henri would not divulge. All he would say was that his son was set to guard something, to serve as Henri’s eyes and ears at the castillion, a duty that tied back to that journey to the hinterlands.”

“And Henri offered no reason for such a journey or why he had ensconced his son in Chrism’s court?”

“He would speak no further. But now I wonder. If Meeryn’s dying mention of Rivenscryr guides us to Chrism, perhaps Yaellin might know more. We’ll have to hope he gets the raven I sent to him.”

Tylar nodded and turned to face her. “I hope-”

Kathryn heard the characteristic snap of bowstring. The crossbow bolt grazed Tylar’s shoulder and struck the back wall of the flippercraft.

Reacting on instinct, she cast her shadowcloak high, protecting both Tylar and herself. But she was too late. Another two bolts struck Tylar square in the chest, knocking him back. He made a small coughing noise. A third cut his ear, intended for his eye. Her cloak had blocked this killing shot.

From behind them, darkness flowed. Kathryn discerned three shapes, all Shadowknights. One with a sword, flanked by two bearing crossbows.

Tylar had fallen back against the rail, holding himself up by his arms. Feathered bolts sprouted from his chest and shoulder like bloody flowers. His eyes were fixed on the centermost knight, the one with the sword.

“Darjon…” he gasped.

At long last, the wall appeared ahead. The end of the Eldergarden. The myrrwood spread to the ancient bricks. Roots dug at the wall’s foundation, while branches shadowed its top.

Dart and Laurelle stumbled up to it, exhausted, worn, bleeding from a thousand scrapes. Dart stared up at the immense wall. How could they climb it?

Laurelle gently started to sob.

Yaellin appeared behind them, sweeping out of the gloom. “They know we escaped the Heartwood. We must not tarry.”

Off in the distance, a howl echoed to them.

Dart wished she could sprout wings and fly. She wanted nothing more than to wing over the walls, past Chrismferry, out of the First Land. Her world, hardly secure and safe before, had never seemed so dark and full of menace.

“To me,” Yaellin said and opened his arms.

Dart allowed Yaellin to hook an arm around her waist. Laurelle did the same. Still, Dart felt strange to have the man holding her. He had been such a source of personal terror and worry for so many days. A tremble of that fear iced her skin. Or maybe it was the sudden intimacy, his fingers digging deep into her chest, mingled with the long night’s terror. It all harkened back to the horrible day in the rookery. Dart fought against thrashing from Yaellin’s grip. He was not Master Willet.

“Hold fast,” he said.

The cape of his cloak fluttered upward, fringed in shadows. Those shadows found purchase in the pitted, crumbling wall. Yaellin drew them upward, scaling the giant bricks. They flew up the wall with the speed of shadow.

Down below, Pupp glowed in the gloom, a tiny ember. He watched Dart fly away. He raised up on his hind legs, paws on the lowest brick, clearly distressed. While Pupp could pass through almost anything, he had one weakness. Stone. If Dart crossed over the wall, Pupp could not follow. The wall would block him.

“No,” she moaned.

From out of the woods, two forms… then a third… burst forth, striking the wall with claws and nails. Ilk-beasts. They yowled and sought to climb the stone, but quickly fell back. The wall was too steep and high.

Pupp raced among them, unseen, invisible, insubstantial.

Yaellin reached the wall’s top, perched there a breath, then swung his legs over and descended the far side. As Dart’s view of Pupp vanished, she felt an immediate panic strike her. Always her companion, Pupp had never been far from her side. Her heart thudded heavily in her chest. Her fingers tightened on Yaellin.

They swept down the wall.

Desperate and frantic, Dart’s gaze searched for some answer. The city of Chrismferry spread out before her. Though the skies glowed with dawn, the city was mostly illuminated by the many lamps and torches of the waking city. Its breadth spread to all horizons, split by the silvery shine of the Tigre River. The waterway disappeared under the span of the massive castillion. Closer, Dart spotted the towers of the Conclave. A few lights glowed from its many windows. Her life there seemed another world.

She glanced back up the wall.

Pupp…

In moments, Yaellin dropped and landed lightly on the cobbles of High Street. His cloak fell about him in liquid ripples, settling to his shoulders and ankles.

Dart and Laurelle were released.

“What now?” Laurelle asked, teeth chattering slightly. She held her arms snugged tight to her chest. She seemed to have also shrunken into herself, grown smaller.

Dart felt shaky herself. Her knees wobbled like winterfest pudding. The morning breeze chilled her heated skin. Goose-flesh pebbled her arms. Even her breathing seemed out of step. She had to force herself to draw air in and out, like she had forgotten her natural rhythm.

Yaellin answered Laurelle’s question. “We must find a place to hide, where neither hound nor tracker can find us. With the coming of the sun, all manner of guard will be searching, surely with a concocted tale of some villainy committed by our persons. We must be away.”

He started off down High Road, heading toward the river. He stuck to the deeper shadows beneath the Eldergarden wall.

“We must tell someone what we saw,” Laurelle said, following.

“Tell them what?” Yaellin asked. “That Lord Chrism has gone mad of mind and heart? That he has taken to Dark Arts and plans to wreak havoc on all? We’d be hung and gutted before the first accusation could be made. Chrism has hid his corruption well. None will believe the impossible.”

Dart walked, grazing a palm along the wall to support her. “Believe what? What have we witnessed?”

Yaellin stared back toward the cliff of bricks as if his vision could pierce it. “My father sent me here as a spy against the Cabal. I was sequestered here as a secret defender to the Godsword. To keep it from the clutches of the Cabal. Only in these last days had I come to suspect Chrism had been corrupted, a part of the Cabal himself.”

Dart recalled the name. The Cabal. She had heard it spoken both in the grove and in her recent dream. “What is this group… this Cabal?”

Yaellin studied her. “It is a story best told after we’re secure. I’ve friends in the city, those loyal to my father. For now, let it be known that all of Myrillia is threatened. And you, little Dart, may be the key all seek.”

Dart stumbled. “What do you-?”

“This way,” Yaellin said and darted across High Street. He aimed for one of the side streets, a narrow course between rich homes.

They had no choice but to chase after him. A wagon trundled up the road, rising from the river streets below. Not wanting to be seen, they hurried.

Yaellin kept a fast pace, twisting one way, then another. The narrow upper roads and stairs outlined the villas, terraced homes, and palacios of the city’s nobility and rich gentlefolk. All sought homes close to the first god’s castillion, and over the millennia, such land had become crowded and stacked with residences. The homes were tall and narrow. Some sections of the streets were even spanned by wings of various palacios, creating tunnels through the jumble of buildings.

With each step, Dart felt the terror of the long night begin to weigh on her, the toll finally striking. Her breath gasped. Her legs shook. She found herself needing support against the walls.

“Dart,” Laurelle asked, “are you all right?”

Dart licked her lips, finding them too dry, her tongue thick. She shook her head and waved onward.

Laurelle drew to a stop. “Yaellin, she… we can’t continue like this.”

Yaellin drew to them. He studied their faces, then nodded. “It’s probably best to get our feet off the streets anyway. We don’t want to make our track too easy to follow. Come. Only a little farther.” He set off again, moving a bit more slowly.

Still, to Dart, it felt like a full run. She did her best to keep up.

At last, Yaellin pointed to a wait-carriage, drawn by two horses, and led them up to it. The coachman was currying one of his two mounts. Yaellin had fixed his masklin in place to hide his face and used folds of shadow to cloak Dart and Laurelle from direct view.

“Good ser,” the coachman said, straightening as Yaellin drew beside him.

“We would borrow your carriage if it’s unencumbered,” Yaellin said.

“Certainly, ser. I was about to start my day. Where’bouts can I carry you?”

Yaellin stepped to the door of the enclosed carriage. “I shall tell you once we’re away.” He ushered the two girls inside, then followed, taking the opposite bench.

The coachman closed the door, then clambered into his seat in front. A jingle of a belled lead announced their departure. The team drew the wagon with a creak of wheels.

“Keep low,” Yaellin whispered to Dart and Laurelle. He opened the tiny hatch to speak to the coachman. The exchange was muffled, but Dart heard a bit. They were heading for the far side of the city, a half-day’s journey. Yaellin passed up a heavy pouch of coin. Dart wondered how much of it was for their travel and how much was to buy the man’s silence.

After Yaellin closed the hatch, he fished into an inner pocket of a cloak and removed a tiny vessel of crystal. “Hold out your hands,” he told them. “Palms up.”

Dart trembled, arms shaking. Even this was a strain.

Yaellin removed the jar’s glass stopper. A dipping wand was attached to it, wet with the vessel’s contents. He touched it once to Dart’s left palm, then her right. She felt an itchy tingle. Yaellin anointed Laurelle’s palms the same way, then his own.

“Wave the air,” he instructed and demonstrated by wafting his arms a bit. Dart mimicked him. She smelled a slight stench to the air.

“It’s an alchemy of air and black bile,” Yaellin said. “A nulling recipe concocted by my father. It hides one’s path from all who seek it with Grace. It works only if one is not touching soil.” He wiped his palms on his cloak. “The blessing lasts for only a quarter bell. Hopefully that’ll be long enough to break our trail so we can clear the inner city.”

He leaned back into his seat.

Dart did the same. Her head felt full of butterflits. The growing light of the dawn stung her eyes, and her stomach churned. The bounce and pop of the carriage over broken cobbles did not help settle matters.

Yaellin noted her unease. “Dart, what’s wrong?”

She shook her head, fanning the ache behind her eyes. A new twinge rose from her navel, a dull tugging as if her innards sought a way to escape her belly.

“I think she’s taken ill,” Laurelle said, taking her hand. “Her skin is cold.”

Yaellin reached over and felt her brow. His eyes narrowed.

Dart pushed his hand away. The effort narrowed her vision, sparking lights at the corners. The tugging throb behind her navel grew worse. A moan rose to her lips. She rubbed at her belly.

Yaellin kneeled before Dart.

“Something’s wrong,” Laurelle said.

Dart barely heard her. She curled in on herself, bent double in her seat. “Stop…” she gasped. By now, her navel felt as if it were ripping open. She hugged her arms tight over her belly, as if to hold her guts inside. She retched, but nothing came out.

“What’s wrong with her?” Laurelle asked.

The world darkened. Dawn receded back toward night. Dart slipped away to another time, another place. She had been in a wagon, then a boat.

Rocking, rocking, rocking…

All alone.

No, not alone.

She pictured a tiny form nested against her belly, nuzzling, suckling. Where it ached now.

“Pupp…” she moaned aloud. “No…”

Yaellin’s voice sounded far away. “What’s this delirium?”

“A creature. I saw it.” Laurelle’s words fluttered in and out of Dart’s hollow head. “… claimed… always with her.”

“And it’s still with her?” Yaellin hissed. “Why didn’t someone tell me?”

“Gone…” Dart murmured. “Trapped by stone… wall…”

“The Eldergarden!” Laurelle exclaimed. “The creature must still be back there.”

“Trapped,” Dart gasped, knowing she had to make herself understood. But her world had gone black, laced with agony.

“Need…”

A hatch grated open, and Yaellin yelled, ordering the carriage stopped and turned about.

It happened too slowly. Dart faded, slipping into oblivion.

Then the carriage was around. Dart felt a syrupy warmth suffuse her. The pain remained, but it ebbed ever so slightly. The carriage trundled forward, heading back upward. Though Dart could not see it, she felt it with every strand of her being. The taut pull on her navel slackened. The world remained dark and painful, but she could breathe again.

Yaellin returned to her, his hand on her knee. “I saw the creature in your dream,” he said. “I never imagined it was still with you.”

“Saw it in her dreams?” Laurelle asked a question Dart was too agonized to voice.

“After I heard your tale of the shattered illuminaria,” Yaellin said, addressing Laurelle, “I thought Dart might be the one. Impossibly brought here, to the one place she must not be. I had to be sure. So I snuck into Dart’s room two nights back and cast a blessing of dreamsight upon her.”

Dart groaned. So it had been Yaellin. He had been in her room.

“I wakened her earliest memories. I saw my mother… my father

… stealing her away. I saw it all through her dream eyes. Even the tiny form of the creature.”

“Is it some daemonspawn?” Laurelle asked. “Was she cursed?”

“I… I’m not sure.”

Despite the agony, Dart heard the obfuscation behind Yaellin’s words. He knew more than he was willing to speak, but she did not have the strength to confront him.

“If it’s separated from her now, the loss must be causing her this pain. We must head back.” Worry etched his words.

The carriage continued back the way they had just come. Dart felt strength return to her with every turn of the cart’s wheel. The world slowly returned in shades of gray.

“Where will we go?” Laurelle asked. “Not back to the Eldergarden.”

“No, we can’t risk that. We’ll have to find someplace close to the castillion as refuge. Then I need time to think.”

“Where-?”

Something struck the side window, startling all. Dart lifted her aching head enough to look. A large bird perched on the window’s sill. It cocked its head one way, then the other. A raven.

Dart gasped and pulled away from it. Her most intimate fears were tied to ravens. She pictured another set of ravens, flocked above her, staring down. She again felt rough hands pinning her, hot breath at her throat.

The dark bird pecked at the window, drawing her back.

“It’s a messenger,” Laurelle said, pointing to the white tube tied to the bird’s foot.

Yaellin reached to the window latch, releasing the pane.

“No,” Dart moaned.

Ignoring her, Yaellin pushed the window open. The bird hopped to his arm. “Air blessed,” he said, noting the glow to the bird’s eyes. “Homed to me.”

“Is it from Chrism?” Laurelle asked, frightened.

“No. It bears the mark of Tashijan.” He pointed out the sigil painted upon its right wing. The raven breathed rapidly, panting through an open beak. “It must have been searching the upper city until the null blessing we cast faded.”

Yaellin worked loose the message tube. Dart still felt a deep unease at the raven’s black presence. She kept well back.

“This is the seal of the castellan of Tashijan,” Yaellin said with a frown. He broke the wax on the message tube and shook out the tiny scroll. He uncurled it and read the note silently. The raven took the moment to leap toward the window, wings snapping out.

Dart was happy to see it depart.

Finished reading, Yaellin rerolled the message. His brow had furrowed even deeper.“It seems we are not the only ones in flight this night. A meeting has been requested. It is with someone I trust… and my father trusted. It should be safe and may give us a place to hide that lies near Chrism’s castillion.”

“Where are you to meet?” Laurelle asked.

“At the Conclave,” Yaellin answered. He turned to the coachman’s hatch to inform him of the change.

Laurelle relaxed, obviously relieved to go to a place where she’d felt safe for so long. “Back to the school.”

Dart remained still. Yaellin spoke to the coachman, but all Dart heard was the flapping of raven wings.