by Lizzy Ford
She changed quickly into Aveline’s clothing then grabbed her satchel from the closet. She positioned it over her head and across her chest before swinging on the warm cloak. Tiana went to closet wardrobe when a flash of color caught her eye. She pulled her favorite veil out of the wardrobe, a brilliant pink length of silk she had embroidered with forest animals, and stuffed it in her satchel.
Approaching the door, she paused once more, afraid of what lie beyond her protected chamber, afraid someone might already know. She wanted to cry but knew Aveline would not approve.
Tiana pulled the hood of her cloak up over her head to hide her eyes in the depths of its shadows. She went to the door and opened it.
No Shield members – or worse, her father – waited for her outside. No one was there to stop her. Her will to leave began to chip away as she reviewed how daunting her challenge really was.
I have to save Arthur, she reminded herself. Tiana stepped outside of her room, into the hall, and pulled the door closed behind her. She braced herself for discovery, but no one confronted her.
She hurried through the apartment, hunched and fearful, and reached the servants’ elevator without anyone noticing her. The two Shield members glanced at her then away when they saw her slave’s clothing.
Tiana held her breath as she waited for the elevator car and clenched her hands together to keep them still. At long last, the elevator door slid open. She hurried into its depths and selected the floor for the medical bays catering to the privileged elite residing in the pyramid.
She reached the fourth floor and hurried off the elevator. The medical wing was lightly staffed, and she recognized the hallways and bays where she had been taken after the Matilda incident. Warner was likely staying in a room close to the one she had woken up in. Tiana rushed past the three medical staff members gathered in the waiting area. Her heart was beating so loudly, she was certain it was about to give out. Tiana skirted two more nurses in slave uniforms before reaching the hallway where those requiring close observation were kept.
She went door to door until she found Warner and then ducked inside his room and closed the door behind her.
Shaking from head to toe, she leaned heavily against the door and fought to catch her breath. A trickle of terror mixed with exhilaration as the thought she had not only left her room, but done so without permission, disguised as a slave.
“Who are you?” Warner’s voice was thick and his words slow.
Tiana straightened. She had not thought this part through all the way. Warner had never seen her, even though she knew him from spying on the household. Arthur’s bodyguard lay in a narrow bed. He was tall enough for his feet to dangle over the end, and his muscular frame was visible beneath the thin hospital clothing he wore. His hands were bandaged as well as his head and one bicep.
But his dark eyes were clear and sharp and trained on her.
Tiana was stuck between the inherent shyness stemming from never speaking to anyone in her life and urgency to help her brother.
“Are you … Tiana?” Warner’s gaze narrowed, and he pushed himself into a seated position.
She nodded, startled he knew her.
Surprise flickered across his features, along with confusion. “Is this another hallucination brought on by medicines?”
She shook her head. “I am really here.”
“I had begun to think you did not exist,” he said.
Tiana had no idea how to respond.
“Are you safe? Have the Cruises tried to hurt you?” he asked.
“No. My father burned them all,” she said without revealing the danger she had faced from Matilda.
“Good. The bastards should all burn.”
Another awkward silence fell.
“Arthur,” she managed to say her brother’s name without crying.
“He is still in danger,” Warner said, frowning. “I understand your father sent every Shield member he could spare. I only hope they move fast enough to help him.”
“They will not,” she blurted out. Grateful for the opening, she drew near his bed, eyes on the ground and voice low. “He is in great danger, Warner. My father’s men are not heading in the right direction. He will be dead before they find him.”
Warner was silent. She dared not lift her head when she was close enough for him to see her eyes if he did. “You share his … deformity,” Warner said quietly. “The visions?”
Surprised her brother had revealed such a potentially damning secret to anyone outside the family, she could only nod.
“You have seen his danger?” Warner sat up. His tone took on an urgent note.
“I have,” she answered. “I know where he is.”
“Tell me where!” Warner sprang out of bed. His large form crossed the room to a trunk, and he yanked it open before pulling out the clothing of a Shield member.
“I will show you.”
“You cannot go outside the city! If the Natives do not impede me, the Ghouls will hunt me as they did when I returned!”
Ghouls are real? She almost asked. Arthur had insisted they were fairytales told to scare children.
Warner yanked off his hospital shirt to reveal the thick muscles of his back.
Tiana’s jaw fell open, and she turned away quickly before fanning herself.
“Where is he?” Warner asked as he dressed.
“I will only tell you when we are outside the city,” she replied.
“Your brother would not approve of you leaving the city. I cannot in good conscience disobey him.”
What he said made sense. But for the first time in her life, she had a plan, and she was not going to let Warner dissuade her. “After we find him, I am going to the Free Lands,” she whispered.
The rustling behind her stopped. “Free Lands. Does your deformity tell you they exist?” he asked cautiously.
“My deformity tells me nothing of the sort. But it has revealed, if I am here on my eighteenth birthday, I will die. I must leave, but first, I must find Arthur.”
The sound of his movement began again. “If you wish.”
“You will take me?” she asked.
“I swore an oath to your brother to protect you. If there is danger beyond the Cruises within the city, then you are safer with me, are you not?”
“Yes,” the word came out as a sigh, and her cheeks flushed hot.
“You understand you will anger your father doing this?”
“I do,” she said. “As will you.”
“I would risk anything for your brother, even being burnt at the stake.”
So would I. Tiana’s thoughts went to Aveline. She wished her friend agreed to accompany her but also knew the assassin in training had never cared to set foot outside the city. It was not fair to ask her to leave her home, even though Tiana wanted her friend by her side.
“Let us go, before I change my mind about you coming with me,” Warner said. He whipped open the door and strode out.
Tiana scrambled after him, barely able to believe this was really happening.
No one stood in the muscular Shield member’s way as he walked to a slave stairwell and trotted down. Tiana trailed him. While she was unfamiliar with most of the place she called home, Warner knew exactly which path would take them around any Shield members on duty and around the gathering areas for the privileged elite. Twenty minutes later, they emerged into the snowy night.
Tiana stopped and looked up. It was the first time in her life when she had been outside during the night, and without her father’s permission. She was allowed to leave her room four times a year for special events requiring the entire family to attend. Those events, however, usually lasted a few minutes.
But tonight … she was free!
The hood slipped back. Snow fell straight down upon her exposed face, stinging her cheeks with tiny, cold kisses, and stuck in her hair. She suppressed the urge to cry. Too many emotions were soaring through her for her to decide which she felt the strongest.
�
��I think I know this answer, but can you ride a horse?” Warner asked.
In her awe of the night, she had forgotten his presence. Tiana started to glance his way before realizing the hood had fallen down to her shoulders, leaving her deformed eyes visible.
She snapped her eyelids closed and clawed the hood back up over her head.
“Arthur told me,” Warner said, a gentle note in his tone. “He does not hide his deformity from me. You do not need to, either.”
Where had her brother ever found such a man? She did not know how anyone could look up on her eyes and not be repulsed.
“I cannot ride,” she whispered. “I have never been around animals at all. Or trees.”
“Neither of us can ride a tree,” he said with a soft chuckle. “You are small enough for us to ride together. Come.”
Her emotions surged and tumbled as she hurried after him. Every sound, from the crunch of snow beneath her boots to the swishing of her cloak, and every new sight, such as the paddocks where several horses in blankets were turned out and the streetlamps whose torches struggled to shine through snow, filled her with a giddy combination of delight and fear.
“Wait here,” Warner told her and then walked into the stables.
The scent of hay and horses reminded her of how her brother smelled when he returned from a ride or a hunt. Homesickness for the only person she had ever truly loved caused her exhilaration to wilt. How did she find pleasure in the world, when she did not know if anyone could save her brother?
Warner emerged leading a saddled bay horse. Before he reached her, the horse stopped and lifted its head. The beautiful creature was taller than Tiana expected, with legs longer than hers and a small, chiseled head. She started to smile.
Warner murmured something she could not hear to calm it before starting forward again.
The horse neighed loudly in complaint. This time, it yanked its reins free from Warner.
“Sorry. He is usually friendly,” Warner called over his shoulder. “Step closer. Maybe he needs to smell you first.”
Tiana complied and walked forward, eager to see if the horse’s coat was as soft and fuzzy as it appeared.
The animal’s ears flattened against its head, and the whites swallowed half its eyes. It reared with a sound of panic rather than objection. The animal pulled its reins free of Warner then spun and bolted into the stables.
Tiana stopped, uncertain what to do.
“That was unexpected,” Warner said, hands on hips. “Horses have many reasons for behaving the way they do. If he’s lame, perhaps …” He drifted off without sounding convinced. “Wait here. I’ll find us another horse.”
Tiana shivered and wrapped the cloak around her more securely.
Movement from the corner of her eye caught her attention, and she smiled at the two horses standing at the paddock rail, a good ten feet away. She approached them, admiring their large eyes and winter coats. The nostrils of one horse widened as it caught her scent. Its ears went back, and it brayed loudly. The horse beside it backed away from the railing and trotted to the opposite side of the paddock.
The first horse followed, kicking out with its back legs in her direction.
Tiana stayed where she was, disappointed. From what she had seen of horses, they seemed friendly. Did they sense she had no experience with them?
Warner returned leading a smaller horse. He drew near her, only for this horse, too, to plant its hooves in the slushy snow and refuse to move.
Tiana approached, and the animal reared with a neigh.
She stopped.
Warner tried to calm the horse down to no avail and finally led it back into the stables.
When he appeared a third time, he carried saddlebags over one shoulder. “They do not like you, so we will not be riding.”
“Oh,” she said. “Is it common for them not to like someone?”
“I have never seen it happen before,” he replied as he walked past her.
At a loss as to why horses liked Arthur and not her, Tiana suspected her deformity was responsible without understanding how. Was it her appearance the horses did not like or her magic?
“Which direction are we going?” Warner called.
She shook her head to clear it. For whatever reason, horses disliked her. But they could still find her brother on foot.
“The Little Beard tribe’s borders,” she reported.
Warner muttered a curse beneath his breath. He swung one arm and made a show of balling up his bandaged fist and releasing it. “I have time to think this through,” he said. “Come on. We have a long walk ahead of us, and we will need to hide from anyone your father sends after us. Luckily, your brother has a friend or two we can call upon.”
Tiana trailed him, too excited to take note of the city as they passed through the northern edge towards the road leading out of the only place she had ever known.
Chapter Seventeen
After a relaxing afternoon and evening talking to Rocky, Aveline entered the great pyramid where the privileged members of Lost Vegas lived. She passed through the common areas on the ground floor, skirting a fete in full swing despite it being midnight, and arrived at the slave elevator. A few minutes later, she was walking through the quiet apartment belonging to the Hanover’s towards Tiana’s room.
A portrait of Arthur on the wall of the long hallway leading from the family areas to the individual rooms caught her attention, and she paused to observe it. It appeared recent; he was the same age as when she had met him at the brothel, where he rescued her from her fate.
She had spoken to Rocky at length about her options with regards to entering the Guild. He had agreed she needed a sponsor, which he – as an assassin and full member – was more than willing to do. However, neither of them possessed the type of benefactor she needed to back her pledge. The Guild thrived off of donations from benefactors. Rocky had been fortunate and found his a year ago by accident, when he saved a privileged member of the outer city from being trampled by a runaway cart. At twenty, Rocky was the youngest full-fledged assassin in the Guild, and he owed it to the man who gave a generous donation out of gratitude.
Aveline’s plan had always been for her father to sponsor her. With the backing of the Guild’s leader, she had not needed any other kind of benefactor.
Arthur’s offer to act as her benefactor was currently her only real hope of entering the Guild anytime soon. Any doubt she had about his ability to donate a substantial sum of money, large enough for the Guild to overlook her breaking of two of their rules, had perished when she saw the luxurious apartment where he and Tiana lived.
Arthur was not the only option, but he was the easiest. Rocky had argued that she would find another potential benefactor, if she remained in the Hanover’s service long enough to meet more of the wealthy members of the Outer City.
What she had not dared to reveal, however, was the one reason why she may not stay there long at all: Tiana’s insane father. He knew what she was. She was in favor – for now. But based on how quickly he had burned every Cruise in existence, she understood too well how fickle his favor was. Unlike Arthur, who had followed through on his promises to her thus far, the Hanover patriarch would discard her once he had no use for her.
All of her internal arguing, and the discussion with Rocky, led her right back where she started.
Arthur would get her where she wanted to be.
Arthur’s life was in danger outside the city.
Did her concern for him stem solely because of her desire to make her father proud? Or … was it also because of Tiana, and the hope and fear she had witnessed in the Hanover girl’s features when she discussed Arthur?
Aveline moved away from the portrait. After her stay in solitary, the conversation with Tiana’s father, and seeing her home burnt to the ground, she decided only a good night of sleep was going to help her think straight.
She walked to Tiana’s door and slid the key into the lock.
The door cracked
open at the light pressure.
At once on edge, Aveline pushed it open all the way. A fire was burning in the hearth, and the rest of the room was dark.
“Tiana?” she called, once again irritated with herself for not thinking to grab a weapon or two at some point during her day.
No response.
Aveline went to the bed, where she expected to find Tiana this time of night. It was vacant. She strode to the closet, where Tiana used to hide when she was upset. It, too, was empty.
“Tiana?” Aveline called again, growing alarmed.
A pile of clothing lay near the table by the hearth, and the wardrobe was partially open. A chill went through Aveline, and she crossed to the desk. The map Tiana had drawn and placed there earlier was gone.
“Burn me!” Aveline muttered. She bolted to the closet, hoping the large map Tiana had been embroidering was located in the same place it had been in her former room. Flipping on the light, Aveline spotted the tapestry first, and the soft leather roll containing her weapons second.
Her weapons sat on a trunk, and Tiana had placed half a dozen needles around one of the many flowers located on the tapestry. Aware of her hidden system for disguising villages and terrain, Aveline studied the map.
The needles surrounded a village that was half red, half orange, indicating it was either on the border of the territory of an unfriendly tribe of Natives, or contested land. Aveline had never had a reason to ask exactly which one this particular flower was on the tapestry filled with flowers. She placed a finger on Lost Vegas – represented by the largest of the flowers – and then on the village Tiana had emphasized.
“Past the plains and into the forest, then onward to the plains beyond,” Aveline said. Tiana’s map was missing one key piece of information: a legend describing distances. Aveline suspected Tiana did not know distances, or the mountains would not seem so close to the city, as they did on the homemade map. She stood still, concentrating hard, until certain she had memorized everything the map had to offer about the location of where Tiana was headed.
With any luck, if she moved fast enough, she could find Tiana before the Hanover patriarch realized she was gone. Aveline did not want to know what he would do when he discovered his newly pardoned guard dog had allowed his daughter to escape outside the city. Whatever he decided, it would quash any chance Aveline had to enter the Guild, or even remain in the city, assuming she escaped his madness with her life.