by Unknown
I really, really didn’t want her to go.
A man could hardly tell a woman that’d been his friend and sister-in-arms for the past two years that he wanted her to put her life and career on hold just because he’d miss her. I couldn’t be that selfish. But at the same time, I didn’t even want to think about the distance that would be between us once she returned to Ascalon, either.
It took me only a split second to think of what I wanted, what I needed to offer her, and the chance I was taking. In the end, I knew deep down it was worth the risk. Clearing my throat, I offered, “I, ah, don’t suppose you’d reconsider?”
Aletha looked up slowly before her eyes locked with mine. “Reconsider?”
“Returning to Ascalon,” I clarified, feeling like my heart was trying to beat its way out of my chest. “See, I’d really miss you. I mean, really miss you. Life without you would be totally boring. And I’m not just saying all of this because I want you to help me teach weapons at Strae, although really, I don’t even want to try to teach a school full of kids the basics of combat by myself, that would just be dangerous in a not fun way, and you’re one of the most qualified instructors I’ve ever seen—”
“You’re babbling,” she pointed out. Aletha’s lips parted in a hopeful way, her eyes locked onto my face, reading every nuance.
I made myself stop. “I blame Becca. She’s a corruptive influence. So, um, in essence, I want you to stay with me. Us. Since Becca’s a package deal, I suppose I should say us.”
“Shad.” Her tongue flicked out to wet her lips. “Are you proposing?”
“Over a sleeping child that just had a nightmare. Yes, yes, I am. Sorry, I have no sense of romance or timing, do I?”
“Not in the slightest.” Aletha braced a hand against the deck and leaned over Becca enough to snag me around the neck and pull me toward her. I went willingly, meeting her halfway in a sweet, lingering kiss.
Ahh. Perfect. Why hadn’t I done this sooner?
She broke the kiss and whispered against my mouth, “I agree.”
I blinked at her stupidly. “You do?”
“Why are you surprised?” A low, soft chuckle flowed from her. “Haven’t I always dived into danger with you? Why did you think I followed you, every time, hmmm?”
Because she was as crazy as I was? No, I’d better not say that. I had better sense than to say that when she was within arm’s reach of me. That was the sort of thing you told a woman with a castle between you, with battlements and walls and magical wards to keep you protected. I went with the safer response. “You know, you’re right.”
“I just have one condition.” She held up a finger, that smirk of hers widening. “You get to hand in our resignations to Xiaolang. And explain why we’re resigning.”
I shrugged ruefully. “Knowing him, he’s already expecting this. What that man knows and keeps to himself would fill volumes.”
Aletha splayed a palm in acknowledgement. “Likely true.”
“I’ll buy you a ring when we reach Movac,” I promised.
“And we’ll tell Becca in the morning we’re engaged,” she added on thoughtfully. “I think that will give her more of a sense of stability, if she knows that I’m staying with all of you. It’s just as well I am—you have no idea how to raise a little girl.”
Considering how many things the both of them had taught me, I really couldn’t argue with that. “Gorgeous, one question.”
She cocked an eyebrow at me. “What?”
“I don’t think you will, ’cause you don’t strike me as one, but do you want one of those huge, elaborate weddings like Chatta and Garth did?”
“No,” she responded adamantly, shaking her head over and over. “Oh, no, I hate formality of any sort. Why, do you?”
“Since when have I liked that sort of thing?”
“Well, you enjoyed their wedding. And Asla and Xiaolang’s.”
“To be precise, I enjoyed the party afterwards. I could have happily skipped the ceremony.”
Aletha rubbed at her bottom lip in a thoughtful way. “Well, if you don’t want a formal wedding, and I don’t want a formal wedding, then why don’t we just get married in Movac?”
“And have a party with everyone when we get back to Strae? I see absolutely no downsides to this plan.”
Unexpectedly, Aletha started laughing, although she was trying to keep quiet.
“What?” I asked in confusion.
“No, sorry, I just remembered what you said before we left Ascalon. You proposed to me then too. Who would have thought pretense would become real?”
I’d almost forgotten I said that. “Xiaolang did,” I answered dryly.
“Oh, yesss….” Her eyes went blind as she remembered. “He did, didn’t he? Remind me to do something to him for being so smug and mysterious.”
I gave her a salute. “I will. And I insist on helping. But back to the question: you’re good with getting married in Movac?”
“Sure, I am. You understand that we’ll be in loads of trouble if we do that? Chatta alone will skin both of us.”
I waved this away. “I live in a state of constant danger. Most of it self-inflicted.”
“Which means I’m certifiably crazy for marrying you.” Aletha’s grin said she didn’t mind that. “Well, at least life with you will never be boring.”
I winked at her. “I can safely promise you that.”
We told Becca over breakfast about the engagement, and she was completely thrilled, and also relieved that Aletha would forever be with us. A worried line of tension I hadn’t realized was there faded out of her body language. The rest of the day, and most of the next, all I heard those two talk about was weddings and what their new home would be like.
Aletha was right, Becca had needed the extra reassurance.
I watched them chatter away and smiled, enjoying the show. I also found it enlightening. Who knew that women cared so much about the little details that went with weddings? Even my Aletha, who had told me not twelve hours before that she didn’t care for ceremonies, still wanted to wear a nice dress and be married properly in a church.
As they talked, I made mental notes. I did not want to say something stupid later and have two women mad at me.
These conversations whiled the time away, and before any one of us really realized it, we had arrived in Movac.
Movac was one of two major seaports for eastern Chahir, and it could, by no means, be described as small. There were so many ships coming and going out of the harbor that I felt like I was playing some aquatic version of dodgeball with the schooner, trying to miss people. Usually there was some rhyme or reason for coming in and out of a harbor, but if this port had a system, I certainly couldn’t figure it out. Every size of ship from rowboats to three-tier passenger ships could be seen, and Becca went from one side of the schooner to the other, exclaiming over them.
Someone had had the good sense to put up signs at the ends of the docks that stated the terms of docking and fees involved. We had to sail about halfway down, more towards the center of the moon-shaped harbor, but we finally found a dock that would let anyone in for a minimal fee. I had a feeling that the small fee meant a distinct lack in security, but as we had no intention of coming back to the schooner or leaving anything behind, I frankly didn’t care what happened to it.
In great relief, we put the gangplank out, threw all our gear onto the horses, and clattered toward land. Cloud kept rubbing up against my side in thanks, grateful to have solid land under him. (It was going to be reaaaaal fun convincing him to board a ship again.)
A wizened old man with a potbelly sat at the very top of the dock with a large ledger in front of him. I assumed him to be the master and stopped in front of him, offering a polite bow. “Riicshaden. A pleasure to exchange names.”
“Entgarderen, pleasure. That schooner with the blue trimming yours?”
“That’s right,” I responded easily. “She won’t be here long, as a friend of ours will be picki
ng her up.” Whether to sell her or somehow send her back, I did not know, nor did I care. “What’s the fee for her?”
“How long will you keep her here?” he asked, clearing his throat.
“Two days?” I offered. Surely I could sort the problem of the schooner out by then.
We haggled out a price that I thought more or less fair, and I paid him before asking, “If we were to buy tickets for a passenger ship heading toward Halliburton, where would be the best place to go?”
He dipped his chin a fraction and eyed the group thoughtfully. “You got traveling papers?”
I stared at him in dawning realization. Oh. Oh, busted buckets. I’d forgotten about those! I was so used to Garth zipping us all over creation, avoiding border checks and roads altogether, that I’d forgotten Chahir had instigated a mandate that anyone traveling out of one province and into another had to have official papers. Of course, Vonlorisen had decreed that to try and capture the renegade priests, but…shrieking hinges!
I didn’t have papers for Becca!
Aletha stepped around me and offered the man a resigned shrug. “My husband and I do—” we did, too, we’d automatically packed them with the rest of our gear before leaving Ascalon “—but I’m afraid we lost our daughter’s over a week ago. It’s been a rough trip.”
“You folks look a mite rough,” he agreed. “Well, you’ll need to go to the main government office and get another set made. Don’t envy you that, it’s a right chore.”
“Where might that be?” Aletha asked him.
He gave us directions, which I more or less followed as I was familiar with Movac. I repeated it back to him to make sure I had it straight, thanked him for the trouble, and led the group off toward the main part of the city. “Well, I suppose we have to go find an inn first,” I told Aletha as we navigated our way through the cramped streets. Where did all these people come from, anyway?
She dodged a draft wagon coming our direction, automatically shifting Becca closer to me so that she was out of harm’s way, before answering, “We’ll need to, just to put our gear somewhere and stable the horses for a while. I get the feeling that getting those papers for Becca will take a few hours, at least.”
I gave her a smile known to melt women’s hearts and charm birds into singing. “My darling, why don’t you do the paperwork for Becca? I’ll hunt down passenger ships and give us some options to choose from.”
Aletha smiled at me winsomely. “I think not.”
Hmm. My legendary charm had mysteriously failed.
Alright, time to go to Plan B.
I wrapped my arms around Aletha’s shoulders and in my best pitiful tone whined, “But I’m terrible with paperwork! Aren’t women supposed to be naturally better with it?”
She tried to act put-upon, but I could tell she was biting back a smile. “Shad…”
Between us, Becca was giggling at my antics, which, of course, only encouraged me.
“Please? Pretty please? I’ll buy you a nice bribe later, I promise.”
“Shad,” she repeated patiently, turning her head slightly to look me in the eye. “I can’t read or write Chahiran, remember? I only know how to speak it.”
I opened my mouth, all ready to protest, and froze when I realized what she had said. “Busted buckets.”
“So unless you want an eight-year-old to fill out all that paperwork—and I wouldn’t recommend that—you’re stuck.”
I was having the absolute worst luck on this trip.
We found an inn without issue, a pleasantly clean place with friendly staff that was near the waterfront. It was barely nine in the morning, so we had plenty of time left in the day to do things, so we unanimously decided to clean up first. None of us had had a proper bath in days, after all.
The staff gave us directions to not only the office I needed to visit for Becca’s traveling papers, but also to the main ticketing office for passenger ships, both of which were on the same street. Actually, they were within spitting distance of each other. Since that was the case, we went together, weaving our way in and out of the foot traffic until we reached the center square of the city where most of the main offices were.
I picked out a café on the corner for us to meet up at, girded my mental loins for battle, and waded into the building.
Of course, it was a useless gesture on my part as all I did was join a line of shuffling people and stay there for the next hour.
The building, at least, was cool. It had been built during the turn of the century (the massive spider webs in the corners led me to believe so), with thick granite walls and wooden beams supporting a sturdy tile roof. Sound echoed in here, as the main room took up half the building. People were crammed together in one line of desks dividing the employees from the patrons, but in spite of the vast number of people in this one space, it wasn’t particularly noisy. Oh, people moved about, and chairs scraped on the tile floor now and again, but there was nothing more than a quiet hum of conversation as people went about their business.
What a dreary place to work in.
When my turn finally came, I went directly to the desk an usher waved me to without much thought on my part. I thought, no matter how much time this supposedly took, it couldn’t be that bad if there was someone to help you with the forms, right?
Where was Eagle when I needed him?
Here I sat in front of this crotchety old soul, who looked to have been born in that chair. He creaked when he moved, wrinkles making him seem like he was permanently frowning, hair wispy and standing straight up. He prattled on about what I needed to do, and what forms, and what forms I would need to fill out other forms, and so on.
The problem was, I didn’t understand a word he was saying.
I didn’t know what language he was speaking, but it wasn’t Chahirese. Or Hainish. Or Solish. Or any other language I happened to know. I was pretty sure it was some bureaucratic dialect that only government officials spoke.
Two years ago, when I’d been pulled out of the crystal and told what the mission was, I’d had no problem helping to rescue magicians out of Chahir. We’d gone over the border as we pleased, back and forth, without any issue. I didn’t even remember being stopped unless we were heading into a major city and going through the main gates. And that was when the world was actually dangerous compared to now, when the Star Order was still in charge of things.
So explain to me, when we were relatively safe and sound, why did we suddenly have all these bureaucratic safeguards to wade through?
I tried to tell myself that this was a good sign. That all these checkpoints and countermeasures showed that Vonlorisen was taking the security of his country very seriously. But as another form was shoved into my hands, the argument fell a little flat.
He beamed at me.
I blinked back. “Is that it?”
“Yes, sir, that’s all. Simply fill these out and return them to me.”
I stared at the thick wad in my hands and suddenly missed the days when I could just go around hacking at people. Life was simpler then. “Right.” Still not sure how I got stuck with all of this, I pushed myself out of my chair, banging my knees against the short desk in front of me in the process. Grimacing, I cursed under my breath and hobbled over to a set of tables behind me.
Obviously the people who worked here realized that their patrons needed a place to sit and write, as they had a whole line of tables shoved together against one wall. I took a chair across from an old woman who was hunched over her own pile of forms, and I started with the first one in front of me.
The names of the applicants, and their birthplace and such, all of that I knew. But about three lines into the form, I quickly became stuck. Becca’s date of birth? I had no idea. I barely knew her age. Her parents? Siblings, if any?
Ahhh…I scratched at the back of my head. Well, technically we weren’t supposed to tell who she was, as we were trying to avoid getting her family in trouble. So I supposed here, I should say my parents? And sibl
ing would be me, right? I scribbled in answers, skipping whatever I didn’t know.
I got through three of these obnoxious forms when it hit me: we were in Echols Province.
Each province was like a city-state of their own. They might’ve all been under Vonlorisen’s rule, but they all had their own legal systems. It had been a nightmare for us when we were tasked with ferreting out the Star Order Priests, as we’d had to deal with different judicial systems, all of which were different, none of which talked to each other across the provincial borders. It had taken a direct order from Vonlorisen to get us through the systems and give us the power we needed to hunt down and imprison the priests.
But now, the holes in the system might just work in my favor.
I was in Echols. Echols did not share information with any other province, and certainly not with Kaczorek, where Becca was from. They wouldn’t cross-reference my information with Jarrell Province either, and even if someone was willing to go hunt everything down and compare my answers, it would take months. They promised at the front desk that as long as I filled out all the necessary forms, I could have a passport for Becca today.
So, really, it didn’t matter what I put down as long as it seemed logical on the surface.
An evil grin stretched from ear to ear. Oh. Oh, this would be fun.
Humming under my breath, I started in again, but this time I put down whatever I wanted to. I made up whole families, birthdates, occupations, and so on. The only thing I checked was to make sure that my lies were consistent and that I never contradicted myself.
Pleased with myself, I went back to the crotchety man and handed him the forms.
He took them, eyes peering up at me over the rim of his glasses. “You were quite fast.”
“You were very good at explaining them to me,” I responded kindly.
His mouth dropped open. Had he never been complimented on the job before? Embarrassed, he cleared his throat, nodding for me to take a seat, and started going through the forms. Almost instantly, he frowned. “These are out of order.”