by Holly Hook
Riley nearly slipped off the stairs twice climbing out of the tunnel, and had to give Jacob a hand to keep him from tripping and falling back down into it. She closed the tunnel, flipping down the piece of dirt and concrete that had kept it hidden from the amusement park goers and looked around. They’d popped up under one of the roller coasters, an old wooden one that was lit up with greenish spotlights. Colors flashed around them everywhere, and the largest mass—no, sea—of people she had ever seen was gathered about a hundred feet away, huddled around the palace walls as if they were providing warmth. Huge lights that belonged in a sports event blasted down on a raised platform near the palace gates, crowded with gray-uniformed soldiers and the Emperor himself.
“I ordered his security upped tonight due to the conflict,” Jacob said. “That means less soldiers in our way. We’ll go out the side gate.”
It took them a minute to find their way out of the roller coaster. Jacob helped her over a low part in the track, during which Riley got her dress caught on a piece of splintered wood. It ripped, leaving a trail of white cloth behind, but she didn’t stop to retrieve it. The dress had come from Ivan, anyway. It deserved to get ruined. Any second, a stray soldier could spot them, and a ball of magic could come sailing towards her.
It never came. The Emperor’s voice drew quieter as Jacob led her along an old chain-link fence.
“...kneel, my fellow Lateinians, and leave your offerings, so that I may continue to protect you and work to unite all races under our divine leadership. Tonight, some of Keilara’s citizens are learning of my generosity and wisdom, and will soon join us.”
Riley clenched her jaw and tried to tune out the words. Luckily, another cheer did that for her. The Emperor wouldn’t be so sure of himself when he found her gone. He’d have nothing left to bargain with. She could only pray he’d be too distracted by his sermon tonight to try spying on her.
She nearly bumped into the small gate that Jacob held open for her. She slipped through, out onto the side of a dark alley that smelled like garbage and muggy heat. Only a dim streetlight at the end of it lit their way. They’d broken out into Constance, a Constance that looked barren of all life.
“We need to leave Lateine before the Emperor finds me gone,” Riley said, tapping on Jacob’s shoulder. “He could spy on me. On us.” If he did that, he’d have helicopters on them in a hurry.
“You’re right. We need to go for the docks. We’ll take the Imperial River up to Frelladon. The soldiers there won’t pay much attention to one of their own military boats. I’ve already contacted the stewards there. We’ll need to make special arrangements, or Ivan will have them killed for helping us.”
* * * * *
Riley’s bladder felt ready to burst by time they reached a narrow, pothole-ridden road leading down to the darkness of the Imperial River, which she guessed was what they called the Frelladon River farther south. They’d passed few soldiers on the way, one group of them inside a cement-cracked checkpoint playing cards under a dirty yellow light, and another pair arguing on a street corner. Most of the buildings were dark, as almost everyone was in Imperial Land listening to Ivan glorifying himself.
“I have to go,” she said, unable to bear it anymore. She felt like such a wimp.
Jacob nodded. “The military boats all have toilets. We have to get there first.”
She agreed, squeezing her legs together as she ran after Jacob. He stopped in front of a paint-chipped door on a short wooden building that was attached to a long dock.
Without a word, he lifted his foot and kicked the door, leaving a dent with his pointed boot. Then he raised his hands and blasted it with a white-blue light, making Riley squint and nearly lose her control.
“Do you have to—” she started as a voice from inside the shack hollered, “They’re here.”
He nodded. “Have to make this look like they’re not helping us.”
Riley stepped into the dim light of the shack. Boards creaked underfoot, threatening to give out from dry rot. Three Lateinian soldiers stood in front of a crooked table, waiting. Riley couldn’t help but shrink back a bit. What if these guys were really working for Ivan instead of Jacob? But it was a risk they had to take.
“Commander,” the first said, swallowing. His soldier’s uniform hung on his thin limbs. Now that she thought about it, all the Lateinians looked quite thin.
“Thank you,” Jacob said. “I will find a way to repay you for this. I would use jewels, but that would look suspicious when they find you. Ready?”
The first soldier nodded, held his breath, and stood there as Jacob pulled back his fist and hit him in the eye.
Riley jumped at the sound. The soldier staggered back, hitting the table and knocking it over, along with mugs of a brown liquid that smelled like black coffee. Puddles expanded across the floor as the two other soldiers scrambled for something. “Here, Princess!” one called, tossing her a tan, curly mass.
A rope bounced off her and landed on the floor with a thump. She picked it up, rushing for the first soldier on the ground. “Do we tie them together?” There was only one rope to work with.
“Yes. Can you tie knots?”
“Learned at the Academy.” She leaned down as the first soldier put his own hands behind his back for her. “Sorry we have to do this.”
“It’s okay, Princess. We aren’t all with the Emperor.” The soldier twisted onto his stomach.
Riley tied the rope around the wrists, shaking so hard that she had to retie her knots twice. Another thump sounded to her left, and another soldier fell backwards into the wall, making the tin roof above them tremble. It seemed like this whole place would come down.
Jacob appeared at her side, soldier in tow. “Tie him too. We’ll let the third go free.”
She did, apologizing. This wasn’t her at all.
“They’re consenting, Riley. It’s for their safety. They'd be killed for helping us.” Jacob turned to the third soldier, a man even younger than him, as she stood. “You’re going to be the one who has to run to sound an alarm. You barely escaped, and the alarm here is broken, so you have to run and find other soldiers, which is going to take you a while. Also, you valiantly tried to stop me from kidnapping the Princess with your magic, hence all the burn marks in here.”
“Yes, sir,” the young man said, heading for the door. “The keys are on that chain over there.”
Jacob fired another blue-white blast at a metal box hanging on the wall, which sparked and fizzled. The acrid stench of smoke filled the room.
“That won’t set—” Riley started, staring down at the two men tied up on the floor. “Sorry,” she said again.
“No. It won’t.” Jacob eyed the metal box, which stopped fizzling. “Keys. Grab them and we’ll go.”
Riley’s bladder protested more than ever. She rushed over, taking a huge keychain off a hook and following Jacob out a back door, to an indoor dock lined with Lateinian military boats. There weren’t many in here, either: maybe three or four left in this dark, barely-lit expanse. The rest had sailed up the river to Frelladon. Riley climbed over the railing to the first one, afraid the door would open behind them and magic would hit her in the back, burning her to death.
“Below decks.” Jacob pointed down a dingy flight of stairs as he jammed his keys into a dashboard at the front of the boat. “I hope I know enough to operate this thing. I’ve seen it done.”
“That makes me feel better.” Riley ran for him and stared at the gauges. Most of it didn’t make sense to her, even after spending a couple of years in the Academy. “You’ve never ran a boat and you’re Commander?”
“That’s hard when you don’t get out of the palace. I’ve spent my whole career just commanding from there.”
The boat started with a sick, rumbling sound. Jacob hit a few controls as the boat slowly backed away from the dock, nearly running into one of its partners on the other side of the building. Water sloshed against wooden poles as Jacob gunned it towards the ex
it, nearly ramming into the side of the entrance as he did. “I think I’ve got it. It might take me a minute.”
“Any weapons below decks?”
“No. Guns aren’t allowed in Lateine. Ivan can’t control them. All we have to fight with is the magic he controls. He doesn’t allow Emoshis or Delainians either. I think he’s scared of them, to tell you the truth.” Jacob turned the steering wheel of the boat with some effort, and a groaning sound issued from inside it. The motor gave a loud roar behind them as they raced forward down the river, past rusty factories and an occasional orange streetlight shining off the water. “Ivan won’t have anything that can threaten his power. That’s why I fear what’ll happen if he gets hold of the continent.”
“What?” This country sounded more ridiculous all the time. She couldn’t wait to cross the border into Keilara more than ever. All the horror stories from the Emoshi Genocide swirled through her head. Ivan said he wanted to stop that sort of thing, but his solution sure wouldn’t be any better from what world leaders had done decades ago.
When she got home, she was going to kiss the ground.
Dull headlights bobbed down one street, and then another. The reflectors of a bicycle appeared, then faded into darkness. Riley’s pulse quickened. People were coming back from Ivan’s sermon, and surely some of the soldiers would be with them. Ivan would be returning to the palace now, discovering them gone.
“I’m going below decks,” Riley said, heading down the stairs. As much as she wanted to stay up here with Jacob, she still had to go, and if the military spotted them, she didn’t know what she’d do.
* * * * *
By time Jacob called for her to come back up out of the lower deck, only darkness and a musty swamp smell surrounded the boat. They seemed to have cleared Constance, which looked like a dim, yellowish cluster of lights behind them, barely able to stay lit. The carnival and the Emperor’s palace had already fallen out of view, being on the other side of the city.
“Are you going to ever head back for your mother?” Riley asked, wrapping her arm around Jacob for warmth. Despite the mugginess of late summer, it was still chilly, and all the water around them didn’t help.
“I hope so. Someday. But I had to get you out of there first.” Jacob stared straight ahead as the boat plowed through the swamp. “Do you think your parents will accept me?”
There was more to his question than just what would happen if—no, when—they got back to Frelladon, and it didn’t just pertain to her parents letting him across the border. Would they? He was the Imperial Commander of Lateine, and had ordered the invasion. But he was also Revolution Fire. “I’ll tell them who you really are. I’m sure they’ll recognize your voice. My parents are pretty accepting people.” That was true, but she wasn’t sure of how they’d be when they heard about her new, budding relationship, so she didn’t say anything. “We’ll have to see what happens before, you know.” She slipped her hand into his free one, enjoying the nice, safe warmth. Maybe Ivan was right about one thing. Getting taken to Lateine was the best thing that had happened to her in a long time, though not for the reasons he thought.
* * * * *
“Riley, here’s the plan.” Jacob stood in her doorway as she rose from the cot in the lower deck, groggy from sleep. How many hours had passed?
“Plan?” she asked, rubbing sleep from her eyes. The rocking under her reminded her of where she was, and it wasn’t home yet.
“We have to pass through the area of Frelladon that’s occupied by Lateine. I’m sure Ivan has alerted them that we’re coming through by now. If that soldier I let free values his life, he would have sounded the alarm within a couple of hours of our escape.”
Riley almost asked why they had let him free, but stopped herself. They hadn’t had a choice. Tying all three of the guards up would have looked too suspicious.
“What do I do?” Riley asked. Her heart fluttered like a trapped bird. Now wasn’t the time to freak out, but she wasn’t sure she could help it.
“There's a flare gun in the box under the cot,” Jacob explained. “I’ll drive us past the occupied area as quickly as I can, and once we’re past, you’re going to have to stand out here and signal your military. Otherwise, they might open fire on our boat.”
He was right. The only thing that would keep the Keilaran helicopters from firing on them was her. “Do you think we’ll make it through?”
Jacob nodded. “Probably. I sabotaged the palace radio equipment before we left, but that doesn’t mean...Riley, get under the cot!”
A strange prickly sensation crept over her skin, like an invisible pair of eyes had landed on her...like she was being watched. It was the same prickly sensation she’d had while drawing so many times that she couldn’t explain, that she’d had in school, that she’d even had while lying down at night, trying to get to sleep. It was the same feeling she’d had all those times Emperor Ivan said he’d been watching her.
Riley dove under the cot as the feeling intensified. She slid out just enough to see Jacob mouthing fool him at her.
Her brain scrambled for anything to say that might persuade Ivan they weren’t where they were, and that Jacob had taken her against her will. "What's going to happen to me? Where are you taking me?"
“Shut up, and maybe I'll let you live," Jacob snapped. "Far away from Ivan. It'll teach that bastard."
Instantly, the prickling sensation vanished, as if Ivan had retracted his mental homing device in rage. Maybe he had. Or maybe he wasn’t fooled. Unfortunately, she had no way to tell. “Is he gone?”
“Feels like he is. Don’t worry. He can’t watch someone for long or do it too often. Even his magic has its limits.”
“How often can he?” Riley crawled out from under the bed and followed Jacob out onto the upper deck.
He seized the wheel and turned it just in time to avoid hitting a short cliff face. Ahead, the skyscrapers of Frelladon towered into the morning-gray sky. Helicopters, maybe Keilaran, maybe Delainian, hovered like clouds of bugs around the city. They were only miles out, and miles from the truth.
“Maybe around once an hour. He must have just woken up and realized you were gone. Sounds like it took a while for our soldier to get the word out that you were missing. That, or the lack of technology in Constance slowed the whole thing down. But if you feel that prickling sensation, Riley, hide your location if you can.”
Once an hour. It was too much. Way, way too much. “Can’t he watch you?”
Jacob’s hair blew back in the wind, as if a storm were brewing. “Not as easily, but it’s possible. I've learned to resist it over the years. He’ll focus on you because you're easier. Get the flare gun ready.”
She did, and rushed back out to Jacob’s side. The city loomed larger now, and more came into view: the sports arena and the park district, now riddled with circus tents that hadn’t been there before. People milled around slowly as gray-uniformed figures stood guard at every possible corner. A sick feeling filled her. This was the start of Imperial Land’s expansion into her city, and those people were probably the residents in that area who hadn’t gotten out in time to avoid the Lateinian invasion.
“We’ll go slowly first, so we don’t attract attention,” Jacob explained. “Stay behind the doorway for now. I’ll yell when it’s time for you to come out.”
She scrambled back into the shelter of the stairway, sweat forming around her palm. The flare gun nearly slipped from her grasp. Tents grew larger in her field of vision, covering the parking lot of the stadium, and she could make out the details of the people milling through the fair. Families huddled close together as Lateinian soldiers waved them along, clipboards in hand. At what looked like a checkpoint, another soldier patted a woman down, probably searching for weapons.
Jacob cut the power on the boat, and the motor calmed down to a low rumble below her. He raised a hand and waved to a group of four soldiers on a dock. They returned his wave after a second of staring.
Did they k
now about the escape? Were they just pretending that they didn’t? Riley wondered if the flare gun could be used as a weapon. She didn’t have anything else to go on. It could certainly do some damage, but it wouldn't do much against magic users.
The boat rounded a curve, and a pair of tents seemed to separate, revealing yet another bronze statue of Ivan, staring lifelessly down at the people below. Her fellow Keilarans. Soldiers stood by, leaning against tents, directing people to kneel in front of the statue. No one was at the moment, to Riley’s relief, but even from here she could spot green bills—keils—lying on the concrete next to the bronze Ivan’s feet. So that was what he meant by offerings. She forced herself to look away, to sink farther into the stairway.
Jacob kept steering the boat along. It would only take a minute or two for the soldiers to realize he wasn’t stopping here, and then their cover would be blown. And what about the Keilaran soldiers? No doubt they were at the other side of the barriers, ready to take out any Lateinian boat that tried to get past it.
Shouts rang out from somewhere, and a blue-white ball of light exploded on deck behind Jacob, leaving a black scorch mark when it disappeared. Screams from the shoreline followed, soon drowned out by shouts as another blast of magic narrowly missed the top of Jacob’s head. It came so close that his hair blew back.
Ivan had somehow alerted his soldiers of what was happening. He hadn’t been fooled after all.
“Shit!” He cranked a lever and the boat’s engine roared back to life, nearly making Riley fall down the steps. Water parted in front of them as tents disappeared from her field of vision, replaced by houses and wooden fences. “Riley, it’s time!”
Another blast fizzled off into the sky, a miss. Riley tightened her grip on the flare gun and ran out onto the deck, nearly losing her footing again. Somewhere, another boat revved to life. The soldiers were giving chase. “How close are we to the barrier?”