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The battle between the three Veilin and the Warlord of Shambelin commenced. The warlord growled and roared, other actors dressed as beasts clawing around his feet as the Veilin waved their swords.
It looked so silly now. Without the warlord’s stilts, the Veilin’s fire, and all the theatrics, it almost could have been a comedy, but in the strangest way, the story grabbed Clea.
The medallion was a cavity in her chest, eating away at her, and the battle on stage became something bigger than a play. Clea’s own great ancestor, Helina Hart, was one of the three that defeated the warlord all those years ago.
Many legends claimed that the forest’s beasts today were what remained of the warlord’s army after his defeat. The battle still existed, the forest beasts diluted versions of the warlord, and Clea a diluted version of Helina. Legends said that Helina hadn’t been much older than Clea when she’d faced the Warlord of Shambelin. His beastly form represented all fear, all war, darkness and suffering. When Clea was young, he was the darkness in the hallways and the strange sound outside her windows. To Lodain children, he was the monster that snatched the badly behaved boy or girl and dragged them into the woods in the dead of night. After his death centuries ago, he lingered as a haunting force, but in real life his darkness must have been unimaginable. Helina Hart had helped slay him, and here Clea was, beset by the idea of the forest alone. Despite every attempt, she fell short, and so much of her efforts as of late had been to outrun that feeling.
Clea swallowed and shook her head, feeling her fears just asdeeply as she had in the woods the night before. Without thinking, she whispered, “How did they do it?”
The Veilin on stage struck the killing blow. The Warlord of Shambelin crumpled and whimpered.
“Do what?” Ryson asked, a sharpness in his voice drawing her attention and reminding her that he was there. It seemed he’d digested her expression and mood quickly, because his question didn’t have curiosity, but scorn. “Look around, Princess.”
She did. She saw the trash and the starvation. She saw the illness that Veilin could seldom heal for charity without gathering a frantic mob of dragging, desperate, hungry hands. One of her colleagues had been killed in such a way only two months ago. They’d found his body in the gutters, covered in claw marks. His hair and clothes had been cut to make healing and luck charms, none of which worked, and yet it never stopped them from being sold anyway.
She looked back at the play, and prepared to reply that despite it all, with all their limited resources, people still put on plays. To her, it still represented some desire to fight back against The Decline. As she prepared to voice the thought, she was also reminded that the story represented the legacy of her people, that they were all connected through history, that despite it all, those who struggled now weren’t actually alone. Increasingly inspired, and wanting to share the thoughts, she turned, but Ryson was gone.
She scanned the throngs of people through the hot afternoon sunlight. A minute later, another flash of light caught her eye. It took her a moment to see the soldier coming for her. Theroad was clearing in panic. Her heart drummed into action as electricity zinged through her brain and scattered her thoughts into pure blankness.
With no sign of Ryson, she darted in the opposite direction. She laced through the people like a serpent through grass before slipping into a nearby ally as the soldier called out, “Someone catch her!”
Searching for a place to hide, she ran full speed down whatever clear road she found. A sharp turn landed her in a deserted street and then another, unsure of where she was going but driven to find a route to safety. When she could no longer hear the chatter of the market, she hid between two large crates and attempted to catch her breath.
She slammed her eyes shut as she licked the dryness off her lips, building a map in her mind. Alina’s house was east of her current position. Even if she didn’t travel with Alina and Ryson, right now that house seemed like the safest place to hide.
Clea crept out into the street, staying close to walls, crates, and houses. The clamor of armor bustled with increasing volume as groups gathered in search of her.
Clea went left, right, and left again, until a single misstep planted a soldier right in her path. They locked eyes and her strategy dissolved in a second dose of raw adrenaline.
Shouting erupted, and she tore across a series of boxes leading to the roof of a nearby cottage. Riding soft-footed wings of speed, she soared across a path of housetops before her as clear as a city road.
She could almost taste freedom in the air above the houses, stumbling precariously on a slanted roof as a wide gap between houses gave her nothing but a fence top to cross. Arms out, she tottered on the rickety boards, trying to even out her breath as her arm ached and bit under the torment of the tension in her muscles. A soldier’s shout shocked her into a daring leap, and she collapsed onto the shingles of the next rooftop, her knees and shins forecasting bruises against the baked clay.
She was poised to spring off again when a hand wrapped around her ankle and wrenched her down off the roof. Images spun as she hit the ground and rolled hard over the dirt. Bodies crushed her, pulling and yanking and shouting as they tied her hands.
“You don’t understand!” she shouted against the dust as it clung to her lips and pressed into her mouth. “Let me explain! You don’t know what you’re doing! Wake up!”
The ropes tightened angrily around her wrists. She tried to find faces that truly recognized her, soldiers dragging her up and off as she spat the earth from her mouth.
She knew their faces, their laughter, their friendship, but not their cold, black eyes.
“Wake up!” she pleaded. “Please, someone wake up!”
The medallion’s influence was still too strong.
Chapter 4
Diversions
CLEA WINCED AS the soldiers threw her onto her knees. The worn carpet barely softened her landing against the stone beneath it. She’d never imagined seeing this throne room again. The ancient columns and carvings had once been beautiful and nostalgic; now, they served as grim reminders of circumstance.
The harder she fought to escape the city, the deeper it drew her in. If King Odell didn’t believe her story, if he remained under the medallion’s influence completely, then she’d certainly be sent to prison or worse.
King Odell said nothing, waiting in his throne under the shadows cast by the late afternoon. Only his armor-clad feet peeked into the light, reflecting the sun with such brilliance that the contrast made it hard to make out his figure.
When Clea had taken the medallion from him, he’d been sleeping, his labored breathing filling the darkness of the room with every rasped withdrawal. The sound had seemed desperate as her hands trembled furiously to peel the jewelry from his neck. She’d never stolen anything in her life, much less from a king, and had fumbled so long with the chain, it was a miracle that he hadn’t awoken. If only she’d been quicker, his guards wouldn’t have spotted her on the way out.
Luckily, it seemed his breathing had recovered from its raspingloudness, giving her some confidence that not only had he regained his breath from the medallion’s poisoning, but perhaps a bit of his true personality as well.
