A New Plan

  Fire magi are often recognizable by their temperament alone—impetuous, spontaneous and passionate. Not necessarily prone to anger, but strong emotion. It’s a trait of the affinity. I would almost venture to say that a fire mage who lacks these qualities is not entirely human.

  — From Secrets of Mani, by Sor the Lark

  (Dri’Shal 22, 997—Night Season)

  The next night, I met Mydia in the Palace Gardens. Kaen arrived shortly after me, dressed in a soldier’s uniform with a warm coat overtop to keep the deep sunless chill at bay, a sword belted at his side just in case. I was relieved that Mydia had sent for him as I’d asked. We set off into the city, headed for the abandoned warehouse front.

  Upon reaching it, we found only a pile of ashes and charred stones. I gasped at the sight, and Mydia let out a small cry of shock.

  “This is the place?” Kaen asked. “Seems a bit more . . . destroyed than I was expecting. Recently destroyed.”

  “I-I can’t believe—” Mydia began.

  “This is it,” I confirmed. “They must have just done this.”

  Kaen inspected the premises, pointing out a dead body, burnt either from the fire or from the Coactive flames that had started it. It was either Little Lester or Skinny Sam . . . I wasn’t sure which, and I wasn’t about to go up and try to find out. Mydia was almost gagging already.

  Kaen went over and kicked the corpse onto its back. “Newly dead,” he said. “Judging by that and the smoldering fire, I’d say this happened just this morning. Do you recognize this man?”

  Mydia wouldn’t look, and instead started to cry, so I gritted my teeth and inspected the face, kneeling next to it. My stomach churned at the sight of the charred flesh, but I recognized the general features.

  “He was the one they called Skinny Sam,” I declared.

  Mydia sobbed louder.

  Kaen put a hand on her shoulder. “My Lady—princess or no, you can’t wake the whole town like that. You hardly even knew him. He probably would have stabbed you in the back as soon as take your money, anyway.”

  “You’re . . . you’re probably right,” she said, calming down a bit. She still wouldn’t look anywhere near the body.

  “What should we do now?” I asked.

  Mydia looked at me solemnly, tears staining her face. “I-I don’t know. Do you think . . . ?”

  “You there! Stop!” an authoritative voice shouted from the shadows. “In the name of Lord Kalceron—”

  It was a guard with a torch. Kaen was faster than I would have thought, his sword out of its sheath and flashing through the darkness before the guard had a chance to cry out. There was a grunt, and dark blood in the torchlight, and the guard thumped to the ground, dead. Kaen ground his boot on the torch as it fell out of the man’s hands onto the ground, and the light was gone.

  “So, they are still posting people here,” Kaen muttered. “There will probably be more if we dally much longer.”

  “Hurry,” I urged, “let’s get back to the Palace.”

  “What do we do with the b-b-b—” Mydia whimpered.

  “The body can stay there!” Kaen said harshly. “It wouldn’t look any less suspicious to hide it now. Come on!”

  We all made a sprint for the Palace, retracing the way we had come. We got back safely, stopping only once we were past the wall and in the Palace Gardens. Mydia wiped her brow. “Whew! That was . . . a bit too much for me.” She seemed almost dazed, swaying on her feet as her knees shook from the fright.

  “I’m so sorry about that,” I told her. “Look, Mydia—don’t come out here any nights in the future until this calms down. Kaen, you should get back to the barracks immediately, and return your sword wherever you found it, once you clean it off. Try to avoid suspicion for a few days. My plan is off, so it’s all up to Rhidea now. Working with the Underground is a bust. We may have less time than I thought. . . .”

  Mydia nodded.

  Kaen bid me goodnight, returning to his room in the guard barracks.

  (Dri’Shal 23, 997—Night Season)

  The next morning, rumors were already spreading that a conspiracy had been uncovered against Lord Kalceron. There was debate in the Palace over whether that was a good or bad thing, though. I discovered, to my great relief, that it was largely about the discovery and burning of the Underground’s main building—not the mysteriously dead guard. Until this point, most of the Palace staff had thought the Underground a mere story whispered by people who desired their heads to be chopped off.

  That evening after our lessons with Rhidea, she informed us that an execution was planned two days hence, on the yearly Nytaean festival called The Lament of the King. This festival was held on the fifth dawn of the year, ever since the days of the Old Kings of the city-state of Nytaea, before the province came under the banner of the Archlord.

  Here in Nytaea, dawn came four days earlier than in the capital, so that meant the festival would be held on the twenty-fifth day of Dri’Shal, the fourth month.

  The rebels to be beheaded were Gaela and one whose description matched Big Bart. Why on this particular day, though? It boded ill. Rhidea’s stay had been planned to end after the two-day feast, but now . . . those plans may have to change.

  Rhidea did not appear to be frazzled by it, but she did seem just a bit more . . . tense. Circumstances were beginning to overlap, affecting many different people, escalating so quickly that our plans would surely get caught up in it all. “Something historic is going to transpire here in Nytaea,” she predicted. “And we may just be a part of it.”

  A plan began to hatch as we discussed the events. We all agreed that the execution had to be stopped—if possible—and the prison break would go best if such a distraction took place at the same time.

  “But I don’t want Mydia to be in on the operation at all, for her own safety,” Rhidea insisted, eying the princess. “And also to keep you out of suspicion, my dear.”

  “I agree,” I said, hoping that we wouldn’t need Mydia’s help. Not for the first time, I was tempted to question why Rhidea even wanted to help us, though I already knew the answer: she loved Nytaea and Mydia; she had no love for Lord Kalceron. Perhaps she wasn’t all that different from me.

  “Hey!” Mydia complained. “I can still make illusions for you all.”

  “That could certainly be of use, child,” Rhidea said. “As long as you’re not in danger and can’t be implicated in the uprising. Now, about your friends in the Underground . . . you said there were two left who escaped?”

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Mydia nodded. “I think I know where they are hiding out. I’ll contact them tomorrow night.”

  “And I will come with you,” Rhidea added. “Lyn, perhaps you could scout out the prison tower tomorrow night? You said you found where it was.”

  I nodded. “All right. I’ll see if I can get in. And . . . Mydia, I had an idea about who will replace me as handmaiden.” I told her of a special girl who would make a fine handmaiden, and her face seemed to brighten just a bit.

  In two days, on the twenty-fifth of Dri’Shal, we would spring the trap. Rhidea and Mydia would coordinate with the remaining rebel leaders and get them on board with the plan, so that they could raise up a few soldiers to help in rescuing Bart and Gaela.

  The next night, while Mydia took Rhidea to meet with Tall Tom and Little Lester, I went to do my scouting. I stepped out onto the wide sill of Mydia’s sunroom window and hopped down onto the wall above Julia’s favorite spot. Why bother to climb the wall when I could just get on top of it from Mydia’s tower?

  The evening was dim without the auroras, as clouds obscured much of the starlight this night. The chill breeze whipped at my hair and skirts, attempting to nudge me toward a midnight plunge. Just like last time, looking down from this high wall was enough to make me queasy. But there on the south side of the palace . . .

  The prison tower.

  I dashed down the wall-top walkway before realizing I needed to jump down to the next section of the wall for best access to the tower. After looking both ways, I leapt with my superhuman strength onto the next fold of the wall, and then once more, arriving at the stretch of wall that connected to the spire. All the while, I tried to keep out of sight of the Palace Guard. Spires and towers on the wall did most of that for me, fortunately.

  Eventually, I made it over to the ‘abandoned’ tower, and began inspecting the twenty-foot-wide structure for a way in. I ended up climbing up the side. I scurried around the back of it, using the existing ivy and my own finger strength to claw my way up the stonework. At last, I made it to the top, where I found a trapdoor leading downward.

  My heart was beating at a horse’s gallop, and my body wanted to drop from exhaustion already, but I forced myself to breathe and continue onward. I could sleep later. I did, however, pull out some of the food Mydia had sent me with, which helped a lot. It was mostly energy that I needed after bursts of exertion, more than rest.

  A couple of floors down, I found the highest-level cells. No guards were in sight; perhaps they only guarded the lower levels. I searched around for a minute before spotting Mandrie and Phoebe, huddled together in a corner cell and asleep. I gasped at the sight: malnourished and haggard, hair and clothes a mess. They had been beaten and whipped, with bruises and scars visible on their arms and necks, and I knew that there must be many bruises underneath their dresses. Even Mandrie’s cute little face was marked up horribly, cut and bleeding from recent wounds.

  “Oh, Mandrie, Phoebe . . .” I whispered, horror and anger disso-nating in my chest. “What did they do to you?”

  Neither girl stirred.

  “Mandrie, can you hear me? Phoebe?”

  There was still no response.

  “Mandrie!” I whispered fervently. “Phoebe, wake up!” I shook the bars of the cage as I said it.

  “. . . Huh?” Mandrie’s eyes fluttered open, and she drew in a ragged breath. She stared at me in disbelief, her countenance dark and sad under her greasy brown curls. “L-Lyn? Is that . . . you?”

  “Yes! Yes, it’s me. Are you all right?”

  “You . . . you came. Finally . . . it’s been so long, Lyn. Where’s Kaen? Where’s my brother?” Mandrie turned and shook Phoebe awake. Phoebe gasped upon seeing me.

  “Good, you’re awake, too,” I said. “Kaen is here at the Palace. We’re going to get you out of here. Don’t worry. You’re going to be just fine.”

  “Oh . . . thank you,” whispered Mandrie. “Th-they hurt us. Beat us. Those cruel men with the whips. Oh, it still stings. And I’m hungry, too. They hardly feed us anything in here.” She let out two pitiful coughs. The sight of my longtime friends in such a poor state sent an emotional jolt through my heart like a stabbing pain.

  “Hang in there, Mandrie,” I encouraged her. “Here. I have some food for you two.” I handed each of them some fresh bread and sausages through the bars.

  “Sausage?” Phoebe mumbled. But she took it eagerly and wolfed it down like a hungry animal. “Where did you get all of this? It’s still warm and everything.”

  “I stole it from the Palace.” I didn’t want to tell them yet about everything that I’d been doing at the Palace. My white lie seemed to satisfy them for the moment; the poor girls were in no state to be considering things too hard. “I’m so sorry we took this long to find you. We’re going to get you out of here tomorrow morning at the festival, so don’t worry. Everything will be just fine.”

  “Tomorrow? Really?” Mandrie croaked.

  “Yes.” I took her hands through the bars and squeezed them gently. “We’ll get you out of here, just trust me. We have a plan.”

  “You really mean it, Lyn?”

  “Yes. I swear it: I'll get you both out of here.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered. “Oh, thank you, Lyn.” Now the tears started to roll down her cheeks. “We’ll wait till tomorrow.”

  “All right. I have to go now. Stay safe.”

  “Goodbye,” she said, and went back to her corner to sleep. Phoebe stared after me, and then sighed and resigned herself to one more night just like Mandrie. Hoping their tormentors left them alone until I could come tomorrow, I left the way I had come. I climbed down the side of the tower, and quietly traversed the walls back to Mydia’s tower.

  “You found them?” she asked in a hushed voice as I climbed in the window.

  I dropped softly to the floor and nodded, breathing heavily from all the exertion. “I told them to expect us in the morning. You talked with Tom and Lester?”

  “Yes. They were already planning a rescue operation for Bart and Gaela. You should be all set. You’d best get some sleep, Lyn. You look dreadfully tired after all that.”

  “Very well,” I said with a weary nod. We both tiptoed back to our own beds. We had to be up early on the morrow. The execution was to be held at cloudbreak—the first light of the next month, Firvaen—so I had to meet Rhidea and Kaen by the barracks before then. Each Cycle began with dawn in Ti’Vaeth, but Nytaea’s latitude was four zones east of Ti’Vaeth, so we saw dawn four days early.

  At cloudbreak. Tomorrow morning, it would all end—one way or another.

  ??

  That night, I had another vivid dream.

  I stood in that same place of white nothingness. It was like an endless sea of warm snow, with mists curling gently up, tickling my feet. I felt sure I’d been looking for something . . .

  “Hello, Lyn!” came a bright voice. I turned and there she was, that same white girl. White was the best description I could think of, considering her white dress, white hair and pale skin.

  “Hello again,” I said slowly. “Do you . . . know what I was looking for?”

  The girl looked up at me with big, bright eyes, an innocent look on her face. She shook her head with downturned lips and raised eyebrows. “No. I don’t have a clue.” She didn’t mention what a silly question it was. “So,” she said, face changing into a hopeful expression, “Is there anything I can help you with? Something else I can find for you?”

  I frowned, rubbing my head. “No. I don’t think so.”

  “Aw, that’s too bad,” said the girl with a sad sigh. “But I figured as much.”

  I scratched my lip, looking upwards at the blank sky of whiteness. Find something, find something . . . “Oh, wait,” I said suddenly. “I’m looking for my friend Mandrie. Although I don’t think you can help me with her.”

  She shook her head dejectedly. “Nope. Sorry.”

  “Then . . . what about my mother?”

  White perked up, her eyes gleaming. “Your mother? I remember lots about her. Do you want to see her?”

  “See her?” I asked. “You mean . . . she’s alive?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, you don’t know. You know?” She smiled up at me and blinked.

  “Um . . . no.”

  “Oh, well! Here, let me show her to you.” The girl grabbed me by the hand and began to tug me along. I gave way and followed her.

  Suddenly, we were somewhere else: a barren, rocky land beneath a starry sky, bright enough see by. A woman stood clad in a dark dress upon a rock the size of a horse that jutted out of the ground. I tried to look around for the girl, but she was gone. In fact, I couldn’t move at all, even my head. Whatever this vision was, I was experiencing it in a very detached, or . . . confined way.

  The woman—who had long, startlingly white hair—was speaking, I realized belatedly: “. . . Gone. Why does it have to be this way?” She spoke quietly, and I wasn’t sure if she was addressing someone or just speaking to herself. “We’ve come so far. We can’t very well give up here.”

  My vision, or rather whoever it was whose eyes I was looking through, turned and then . . . rolled over. It was the oddest sensation. The woman continued to murmur quietly from where she was, until she suddenly gasped. “Lynchazel! Be careful!”

  I heard frantic, running footsteps on the rocks, and then suddenly I was grasped by two large hands.

  ??