Swallow the fear. Talin is alive, that heartbeat still steady. There is nothing you can do about it except to keep going. You hope for the best, even as you brace for the worst.
I look toward one of the towers looming against the night, a structure built with a narrow slit of a window overhead. “They flash a light through that slit every night,” I answer. “It tells the guards to shut the gates.”
The night turns darker, until the full moon rises and casts the entire district in its silver glow. We stay where we are, watching the lines outside the prison complex grow and ebb. Every prisoner looks the same—tired, dirty, cheeks sunken. Some of them dare to hum under their breaths. For the most part, the guards don’t seem to care.
There are a regular smattering of children among them. Twelve-, thirteen-year-olds, not far in age from when I’d first visited this place. They are the ones with the widest eyes, new to the prisoner life, still looking around and trying to figure out a way to escape. But then theystep forward toward the guards at the gate, and their moment of panic subsides. Their faces lower to the ground. And I find myself wondering if I had looked like that. I must have. I remember the way I’d dread seeing the land beyond the gate, a maze of darkness, of churning steel and roaring furnaces. I remember feeling so grateful the day they took me out of the district and to the lab complex.
Wasn’t I a fool? How little I knew back then of what would happen to me.
The hours drag on. As the time draws near for the gates to close for the night, I nudge Jeran gently and nod toward the guards. Right before the gates shut, the soldiers are always the least patient. They bounce on their legs, tired from standing guard all night, eager to head back to their quarters for a hot meal and a bed. We watch them snap at the prisoners who aren’t moving fast enough, yanking some of them forward, shoving others with the hilts of their blades.
“They are always the most careless around this time,” I murmur to Jeran.
He nods in agreement, studying their actions. “They want to go home.”
As the lines begin to dwindle, we creep from one shadow to another and edge closer toward the gate. I lower my head and drape the cloth more tightly around me. Jeran does the same. The prison wall draws near before us.
By the time we approach the gate, they are closing it. The four guards managing it are arguing with one another. Sure enough, I immediately spot the insignias around their sleeves. East and southeast city patrols. The ones that had been conspicuously missing from the solstice festivities.
“I’ve done double shifts this entire week,” one snaps.
“You think I haven’t done double shifts?”
“Who covered for you last week?” The soldier rolls his eyes as he tucks his gun back at his belt. “All of us here, doing extra hours because of the Premier, and there you were, skipping gate duty to woo your girl.”
“She’s not even going to marry you, you know,” one of the other guards pipes up.
Jeran glances at me. Patrols stationed here at the Premier’s personal request. At least poor Danna had been telling the truth.
The offended soldier throws an obscene hand at both of them. “Wait until I do marry her and transfer out of this position,” he says. “You’ll all be here, sorting prisoners. I’ll be having proper meals and sleep up in the thoroughfare district.”
Jeran signs up toward Adena and Aramin, then looks at me. “They’re heading to that tower,” he says, nodding at an apartment complex across from the wall.
Now I see why they’re going there. A footbridge runs between several of the nearby buildings. It shouldn’t be a way to get across behind the prison’s walls, except there is a dead tree, gnarled and twisted, a dozen feet away. It’s not an easy jump for anyone to make, especially quietly, but for Strikers? Doable. If they time it just right, they could make it onto the wall’s ramparts.
“We’ll need to bring the guards on the wall to us and away from those footbridges,” I add.
Jeran nods. “They’ll wait for us to make our move.”
We wait a few more minutes, then step out from the shadows of the buildings to head over to where the soldiers are standing.
One of them immediately narrows his eyes at us, his hands moving to the weapons at his belt. His gaze roams over me. “Lost?” he snaps.
I have a sudden urge to scare him, to spread my steel wings and see their faces change from hostile to terrified. But instead, I swallow and wring my hands.
Another guard shoves me with her baton. “What’s this? Speak when you’re spoken to. No loitering around the prison district. Everyone knows that.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, pretending shyness. At least I have a native Karenese accent, something which seems to make them look at us with disinterest. I put a hand on Jeran’s shoulder beside me. “My cousin and I, we’re looking for an aunt who we think was brought here.”
It’s a pretty typical scenario, what we’ve set up. I’ve seen plenty of people try their luck at the prison district’s gates, pleading the cases for their family members to the guards standing by.
The first soldier snorts. “You have questions about specific prisoners, take it up with your local captain.”
I take a deep breath, drawing on my own memories of living in Cardinia and the various tours of duty I had in the city. “I would,” I say, “except my local captain has been heading up the solstice festivities all week and hasn’t been in her complex.”
“Who’s your local captain?” the soldier asks.
I name someone I remember. “Captain Solamen,” I reply.
