Page 5

I run.

Chapter

Three

Ican’t see anything through the thick smoke, but I know the royal guards are close and they want me dead. Why? The king invited everyone here for the map, so why would he want the one who got it dead? The screaming begins to get louder, and I know it’s not just from the rock, it’s from the royal guards. I don’t have time to wonder why. They are killing everyone here and they are going to find me if I don’t move. They have to be close.

At least the smoke is hiding me as I run, as I struggle to get out of the courtyard, but I don’t stop. I trip over the dead bodies and push people out of the way in my desperation to get away from the guards. I move so fast it feels like I’m not even in my body—I’m just pure shock and panic. Even in the panic, I head right towards the door to the courtyard. I hope I can get straight to the west coast and escape this city before the royal guards find me. Rowe, be safe.

One of the good things about being a thief is that I’m very good at hiding. I feel a slight sense of relief when I see the destruction has brought down part of the gate and it is hanging off the wall, leaving a massive gap where people are running out. I slip into the crowds of runners, heading with them straight through the gap, and I crawl over the broken rocks on the other side to slip down. A hand grabs me and I turn, seeing a royal guard gripping me tightly. He lifts his other hand with an enormous sword in it, and I do the only thing that comes to mind. I slam my knee straight up between his legs, and he yelps, letting me go and falling to his knees. I’m really glad I learned to do that when I was a teenager.

The gritty stones dig into my burnt hands as I crawl away before tripping on my dress and ripping it further as I finally get to my feet onto cobblestone streets that lead to the west part of town where a curved shoreline houses the ships. My heart is beating like bird wings as I run to the houses and to the back alleys, not giving myself a moment to think as I keep running. If I get far enough away, they might not catch up with me.

I keep to the back alleys as I always do, running past scared people looking up at the courtyard and the destruction. Some of them look at me and smile with sympathy. I cringe, knowing damn well that I look awful, and I feel it too. I also feel like time is running out, so I decide not to stop and get my packed bag like I planned. It’s right on the west coast by the ship, hidden in the tree line where no one is going to look. I’ll just have to steal what I need later.

The wind whips past me as I let my thoughts stray back to what just happened… I got the map. I am the map. The history of Lumina Day never mentioned the map appearing on our skin. They said it was a physical piece of paper that could be used to find the wish, but why would the king lie? The king wants me dead, and he clearly planned to kill everyone who survived in the courtyard, but why? He’s the one who made it such a big deal and told everyone about the map appearing in the first place. If he didn’t want anyone to have it, why not just lock the courtyard up and keep it all a secret? Did he know it was going to be a meteorite that comes down? He must have.

I keep running, my legs burning with the effort to not stop for even a second. I must run for half an hour before I finally get to the west side of the city and smell the salt water and hear the birds squawking high above as they dot the sky. Qamar is with me, because no one looks at me as I join the crowds; so many of them are staring up at the city or running in the opposite direction in a panic. The crowds are moving so fast that they don’t notice as I slip through the guards with them, pulling the cloak tightly around me, hoping no one notices that most of it is missing from being on fire, that I’m still covered in ash and soot and blood. My blood.

I keep my cloak hood pulled up, and no one much looks my way as I find myself on the docks. The ships are not tied up though. Not a single one of them is here. No. No. No. They’re all miles away from the harbor, and there’s not a single loading boat at any of the wooden docks. It’s too cold in the sea to swim to a ship… I’m trapped.

“I heard that the king sent all the ships away. No one’s to leave the island. He made the royal decree this morning. It’s bad for trade.” A man’s voice echoes to me as I panic. “What do you think happened in the Lumina?”

Another man grunts. “Hopefully, that giant fire rock killed a fuck lot of the nobles. It’s what they all deserve.”

I close my eyes, taking deep, calming breaths. Think, Mir. I’m not giving up yet. I can’t. There has to be a way off this fucking island. Better than standing still and praying to the gods. I keep walking down the docks with my head low, listening to the crowd for any gossip about returning ships. About anything that can help me.

I keep turning around, looking behind me every few minutes to check for royal guards, and after a few minutes, I see a bunch of them pushing the crowd apart. Four of them are searching through the crowds one by one. Anyone female or in a black cloak is stopped, their sleeves pulled up to check. They know the map is on my skin. I move faster, careful not to run, not to gain more attention than I’m already going to get in this cloak that’s definitely going to stand out with how much it is burnt.

I keep moving down the docks, down the rows of them, looking for anything, any boat, anything I can use. I can’t die yet, gods, please don’t let me die. He needs me. Finally, the last dock comes up, and I glance behind me only to see the guards are gone. There is nothing but people walking around and a smell in the air that wasn’t there before. It smells like sandalwood, like the oil my father used to clean the wooden furniture around our home. They must have run off to look for me somewhere else. I still frown at my luck and turn back to keep searching, expecting them to jump out of the sea to kill me, but they don’t.

I could shout with joy when I spot a single boat still tied to the dock, and a line of crates are being lifted one by one by an enormous man onto the boat. In the distance, I can just make out a dark ship lingering in the fog.

There is a guard, not a royal one, but a grunt from the look of his uniform. He is staring at the man who is wordlessly lifting the crates onto the boat. There are seven left, and I need to get into one—now. “You need to leave. This is a royal decree.”

“Yes, yes, but we didn’t know that when we left all these crates here to trade, and I’d rather die than explain to my captain how I left money sitting here for anyone because a guard couldn’t wait.” He doesn’t even look at the guard as he continues to rant to himself. “And I’m sure the king wants his trade deals with Havenward to be upstanding.”

Havenward is exactly the place I need to go for my plan. Thank you, Qamar. I rush over to the crates and kneel down in front of the one hidden by the other crates piled up. I start unscrewing the bolts until they finally release the nuts inside the crate and I can finally open it. The sea is angry enough today that the sound of opening the crate door is swallowed up by the waves. It helps that the guard and the man are still arguing.

I frantically search for the metal nuts and then pull out the bottles of wine, wincing as I drop them all into the sea, one by one. I hope no one’s watching me from behind and seeing some of the broken, empty bottles float, but I don’t have time to worry about it anyway.

When the gap is big enough, I put the bolts back in their holes and climb in, pulling the door shut behind me, putting the nuts back into place with my burnt fingers. Heavy footsteps stomp up in front of the crate only seconds later, and I hold my hand over my mouth. “Last one and I’m gone.” He mutters under his breath, “Fucking dickhead guards. May Selendris drown him.”

I smile into my hand as he lifts the crate like I weigh nothing and carries me in it to the boat. He grunts only once when he drops the crate gently onto the boat. Seconds later, I feel the thump of him standing in the boat with me and then of the choppy waves under the boat rocking us as he unknowingly takes me away from the island where I was born, the island that I’ve never left. I allow myself to breathe out a long-held-in breath just for a second and look between the slats of the crate at the island, at the castle and at the Stilts in the distance. Please, Noctaris, keep my brother alive. Keep him safe and do not take him from me yet.

I feel like being sick after a few minutes of the choppy sea, and I focus on the smack of his oars hitting the ice in the water as we cut through the fog-covered water. I don’t get a good look at the ship, not really, through the crate slats. I only see that it’s dark and huge, big enough that I should be able to stay hidden easily enough. I don’t get to see what flag is hanging, and that’s a shame. I’d know where the ship might be from if I did.

All I need to do is stay hidden below deck for a couple of weeks. Surely, I’ll be able to scavenge some food and some water. It’s a two-week passage to Havenward, if the man I booked the trip with was correct. I wish I were on his ship, not having to hide. I worked so hard for this; what a waste of money. If only I had my bag. At least with that, I’d be able to have a change out of this disgusting burnt dress.

I stay as silent as I can. A rope is wrapped around my crate by the enormous man, and soon after, it is heaved straight up into the air, my stomach turning with it. I hear so many voices as my crate is pulled onto the deck, followed by another man picking it up. The foggy sunlight disappears into darkness as the man takes the crate down two flights of stairs and drops it on the ground. I wait for what feels like hours until all the crates are loaded in this room, until the only sound is the ship moving through the sea…until the buzz in my blood has run off and my hands are hurting, and my legs, and my ribs, which might be broken.

I can’t see the full burned state of my hands, but I know they have to be bad with how awful it feels. I push down the cloak and lay it on the floor of the crate, which has little more than hay in it. I need to find something to cut the cloak and bind my hands and my leg from the burns so they don’t fester. It’s a risk to climb out so soon, but I need to see where I am and figure out easy hiding places.

I start picking at the nuts and bolts with my sore hands to open the door. I carefully get them undone, pushing the door slowly and putting it down on the wet floor. I stretch my legs out and sigh, looking up at the fire lanterns hanging on the walls that give little light to the room. I climb out softly, looking around at the bottom level of the ship. It’s nothing but a damp, dim storage room with crates lined up everywhere. I glance at the stairs leading up and hear voices above and footsteps of people moving about.

Someone clears their throat behind me.

My heart leaps in my chest as I turn around and find a man sitting in a high-backed wooden chair, in a dark cloak, his legs spread open, and his arms crossed. There is a ring on his finger, moving water encased in glass, and it’s the only part of him that moves for a long time as fear freezes me to the spot. He eventually cocks his head to the side, and I see a flash of dark hair, high cheekbones, and icy blue eyes.