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WARNING: There is a little conceptual darkness to the story. It's a little?twisted, a little dark, but I don't believe it's damaging or anything. Just don't be looking for sunshine and butterflies.
Prologue
It began the same way it ended. A beginning and an end all at once and yet still nothing in between. The air was thick with the threat of tomorrow, the hesitation of yesterday lingering like forgotten promises on the lips of everyone walking through the palace. Eyes were cast downward towards the floor for fear of making contact with a soldier with a fidgety sword or an overeager desire to garnish a link of chain. Everyone seemed fervent to impress him these days, and vehemence only answers to one language. The halls hummed with silence, so quiet and still even the firm chink of metal locks sliding into place could be heard. One clank meant cautious, two meant guilty. Three meant condemned.
Wedding bells rang overhead, a promise of tomorrow, but nevertheless a distinctive funeral march seemed to echo from within the bell tower. What was to come had been painfully apparent since the beloved king's sudden death two summers ago, but still tomorrow frightened everyone with allegiances to the queen. Death was a stronger motivator than the most beloved ruler, and even loyal supporters cowered in submission on today of all days. The expected becomes unexpected when fear turns to horror. Tomorrow is never as frightening as today.
Deep under the palace, cloaked in darkness and damp earth, yesterday's warriors waited for those entrusted with deliverance. As it is with any change in government, there existed a secret coalition dedicated to preserving the rules of the former monarchy. While the rest of the palace fortified their doors and trimmed the hems of their party gowns, a half dozen men and women lingered in the entryway, eyes fastened on the shadowy road, starving fledglings awaiting salvation. Wearing worn grey clothing and wan expressions, they easily sank into the dreary background. David and Goliath, sans slingshots. It was no wonder the patrolling soldiers did not give their hideout a second glance.
One woman sat slightly off from the crowd, the remnants of a hierarchy still present in the rebel forces. She was only three or four paces away from the core huddle, but not a single back was turned in her direction. Every so often she made a scratch in the mud beneath her feet with her nail, perhaps keeping time, or perhaps just passing it. The others seemed to watch her. Waiting for something, although what was unbeknownst even to them.
"Dara. There is a torch lit in the distance, so it shouldn't be long." The woman moved as a whisper cut through the frozen air, pivoting in place until she balanced on the balls of her feet like a coiled snake. Excitement shot through her, as warm and comforting in her stomach as the too familiar thrum of adrenaline right before a fight. If all went well, there would never need to be a fight. Dara was slightly disappointed, but she supposed the ends outweighed the means.
"I'm ready to leave whenever we receive the signal."
When she stood it was easy to see that she was decades younger than those around her, but her face was set with determination and her movements swift and skilled. She easily led them through the dark passageway, hugging the twists and curves of the walls so as to avoid the traps already laid for them, and to the entrance of the tunnel without catching the attention of the guard. Dara narrowed her gaze in hopes of piercing the misty night, her eyes searching for the downward slope of a horse drawn carriage, her ears thirsting for the tapping of hooves on stone.
"I need to get a better look." Dara ran a hand through her tangled hair in frustration. She was not supposed to lurk here in the shadows like a common criminal. An animal beaten by its master. A servant ashamed and afraid. She had not risked so much, fought so hard, to cower in the corner now when everything could be lost. There simply wasn't enough time for submission any longer.
"Dara, it's too dangerous. Aderes decided who would take the risks and who would wait here. If we don't work together we are no better than him, and you know it. We wait here until we know all went well. Sit down."
"If I don't go, chances are we are going to miss them all together. And if that happens, it doesn't matter what we decided because we are all going to hang together in the morning. And then all this will be for naught."
Dara felt for the tempo of the air around her, measuring the weight of it, the feel of it, as much as the noises she could register. One good somersault was all it took to slip into the thick grass undetected. She crawled forward on her stomach, fighting the urge to wince as brittle, sticky grass grabbed at exposed skin. Dara advanced undetected, eye to eye with the boots of many passing soldiers as she slunk forward towards the entrance to the palace gates. If she could reach the gate, she could wait until they returned. Once they were home, everything could be as it should and everyone could leave again together. Once they were home. Time was a little price to pay for the guarantee of tomorrow.
Minutes dragged on, creeping into hours, and Dara was beginning to feel her body ache and twinge. Worry and doubt busied her mind as well. They were late, and in this day and age, late was never good. Especially while venturing outside the palace walls. Ever since the Pretender had taken control of the land, the earth had opened its maw and released its repressed hatred upon those inhabiting her world. A dark shadow had fallen, a Faustian angel who does his bidding at the price of peasant souls. She stretched over the kingdom in a twisted storm cloud, one hand deeply entrenched in Mother Earth's thundering heart, the other wrapped around the tempestuous throat of Father Time. The world was struggling. Flailing. Dying.
Something was wrong. Dara could feel it the same way she could feel the dirt caving beneath her knees or the lick of wind against her face. Some things could just be sensed, just anticipated, and the approach of disaster leaves a certain rancid smell to the air. Dara's nose flared as she almost smelled the wave of putrid ash sweeping over the grass; the smell of thick choking smoke, the bitter scent of death, the frightening absence of everything else besides heat. The braying of horses and the crackle and snarl of a monstrous fire roared in her ears. Tears threatened to escape as searing, raw heat blazed before her eyes.
Dara raised a hand to her cheek and was alarmed to feel the heat against the palm of her hand, the incarnation of the fire come to life. The fire was here, spilling forward through the gates, overpowering the carriage with liquid fury and manic will. Soldiers and gatekeepers were swallowed as the wheels charged forward, spitting burnt carcasses onto the green grass as the fire drove down the path unchallenged. The top of the carriage had been devoured, and flames licked at the sky. It was power, pure and simple, anger and ability unaltered and uncontrolled by mankind. The wheels were teetering between ash and strength and for one giddy second Dara contemplated letting the fiery carriage crash into the palace and let what would be simply be. But then a tinge of blonde caught her eye from the grass, a shade she knew all too well, a memory she had been waiting for but suddenly would give anything to defer. She scrambled forward on her hands and knees, half walking and half crawling across the burned-out pathway.
"Mother? Mother, say something." Dara ignored the bite of smoldering grass beneath her knees because the dread swelling in her heart was more painful than any physical ache she could imagine. Nausea surged forth and combated with the burning in the back of her throat, the clawing of the smoke, and Dara was deprived of air by sheer emotion alone. Blisters coated familiar skin; hands that had once soothed and cradled her as a child were striped of flesh; everything Dara's hands touched sloughed a steady layer of dirt and blood.
"Dara." Her voice was a harsh rasp of air, a scrape of resistance against brittle surroundings. Her eyes flitted back and forth, a skittish rabbit trapped in a snare, visions of everything she'd seen and hadn't yet escaped forever hovering in her mind's eye.
"The sky is full of blood. So much blood for such a little girl." A hint of white teeth struggled from beneath a soot darkened face as she tried to smile, tried to wrap her tired tongue around coherent phrases. She kept mumbling to herself, over and over again, a mantra that perhaps had been so emphatically important once upon a time. "Don't drink the water. Whatever you do, don't drink the water."
"Mother, Mother please. We don't have much time." Dara could hear the familiar metallic clink of armor and swords as the soldiers raced from the palace to douse the flames. It was only a matter of time until they were found, helpless, and plans would unravel. They could fix this, still, could save her. Doctors could fix this. She'd be fine. Dara felt as if she had to believe that, but at this point she no longer believed that anyone else had the ability to protect their world from the aftereffects of his upcoming reign. This is why Dara had to get her mother back to the tunnels before the guards swept through looking for salvageable debris. They still needed to prepare everyone to leave before the wedding was to commence. The rest of her mother's carriage was still out there somewhere, waiting for them to arrive, waiting for a sign that their plan had worked and the false king was dethroned and everything would be as it should.
"You aren't supposed to be here. It's not supposed to end like this. We aren't finished yet, Dara, we aren't finished." One trembling hand grasped feverishly at the air, in an attempt, any attempt, to recognize the next step. The cold hand Dara clasped to her cheek seemed to sear her skin. Cold. Painfully, unnaturally cold.
"Mother. Mother, I need you to listen. Can you hear me?"
Her chin dropped ever so slightly, and Dara hurried forward. She could feel the earth shaking beneath her as the soldiers quickened their pace and her heart echoed at the hastened speed. There just wasn't enough time to say everything she felt, do everything she wanted her to hear.
"Did you finish? Before you headed back, did you finish what you started? Is she safe?"
"No one is safe, Dara. Not out there. No one is safe. Blood is everywhere. Don't drink the water."
"Damnit Mother! Is the queen safe? Are they with her?" Dara pressed her mouth even closer to her mother's ear, hot tears stinging her eyes as guilt settled like a brandished whip inside her conscience. But the greater good had to take precedence, her mother had always taught her that from the very beginning, and if the queen had been harmed than everything, all they had risked and all they were prepared to gamble, was for nothing. He could not rule any longer without her hand in marriage, but if she was to die he could rule forever.
"Do you remember the riddle, Dara? The riddle we taught you incase something went wrong?" Her voice was soft now, so gentle Dara had to strain to hear it over the popping and crackling in the air.
"I-I don't know."
Dara could see the soldiers now, a haze of grey surmounting what was remaining of the fire that had previously been awesome and full of dread.
"Repeat it for me."
They were coming forward now, a swarm, a steady buzz of thundering feet. The sheer volume overpowered her senses and left her tongue so eager and quick it seemed to cut her cheek.
"Mother, we don't have time. I need to get you out of here. If they find us we're dead." Dara tried to lift her mother in her arms, but the injured woman made a feeble yet successful attempt to circumvent her.
Footsteps so close she could count the beats, swords so sharp the light was blinding.
"It's important. Melissa and the other's are dead. You have to go to the queen, Dara, you have to protect her. Tell me you know the way."
Dara could see their faces now-the strong nose of the man who had killed Cameron for her allegiance to the late king, the gritted jaw of the man who had whipped Michael for trying to sneak his sister out of the palace before a husband was chosen for her.
"Say it with me. Just so I'm sure." Dara heard her voice waver ever so slightly; her mother's eyes were closed, but Dara could feel the dominance in the air and see the guards almost block out the palace with their spreading forces. Her hands were twitching at her sides, and she wasn't sure what she wanted to do more-fight, or gather her mother in her arms and run like hell. She wasn't sure she had the strength to just sit here and try and recall a riddle from the past.
But, as footsteps shook the ground and the smell of smoke was accompanied by the too familiar scent of dried blood, two voices intertwined in resilience. Dara could barely hear herself over the steady beat of marching feet and the pounding of the blood in her veins, but the constant reassurance of her mother's familiar voice brought back memories she wasn't prepared to recall. Memories of a time when she had thought everything was always going to be perfect and nothing was ever going to change, memories of a little girl who didn't understand why her mother was talking to her about a safe house hidden somewhere secret and the possibility of a time when the king wasn't the king and the queen wasn't the queen.
"Good. Listen to the riddle. The past makes more sense then the future. Now hurry, there isn't much time. Go." There was a peaceful smile on her face but Dara still hesitated. The soldiers were coming. Were already there. She could hear them, almost feel their chains around her, but this was her mother lying there.
Shouts rang out, harsh and ripened with blood thirst, and Dara cringed. They'd been spotted. Now was her chance. She either ran now, or they died here together.
"Mother?"
One had broken away from the herd and was advancing towards her. He was a gangly excuse for a soldier, tall and composed of limbs more so than muscle, but he had a sword and Dara did not so she had little doubt of the end result.
"I love you. Please. "
Dara tore forward in a mad dash of hands and feet, eyes focused on the crumbled gate as she felt the scorched earth shift beneath her. She refused to think of the soldiers behind her, of her mother, of the palace and the family she was leaving behind to fend for themselves. She forced herself to focus on the queen, on the gate in front of her, on the bubble of oxygen coursing down her shrunken throat and into her exhausted lungs. She repeated the riddle over and over in her head, over and over again, blocking out the sound of the soldiers shouting and the strain of her muscles and the audible snap as her heart pulled at its seams.
Dara sighed a deep breath of relief, closed her eyes, and succumbed to the darkness.
Misty sunlight permeated the shrouded darkness inside Dara's mind, and she found herself groaning and rolling over to avoid contact. There was a constant drumming echoing throughout her head and Dara felt as if her skull would split in two. She sluggishly dragged her eyelids open when she realized the light, painfully bright and high in the noon sky, wasn't prepared to disappear any time in the near future.
Dara lay still for a while, pretending for a moment in a sleep driven haze that the damp mud beneath her body was actually her soft pallet and the moss-coated trunk cushioning her head was courtesy of a satin pillow. It took a few moments for the bumps and bruises of yesterday to really settle down and take root, and when they did, Dara remembered everything. The fire. The soldiers. Her mother. The riddle.
It was ridiculous and absurd, all of it, and Dara had half a mind to turn over and go back to sleep. Surely she'd dream up something more believable next turn around. But yet, the worst part was, it was just terrible enough that she was almost sure it was true. The riddle was teasing the corners of her mind, tantalizing her with images of the past too brief to be memories but too vivid to be pure fabrication. Dara remembered her mother teaching her the riddle as a little girl. She remembered promising to learn it, to obey it, to follow it. She remembered the look on her mother's face the first time she recited it perfectly, and she remembered the same look the night the king was killed. This was real. All of it. The danger was real, the hope was real, the future possibility was real. If the riddle was everything Dara thought it was, she could follow it to the queen. And if Dara could save the queen, she could save the kingdom. With the rightful contender for the throne standing tall and proud before him, the Pretender couldn't stand a chance. He knew it, Dara knew it, and the queen knew it. If Dara could bring her to the palace, alive and prepared to take her rightful position, than everything could be as it should and perhaps the world would right itself once again.
She stood a little straighter and walked a little faster as she trampled through the forest in search of the first destination listed in the riddle. Dara hadn't spent much time studying the forest, or philosophy, for that matter, so she found herself ambling along for lack of direction more so than lack of purpose. She felt as if she just needed to be pointed in one direction or another, to be told where to go or what to do, but every tree looked the same and each hill ended in the same downward slope, and nothing seemed different than what came before. It was frustration more so than dedication that had her searching so hard. She needed to do something, anything, to quiet the demons lurking in the morose corners of her too silent mind. There were so many thoughts overlapping each other, so many things bouncing around inside her at once, nothing had a voice and everything seemed to wait for one loud declaration of guidance in order to add approval or support.
Dara quickened her pace so as to feel the familiar pounding of the earth beneath her feet, the metronome of densely packed ground, the kaleidoscope of green rushing before her eyes. This was familiar. Dara knew how it felt to have the earth strain the limits of her vision as her legs sliced the air like knives, how it felt to know exactly how many seconds there were between footsteps and the number of heartbeats per pace. The rhythm, the comfort, was soothing and painfully familiar. It didn't matter that the land surrounding Dara was foreign and her mind fogging with memories she'd soon rather forget, or that her breath was choking and her legs were wobbling beneath her like apple stems. When she was still, there was nothing to do but think. There were thoughts inside her mind, dangerous thoughts knocking and wheedling their way through cracks and keyholes, and the more she heard from them the more Dara felt like escaping into a world where everything sounded like wind in her ears and all she saw was a blur of green.
The rough bark rasped a haphazard pattern along Dara's back as she slid down the tree trunk in desperate need of a breathing break. Her hair was damp with sweat, gummy and stuck to the back of her neck. Legs of rubber, taut and prepared to snap at any moment but yet fluid and effortlessly flaccid, hummed as she tucked herself into a seated position. A five minute break couldn't hurt. It wasn't as if she was going to make it much further at this pace, anyhow. Perhaps if she stopped for a moment Dara would have time to try and figure out what, exactly, she was supposed to do next. Dara had yet to survive her fifteenth winter, and, despite her mother's connections with the rebels, was never before responsible for something of this magnitude. She had never been truly alone in her entire life, and the prospect of being trapped outside her home while everyone was expecting her to set the world back on its axis was too daunting for her young shoulders.
Dara licked her chapped lips in an instinctive attempt to seek out water and found herself reaching her hand back to pluck the pitcher from her nightstand. She smiled at herself in chagrin; it's funny the things we can't help but remember and the things we somehow choose to forget. Dara frowned, confusion all too familiar upon her face as her hand collided with something solid in the place where her ethereal memory told her the pitcher should be. She hesitated for a moment, utilizing the senses she trusted more than her illusive memory, and detected the raised hollow of a feather shaft and the curved ridge of a beak. The coppery tang of blood overpowered her now alerted olfactory buds in an almost simultaneous clash of sensory recognition.
The smell of blood triggered flashes of memories Dara hadn't yet tried to summon forth. The burning caress of the flames. The soldier wielding the sword over his head. The sight of her mother over a coward's shoulder. She scrambled to her feet about the same time a strangled scream tore itself from deep within her throat. Her eyes recognized an eagle lying on the ground, a magnificent creature stained with blood, but Dara's mind could only see her mother's body, crumpled and begging her to run. Her feet scrambled to life as her mind surged forward with a tsunami of earsplitting images that only forced her escapist legs to push harder. She was running so fast and so furiously Dara hardly noticed that she was coming to the edge of the forest. The trees were thinning and the hills lessening in slope and Dara could feel her legs slacken as the pace slowed in response. She wavered for a moment at the foot of the last hill and took a deep breath in an attempt to fill her lungs. She thought for one split second that she could smell the faint coppery trace of blood.
In less than one moment's time Dara was halfway up the hill.
Her mind was full of intensity, passionate pain and the deep desire to do something, anything, to fix everything to the way it once was. She wanted to bring the queen home and rid the kingdom of the faux king and end the darkness that was swallowing the once healthy land, but she was just one girl plagued by myriad demons of her own. Dara wasn't sure what angered her more; that she couldn't escape, or that she could never amount to anything until she did. She just knew that right now getting out of that forest, getting away from anything and everything she had ever known, was all she could do. She sooner she did it, the better.
Solid earth slammed into the side of Dara's face with biting force and she spat soil from her mouth. There was breath stealing pressure suddenly on top of her, a powerful weight she hadn't registered and couldn't identify with her eyes ground into the soil and her nose digging into grassroots. Her muscles responded before her mind even recognized the danger and she began to kick and squirm. Her survival instincts were stronger than the haze that had taken her reason captive, and years of lessons cut through Dara's war torn mind in one effortless second. Dara opened her mouth to shout, more so from an instinctive drive than an effort to summon help of any sort, and was alarmed when a human hand effectively sealed the widening orifice.
"Will you quit it?" An angry voice hissed in Dara's ear. "You are going to get us both killed."
Dara allowed her legs to wilt, but she kept her back arched and prepared to spring. There was an elbow digging into her upper back and a knee solidly fused to the base of her spine; she seriously doubted defense was on her assailant's mind.
"Ow!" Dara felt a smug smile tug at her lips as the hand was suddenly tugged away. "You bit me!"
"All you had to do was ask. The tackling was entirely unnecessary." Dara whispered back, anger and embarrassment coloring her tone. She wriggled a bit and kicked her feet, but unfortunately found that she was all together pinned.
"You were as angry as a merchant in April. And I don't have time to shake your hand and take your order. If I get off, will you shut up and get down?" The voice was low, merely a sibilant hiss of barely contained anger, but when she truly listened Dara could detect the slightest hint of a feminine lilt.
"What the hell is out here to be so scared of?" Dara slid even further down onto her stomach, trying to ignore the slippery feel of mud as it slid across her bare skin and the itch of grass against her cheek.
There was a slight pressure on her chin as the same hand that had moments ago nearly crushed her windpipe lightly guided Dara's gaze to the fuzzy border where forest gave way to prairie.
"There."
It took her two heartbeats time to determine that she had gotten herself from one impossible mess to another. Splayed at the foot of the hill was half a legion of the royal army, now listening to his commands, and Dara could only assume they had strict orders to kill anyone entering or leaving royal lands. The Pretender was, as Dara was forced to admit, in control of the entire kingdom, but his tyrannical abilities were diluted off royal grounds. The edge of the forest marked the beginning of private property, and therefore stood as the tangible representation of freedom. Except Dara would have to make it past roughly twenty armed soldiers with nothing more than her bare hands and the littered forest droppings she could find around her. The likelihood of her creating a useful weapon was nonexistent. It would be safer for her to bid her time and hope that, once night fell, the line would slacken and she could slip through the cracks. But yet, she highly doubted the overly aggressive companion she now had atop the knoll would be satisfied with waiting.
"Well, this should be fun." Dara spared a glance at the sky and was happy to see a dusting of stars and the beginning arch of the sun's nightly surrender. "We will wait here until nightfall. It shouldn't be longer than an hour or two. When they fall asleep we can slip down the south side of the hill and break through the gaps."
"I don't like it." The harsh voice answered quickly. "It leaves too much time for one ambitious soldier to decide he needs to check the perimeter. We need to get out of here now. The longer we wait the more chance there is of something going wrong."
"We can't exactly charge them armed as we are." Dara hissed back. "They've got swords and we have, what, our bare hands?"
"So we make them fight themselves." There was a hint of an impish giggle suppressed beneath an otherwise too adult voice and Dara was surprised to find that she, too, could feel soft tendrils of excitement reaching out from an otherwise frightened core.
"How?"
"By using the only thing a soldier has left. His allegiance to the Pretender." Dara felt a smile threaten the edges of her face, its rim so wide she could feel her cheeks fighting back. The Pretender. She had never heard anyone outside the rebel forces refer to him that way; Mother had always insisted the opposition was stronger than she realized, but Dara had yet to imagine a world outside the palace walls. Perhaps they weren't so different after all.
"How do you propose we get their attention?"
"Easy. Soldiers are like forest fires-it only takes a spark and they are off like jack rabbits. Watch, and get ready." There was excitement clear as day in that voice now, anticipation and old fashioned adrenaline loosening muscles both were more then prepared to use now that mention of the Pretender had awakened not truly buried hatred. Dara was barely aware of the shadow as it fell upon her still crouching figure before the chaos ensued.
"Tyrus' blood for my feast!" The voice was thunderous in both meaning and volume. Dara was on her feet in seconds. The soldiers were responding as expected; they were teeming forward in a swell of silver and sharpened metal and Dara felt her blood quicken in response. A soft hand lightly restrained her elbow.
"Wait. When they get here, bring your knees to your chin and roll down the left side."
The next two minutes dragged on for an hour's time. Dara's heart was roaring in her chest, and her legs were twitching with an ever ready desire to just run. Standing still while a swarm of soldiers amassed themselves before her was still not setting right with Dara's subconscious. Every instinct inside of her was begging to run, but the steady hand on her arm somehow managed to quell the urges.
The first wave of soldiers had crested the hill and was advancing on them. Dara could feel the person beside her grow rigid with fear, and she knew her own muscles had the consistency of marmalade. Now. She needed to run now, before the soldier with the bloodthirsty eyes came any closer, before all she could see was the flash of his blade and the gleam of his smile.
"Not yet."
There were a dozen soldiers on the hill now, a dozen swords unsheathed and glinting in the golden light of the setting sun. They were close. So close. Dara turned to run, but the hand that had once been so soothing suddenly tightened like a vise. She strained against the iron grip but her eyes were clouded with tears and her heart was hammering so loudly her thoughts were uselessly muddled.
"Wait."
One soldier was a few feet before the others, and he was so close Dara could see the garish scar above his eye and the distinctive outline of the imperial eagle tattooed to his sword hand as he lifted his sharpened weapon high into the air. Dara felt the wind against her cheek as the sword whisked upwards and she braced herself for the fatal bite of the downward arch, blaming herself constantly for trusting someone who had tackled her from behind.
"Now!"
It was the second time she'd been pushed to the ground today, but Dara hardly minded as the restraining hand on her forearm intuitively yanked her down just as the sword made its final descent. Instinct took over, and Dara felt herself tumbling down the side of the hill in an un-orderly mess of limbs. The world surged before her eyes as she rolled, a dizzy fog of green and brown filling her senses. She was dimly aware of the clank of armor as the soldiers tried to follow them and failed, weighed down by armor and far from limber.
As soon as the hill ended, both of them, fueled by adrenaline, scrambled onto wobbly legs and ran towards the border. The clamor of angry soldiers could be heard behind them, men yelling and shouting, swords and armor clanking as they tried to pursue but found themselves desperately slower. They ran together, falling into the same gait automatically, dodging hazy brown trees and jumping over crowning roots as a seamless entity. Somewhere along the way their hands melded, fingers intertwining as a rope to tether one stanchion to another.
Eventually they both realized the twigs and leaves beneath their feet had given way to soft prairie grass and the trees had faded to reveal a slowly darkening sky. They stopped for a minute to catch their breath and make sure the soldiers were a sufficient distance away. Dara took a second now to look, for the first time, at this person who had saved her life.
Much to Dara's surprise the owner of the hardened voice was a lithe girl not much older than Dara herself. Her hair was the color of Dara's own, a brown so light it was almost blonde. But it was cut short and choppy, framing a tiny face with green eyes aged beyond their time. Dara supposed by now her eyes held much the same weathered strain of exhaustion.
"What are you staring at me for? Now is a hell of a time to stop and smell the damn flowers."
"I'm Dara." Dara held out her hand in the polite form of greeting she had learned in the palace, but the other girl just glared at it and knelt to stretch her leg muscles.
"Sasha."
Exchanging names seemed like a mere formality at this point, a form of introductions that almost seemed frivolous and debasing after everything they had just survived together. A few strained moments of awkward silence filled the air, and Dara kicked at the empty prairie with her foot.
"There is a mountain range not too far from here." Sasha rose to her feet and pointed towards the horizon. "If we leave now we should reach them by morning. I don't know where you're headed but everything should be safer once we get some distance and a solid foundation at our backs."
Dara followed Sasha's finger, and could barely make out the blurry peaks and dips of a mountain in the distance. The setting sun was dipping beneath the surface of the earth, announcing her retirement in a glorious display of ostentatious oranges and yellows, but the glare made it nearly impossible for her to see anything clearly. Dara raised her hand to shield her gaze, and felt her heart rise into her throat unbidden as violet shadows cast themselves across the mountain's obscure form.
The next thing she knew she was laughing. Loud, raucous, uncontrollable peals of laughter that burst from her mouth with such intensity Dara soon found herself sitting on the ground. Even after everything had gone wrong, dangerously and terrifyingly wrong, she had managed to get lucky. Somehow she was still here, exactly where she was supposed to be, exactly when she was supposed to be, even though nothing else had gone right for what felt like years.
"What the hell is wrong with you, crazy girl?"
Dara still couldn't stop laughing. She laughed until there were tears in her eyes and beautiful pains in her sides, laughed until Sasha sat down beside her and tentatively found herself following along, laughed until Sasha too erupted into swells of laughter as wild and freeing as the ones spilling like music from Dara's sore throat.
There were tears in their eyes, but these tears were ones of joy, and perhaps that was all that really mattered.
Chapter 2
Dara watched her approach with a slight shiver and an unconscious quickening of pace. The world around her was empty. Save for Sasha, who was matching Dara step for step, there hadn't been another human presence for hours. But yet still something about the darkness made Dara uneasy. There were too many possibilities, too many traps waiting to be sprung. Even out here where the soft rustle of wind against the grass seemed to echo for miles and the light of the moon enclosed everything the eye could claim. Dara wanted the opportunity for protection, for defense, although from what she still wasn't sure. Walking aimlessly in an open field made her feel too much like a gazelle waiting for the lion to rise up from the shadows. Fear was a hard habit to break.
Silence seemed more comfortable to both Dara and Sasha, an indeterminate presence both had made themselves all too familiar with, so they traveled together with only the crackle of the grass and the thumping rhythm of a march as company. They barely interacted at all. Occasionally one would quicken the pace, and the other would soon hurry to catch up, to keep the rhythm constant. It eventually became a game, a challenge, and after an hours time they found themselves nearly running. By and by they were sprinting, racing, wind rushing through tangled hair and whipping past agile limbs. Soon the sound of their laughter fluttered in the breeze, a concession from both girls, a gift to the hollow night, and the whispering darkness swallowed it eagerly.
They stopped as the prairie bled into the mountain range, feet slowing and skidding against soft soil, jubilant tones hooded and shackled. The mountains were formidable outlined by the night, the moon casting a ghastly glow across the garish surface, and they loomed ever upwards in an attempt to spear the sky. Dara wasn't sure if she was impressed or terrified.
"We're climbing that?" Her voice shook slightly, a slight concession of awe more so than fear. The two peaks rose independent of one another, yielding a patch of rocky yet solid ground, but the narrow valley scarcely seemed inviting.
"Hardly. That'd take weeks. There used to be a village in the foothills. If we follow the path they made it should lead us to the other side."
"What's on the other side?"
"Does it matter?" Sasha's foot let loose a torrent of jagged pebbles as she attempted to master the steep incline onto the side of the mountain. The indent was natural, formed from water damage or erosion, and hardly wide enough for both girls to stand shoulder to shoulder. Sasha waited impatiently while Dara grappled with the ledge herself and eventually maintained her balance inside the stone encrusted cocoon.
"As much fun as that was, I don't see a path anywhere." Dara glanced around her but all she saw was relentless mountain stone. They were now a foot or so off the ground but hardly on their way. She saw nothing but dusk and the eerie reflection of distorted shadows flickering on the rugged surface of the adjoining mountain.
"Your confidence is overwhelming. Just give me a second. It's been a while." Sasha lifted herself onto her toes and looked into the endless darkness. Broken memories were infiltrating her mind now, intermingling with her thoughts, making it hard to differentiate between the mountains she saw now and the mountains she vaguely remembered.
"It's been a lifetime." She repeated softly, not quite sure who she was addressing.
"Whose lifetime?" Sasha jumped when Dara's voice followed her own, startled, as if she hadn't expected to hear another human sound or a response of any sort.
"Here." Sasha jumped down from the ledge with an audible thump. "If we circle around both mountains and cut up the far right, we should be fine. Its rougher traveling, but we'll make better time." She extended her hand to Dara, who batted it away and slid down the side of the mountain herself, hugging the solid surface as she descended. Sasha's gaze shifted between the steadily climbing trail and Dara, who was carefully backing up from the mountain and readjusting her stiff muscles.
"Can you handle it?" Sasha's tone wasn't as accusatory as her words seemed, but Dara still bristled at the insinuation. She was cautious, of course, and green, perhaps, but no one from the palace would dare to imply her incapable. She was Aderes's daughter, the future of the revolution, the last living soul entrusted to bring the queen home. Dara had a reputation inside the palace and she wouldn't belittle herself by forfeiting her good name now out of some misguided sense of trepidation. She had survived persecution by the Pretender, witnessed bloody executions at the hands of former friends, done things in the name of loyalty and honor that made her stomach churn and threaten to mutiny. There was nothing she would find in that valley worse than her past and she was a fool if she allowed the future to cripple her in a way the past never had.
Fire flashed in blue eyes, an anger fed flame with cavernous roots that licked deep, bringing emotions to the surface that swirled beneath Dara's scowl. Her eyes were narrow slits and defiance lined every facet of her face. A small, nearly smug smile formed on Sasha's face, a relatively adverse reaction to the abject fury Dara was radiating.
"Thought so. Anyone who can face a legion of soldiers with little more than the skin they were born in wouldn't be afraid of a little exercise."
Sasha headed down the incline and around the mountain, her shoulders set as her mind led her towards a place better off forgotten. Dara found herself following step for step, around and around the twisting trail, and when they curved into the dark woods and settled into a well traced rut Dara was surprised to feel expectation smoldering low inside her stomach.
It was dark, painfully dark, the type of night that clawed at eyelids and sent hearts scampering in search of a forlorn drop of determination. Dara couldn't see her feet in front of her; the oppressive darkness swallowed all traces of light and created a world so black it almost ceased to exist. They traveled in complete silence, not risking the words for fear of losing concentration. Sasha's memory led her more so than her feet, clinging whispers of memories that traced the outline of the path inside her mind and reminded her where to turn or when to jump. Dara at first found herself stumbling over the barest hint of roots, but she soon learned how to listen for Sasha's movements, how to distinguish the scrape of a shoe from the scratch of a branch, how to differentiate between Sasha's heartbeats and her own. Eventually they became accustomed to the forest, the silence, the gloom, and found themselves walking faster and faster.
The forest gave way to a clearing devoid of trees and Dara gasped as the moonlight seared her eyes. It was too bright, nearly aglow with silver, and she felt her eyes retreat at the sudden introduction. Sasha turned around in a tight circle, silently checking the perimeter, before cracking her back.
"Gods, I'm sore. What do you say we camp here for the night? It's as good a place as any."
"I'm tired enough to sleep anywhere." Dara smiled shyly and allowed her jellied legs to drop her to the ground. "We can't be much farther from that village you mentioned. I say we sleep now and start again at daybreak."
"Fine with me." Sasha hesitated for a moment, perusing the dark forest for any hint of encroaching danger before permitting herself to lie down by Dara. They were a good foot apart, but every so often, Sasha extended her fingers just long enough to feel the barest hint of Dara's forearm. Just to reassure herself that she wasn't alone once again.
Both girls felt the emptiness compressing like a woolen blanket on a hot summer night. The sky seemed to stretch on forever above them, an endless unreachable expanse, and the soft earth was yielding but hardly suitable for prime sleeping conditions. They seemed to slide forward at the same time, instinctively seeking comfort, perhaps, or the result of their minds searching to end the day the same way it began. Two heads soon lay side by side, dark hair intermingled and cast upon a sheet of green, heads knocking together.
Dara's stomach grumbled loudly, the loudest noise either had heard since the battle on the hill, and Sasha felt a smile spread across her face. In the terror and the determination they had forgotten about food of any sort. How very human of them after all.
"Hungry?"
"I could eat." Dara murmured softly, her lids already closed and sealed shut with exhaustion. Every bone in her body was humming with activity, more used and tested than ever before, and movement of any sort seemed nearly impossible.
"Me, too, actually. Should we go find something?" Sleep was tempting Sasha as well and her voice was thick with fatigue. She'd pulled something in her calf back on the trail, and it felt as if molten iron had taken residence inside her veins. She could feel the swelling with her fingertips even now, and hated the idea of bearing anymore weight.
"Yeah. That sounds good." Dara whispered as she turned over, her head nearly encased inside the warmth of Sasha's shoulder.
"In a minute, then."
"Sure."
The grove was silent then as both girls slept, the only noise the faint hiss of leaves moving in the wind and tree branches tapping against solid trunks. For the first time in a long time neither girl had nightmares and instead slept through the night as peacefully as the day they were born. Ironically enough, they slept better discarded in the middle of the forest than back where they called home.
When the sun poked her head above the horizon in search of the moon, Sasha and Dara were both beginning to stir. They shuffled around for a few minutes, working kinks out of contorted limbs and wiping sleep's lingering influence from tired eyes. It was easier to move through the forest during the day. The sun's rays were more powerful and far reaching than the moon's gentle light, and they could move faster when they could see the ground in front of them. Dara found a bush near the grove nearly bursting with plumb red berries, and both girls found they were hungry enough to risk the chance of poison. They stuffed their pockets until berries threatened to spill with every breath they took, and then spent the next hour listing the pastries they would make with their find if they had an oven handy.
It was another two hours before Sasha heard the faint burbling of water. It was a distinctive noise she'd recognize anywhere, and suddenly her throat was coarse, almost as if she'd swallowed powdered glass. Primal urges guided her now, an instinct and a desire rising from deep within so sudden and overpowering Sasha found herself stricken by the ferocity. She needed that water and she needed it this very instant.
Dara furrowed her brow as Sasha suddenly went rigid as a twig and then sprung through the forest in a zigzag trail. She rushed to keep up with the blurred figure in front of her, chasing the noises Sasha was leaving behind more so than the person herself. Dara was relieved when crackling forest ground yielded to soft sand and Sasha's prone figure, greedily bent over the stream, came into view. Dara knelt in the sand next to Sasha, the wetness leaking between the creases in her skin and seeping into the corners of her clothing, but the smell of the water, the sight of it, was so reassuring she hardly cared. Dara thrust her hands inside the stream and shattered her reflection, slurping avidly. She drank until she could feel her insides stomach swell and slosh with satisfaction, until she felt her throat resist, until the thought of drinking more made her stomach turn. Then she fell back onto the sand, sated and lazily happy. Sasha nudged Dara in the side with the toe of her shoe and thrust a branch in her direction.
"Come, on, get up. If you think that was good, wait until you get some real food in your stomach."
"What do you expect me to do with this?" Dara took the branch and held it out in front of her, testing its weight and sharpness. It was too short to be a javelin, but too long to be an arrow, and not sharp enough to function as an arrow head or a knife.
"Sharpen it. We're going fishing."
Dara grinned and she sprang to her feet, testing the tip of the branch again with her thumb. This, this she could do. This she had been trained for, prepared for, waited for. This was what she had been expecting, not an army of soldiers, not an invisible trail and an illusive riddle. The laws of nature. Predator and prey. Knowledge and instinct. This was an enemy she could fight.
The two girls used stones, smoothed round and soft from the water's rhythm, to whittle hardened edges to their makeshift fishing equipment. It took a good hour's time since the wood was soft and prone to splitting and neither had a real blade. Dara finished first and she waited patiently by the water's edge for Sasha to join her.
"Ready?" Dara shifted her feet in the sand eagerly, knees bent and bouncing, her eyes narrowed and hungry for a glimpse of scales.
"Last one to catch a fish has to make the fire." Sasha was lower to the ground, her chin almost in the water, her expression equally determined.
Silver glinted in the sunlight and both girls locked eyes with the metallic surface at the same time. Dara flicked her wrist, letting the spear fly through her fingers as her knees uncoiled and she slid backwards to provide vector for her thrust without propelling herself straight into the water. At the same time, Sasha lunged forward in an attempt to stab the fish through and through. Dara pivoted at the last second and kicked Sasha in the shoulder with the edge of her heel, sending both girls hard onto their backs, but preventing either from landing directly in the ice cold water.
"What was that!?" Sasha sputtered, brushing sand off herself as she stood up. She glared angrily at Dara and crossed her arms.
"That was me saving your ass." Dara grinned smugly and headed over to the stream in search of the fish and her spear. She was sure she'd met her mark; it was now just about finding it and hoping the current hadn't washed away an hours worth of work.
"I had it under control."
"For about ten more seconds, and then you were going to fall right in." Dara knelt by the edge and parted the reeds, hoping her fish had gotten caught inside the thick greens on its way downstream.
"I know what I'm doing!"
"See those rocks?" Dara gestured to the bottom where the outline of several large boulders shimmered under the water. "Your head was about ten seconds away from colliding with those. There's no coming back from that." Dara wrapped her fingers around the fish's limp form, extracting the spear in one oozing moment, and she tossed the fish onto the ground by Sasha. Sasha's face wrinkled in disgust instinctively.
"You've never done this before, have you?" Dara looked back and forth from the fish's barely twitched form to Sasha's now composed face.
"Not exactly."
"Why didn't you just say so?"
"I didn't think it was going to matter."
"Let me teach you." Dara took her spear, wiping it off neatly on the grass, and gesticulated to Sasha. She hesitantly joined Dara by the water bank. "The trick to fishing is patience." Dara lowered her voice as a glittering tail swam on the periphery of her vision.
"You can't just attack as soon as you see something come into view. You have to wait." She rolled the spear between her fingers and rested the point on her thumb as she spoke.
"Wait until the fish doesn't expect it, until it can't see you at all, until it is almost in open waters. When the fish can't see you coming, the kill is yours." When Dara retrieved her hand, a slimy, squirming trout was pinned to the edge of her spear.
They spent the next bit of time gathering branches and kindling for a fire so they could warm themselves when night came and cook the fish as well. The sun fell asleep as they worked and they greeted the moon with soft licks of flames, coaxed and prodded alive by rubbing and snapping two sticks against each other. The fire was small, barely big enough to scare away the cold bite in the air, but it encased their campsite with an orange glow of self-sufficient satisfaction. They perched together, roasting trout over the open flame, surprisingly more content and accompanied than either had expected.
Eventually the stars broke through the dark curtain and joined the moon in the night sky. Dara and Sasha lay down side by side near the fire, enjoying the warmth and the light it provided as well as an excuse to seek out the fundamental necessity of human comfort. Dara could feel her limbs go slack and airy just as Sasha's voice broke through the night silence.
"I used to watch my father and my brothers fish when I was a little girl. I'd follow them down to the riverbank and hide behind the trees while my father taught them. I remember one day he caught me hiding there and I was so scared I'd get in trouble."
"Did you?" Dara found herself answering back.
"No." Sasha laughed. "He told me if I sat really still and waited my turn, when I got old enough he'd teach me, too."
"He never taught you?"
"He died a year later. Royal troops came to our village and demanded supplies and a certain percentage of our crops every harvest. My father and a few other men were enraged and decided to fight for their rights. They were farmers, peasants, really, and didn't last very long against trained soldiers."
"I'm so sorry." Dara couldn't seem to fit any words out of her mouth at the moment because there were so many bouncing around inside her head. Her loyalty to the king, to the true king, forced her to recognize that he would never send men to collect from peasants but her newfound camaraderie with Sasha drove her to trust her friend, too. Guilt clawed at her insides and she closed her eyes to hide her expression. Her automatic instinct should be to feel for Sasha's pain.
"It-it's why I'm here. Running from everything, everyone. The Pretender has men everywhere. He killed my family that day, Dara, destroyed my life. Every moment he's on that throne he's ruining the kingdom. I want to stop him. I need to stop him." Her voice had dulled to a whisper now, the passion blazing hot but the desperation more apparent than the anger. "I just don't know how."
Dara opened her mouth to tell Sasha about the riddle, to pour her soul out to the one person left in this world it seemed would truly empathize with her ultimate goal, but she found that she couldn't find the words. She felt as if she wasn't ready to share it yet, almost as if it was meant to remain a secret between Aderes and her, a half-forgotten genetic legacy, and Dara wasn't ready to give that up. It was the only thing she had left of her mother, the only thing she truly had to carry with her that rang of home, and sharing tainted it somehow. She was selfish, that she didn't doubt, but she hadn't lived this long in the Pretender's world without being cautious for a good reason.
"I wish I knew, too, Sasha, I wish I did, too." The words sounded hollow to her ears, and as Dara turned her back to Sasha and closed her eyes, she realized she'd lied to the only person who might understand. She felt the lie settle around her, tangling with the multitude of falsehoods and deceptions that seemed to constitute everything she had become since the day the Pretender took the throne. In her search for the truth, for freedom and independence, she had become the incarnation of Apate herself. And no matter how much she wanted to trust Sasha, no matter how much she wanted to allow herself to break the cycle, when Dara closed her eyes she still felt as if she was cowering in the tunnels waiting for the Pretender to catch her. This was still his world, no matter how far from the palace she might be, and Dara was still afraid that somehow, someway she'd get caught. The ends had to justify the means in this case; without the queen, without her there to interpret the riddle, the world was going to continue on its path downhill and nothing was ever going to change. If she put that in jeopardy for any reason, any reason at all, than Dara was sure she wouldn't succeed. Secrecy was the safest option right now, the only option. She was sure of it. Later, once she was positive Sasha was going to continue onward with her, once she knew without a shadow of a doubt that she was truly and completely free, then she might tell Sasha why she was really wandering around the kingdom being led by a few stanzas she only half remembered.
Dara and Sasha both awoke at the same time, the musky scent of eeriness alerting the hair on the back of their necks and raising painful goose bumps across their skin. At first they heard nothing besides their own rapid heart beats but then there it was. One long, mournful howl completed by an echoing chorus of somber wails. The noise itself was unnatural, frightening in its intensity, but Sasha couldn't help but relax when she realized the predators in theses woods were of the animal variety. Dara, however, didn't seem eased and she sprang to her feet immediately. The moon shuddered overhead, its edges wide, and she just knew it would lead them straight to her. The light was a signal, somehow, a silent beckon and they were coming.
"We should leave before they find us. We should get out of here right now."
"They're no threat to us." Sasha rolled back over and buried her head in the crook of her arm, shielding her ears in the hollow of her shoulder. These were natural enemies, predators who were following the order of the world and doing what they were supposed to when they were supposed to do it. She couldn't bring herself to be afraid of something that simple, that instinctive. Sasha had no qualms with them; if anything, she envied them for knowing their life pattern, day in, day out, and never having to question it.
She batted at Dara's leg with her other arm until Dara relented and sat back down on the ground, silent from fear and concession more so than concurrence. Sasha's breathing sweetened and fell into the shallow pattern of sleep, but Dara could not bring herself to even lay her head back down. The howling was muffled by now, as if tossed over a retreating shoulder, but she still waited. Waited for yellow eyes to peer forth from the brush. Waited for the gnash of teeth and the click of claws to echo all too close. Waited for the noise to become so deafening, so overpowering, the fright in her would give birth to terror elsewhere.
When dawn broke and the sun sent forth sentries in blazing yellows and oranges, Dara was still awake. By the time Sasha joined her, she'd already muted the fire and scattered the ashes around the perimeter of the clearing where they had buried the fish bones earlier last night.
"Morning."
"Morning." The word felt unfamiliar in Sasha's mouth and she wondered when she had last exchanged such common pleasantries with another person. Sasha had spoken to people since she had begun wandering, a conversation here and there, a nod or a hello, but she couldn't honestly recall the last time she had said, or received, a 'good morning' or a 'good night' or a 'thank you'. What did that say about her? About what her life had become?
"It shouldn't be much longer now." Sasha pointed past the clearing and into the forest where her directions were swallowed by the slow curves of the mountain and the barest hint of a wooden rooftop. "The village should be about a half a day's walk from here." Sasha winced as she stood up, feeling the throbbing in her calf resonating all the way up to the roots of her molars. Walking was going to be nearly impossible unless she did something to ease the swelling.
"Good. I'm ready to get out of here." Dara cast a look around with distrustful eyes and started to walk.
"I don't know about you, but I feel like taking a bath after two nights on the forest floor." Sasha shrugged her shoulders as if she had merely a casual interest in the proposition, as if the idea of ice cold water engulfing her inflamed leg wasn't consuming her every thought at the moment. She couldn't let Dara know she was hurt. She couldn't be left behind. Not again.
"The river is right there." Dara could feel dirt plastered to creases in her skin, twigs knotted in her hair, and she relented easily. A bath was the one remembrance of the palace, the one hint of luxury, she could allow herself to carry with her. No one would fault her for getting clean.
Somehow, as Dara scrubbed dirt and memories from her skin, Sasha managed to wrap her calf tight in water soaked reeds. They were flimsy and brittle but when she stood on the bank her leg supported her weight, and in the end, maintenance was all that mattered. Everything healed eventually, and what didn't the body learned to accommodate; experience had taught her that if nothing else. Limbo was enough for now.
Chapter 3
They left the clearing after that and traveled forward until all they could see in either direction were towering brown goliaths and quivering green foliage. Always in the distance peeked the tip of a wooden rooftop, the brown eave of civilization they had both classified as the village they had been working so hard to locate. Dara wasn't sure what she was expecting to find when they eventually emerged from the wilderness. Did she want there to be people in the village, an entire town not worried about preparing for tomorrow, or did she want to come up on the scorched remains of what used to be someone's home? Did she want proof that she was right or wrong? The truth was she wasn't sure what frightened her more: the prospect that everything the rebels had told her about the destruction was wrong and they had been battling a lie, or the stark truth that he had truly ushered in the twilight of the kingdom and she was the only one still carrying the torch.
They smelled what was up ahead before they saw anything, heard it, felt it waiting for them in the air itself. Sasha and Dara hesitated for a weighty moment, one hand primed to brush away the last veil between the quiet world where they roamed with silent demons and the effervescent world where bedlam was all too real. Sasha nodded her head once in confirmation and Dara imitated her reflexively, in preparation for what she knew was ahead, before they both pushed the branches behind them and walked off the beaten path.
Everything in the village, every building, every inch of ground, every object, had been emaciated and malformed. Fire had swallowed it whole, spitting out blackened remains of rooftops, tables, beds. The ground was thick with ash and shriveled debris, the ground hidden, every last blade of grass smothered. The world had been painted with a palate of blacks and grays, the only deviation coming from blinding white bones half-buried in ash. The two girls hesitantly entered the circle, and Sasha winced when she felt the ash scrape against her ankle, as she felt her feet slowly begin to sink inside. She shuddered because she knew, she knew what ash meant. Ash was more than the remains of houses and trees and stores; ash meant human skin and teeth and bones devalued and forgotten, allowed to litter the ground until one day, one day soon, they blow away forgotten in the wind. Sasha wondered what had slipped inside her shoe; the powdered remains of a door, perhaps, or maybe what had once been valued as a human leg. A hand. A heart.
Dara brushed the tips of her fingers against the dulled edges of a bright white hand, thrusting upward from the ground, the arm somewhere, anywhere, beneath. She held her own hand out in front of her for a second before shoving it in her pocket. They were about the same size. The same age, then, or close to it. A little girl trapped in this madness, choking on useless air, feeling the earth soften and sink slowly, slowly until nothing existed besides the darkness and the pain and the fear. How many people had died like this everyday while she had been raised with every amenity a child could ever ask for? Guilt rose suddenly, prepared, always biding its time. With it came nausea and the burning urge to cry. Dara kicked the nearest object in an attempt to distract her mind. She watched it roll, roll, and she felt her stomach lurch as the desiccated human skull stared straight through her with its empty eyes. She hurried to catch up with Sasha, to walk with someone instead of behind her memories and fears.
Dara and Sasha moved through the destruction in complete and utter awe, silent and terrified, forced to touch crisped edges of doors and empty window panes to ensure themselves it was all real. The burnt carcasses of buildings littered the village square, uniform in their destruction, each equally gutted by the fire. Every so often a skeleton was apparent inside these homes, typically slaughtered while doing an everyday chore, a macabre depiction of life. The animal pens had been burnt as well, and all but a few confused chickens had wandered into the forest during the madness. They clucked around the perimeter of the village, never once, not even in a scattered haze, wandering into the chaos.
Small reminders of life seemed scattered throughout, almost hiding, ashamed of survival. The charred remains of the apothecary's sign were apparent beside a cracked gravestone; a lantern bled into the street, oil running in rivets no where at all as fractures in the glass splintered a reflection no one wished to see; a withered and smoke stained pumpkin lay silent between the spokes of a consumed wheel; a sandal tangled in bleach white bones could be seen gazing up from the floorboards; a makeshift wooden sword lay discarded by the edge of an overturned wagon, a yarn doll with button eyes and smoke colored hair hugging the hilt; a small child's hand lay nestled in ash beneath the wagon, her blue eyes peering out from inside the filth.
Dara stumbled backwards instinctively as she felt those tiny eyes meet her own. She quickly dropped to the floor for a better angle and caught a glimpse of the girl before the small figure retreated behind the wheels. Soot had streaked across pale skin and dyed blonde hair a nasty grey, but she seemed unharmed. She was alive, after all, which was more than the rest of her village.
"Sasha." Dara lowered her voice to the barest whisper. Everything seemed to crackle here, repressed energy pent up and just waiting for another chance to ignite, and the last thing she wanted was to spook the little girl.
"I see her." Sasha shifted her feet and gritted her teeth, not liking the direction this was headed. Taking in strays was not a surefire way to insure survival in a world where one person had a hard enough time making do. And there was something about this entire situation, about this town, that had her nerves on edge. They were missing something important.
From the floor Dara found herself trying to catch a roundabout glimpse of the little girl, but what she saw instead was so much more important. There, on a tree just outside the outskirts of the village, right where the burnt edges met healthy grass, was the faint etching she knew so well. The imperial eagle. The Pretender authorized the captains of all his legions to carry wooden blocks with the eagle's form outlined in jagged metal scraps so, as they sauntered from one disaster to another, the captain could stamp the sneering symbol for all to see. The imperial eagle. This wasn't just a fire. This was his fire, his ordered demolition, his murderous rampage. Everything she had heard, all the rumors and stories she had been told from behind the safety of the palace walls, were brutally true. All the times she had protested his viciousness, every moment she sat with the rebels and watched her mother risk her life for a village somewhere in the outskirts, a little grain buried deep inside had always thought it could be a lie. She had wanted to believe that nothing like this ever truly existed, but she couldn't run from the truth any longer; the Pretender had killed her mother, destroyed her childhood, and now he was here, and if she wasn't careful, he was going to kill them, too.
"Sasha, we have to get out of here. He's here. His men are here. He's everywhere. We need to get out now. We need to get the girl and run." Dara's voice was frantic, thin and pinched, and her arm shook as she tried to point towards the little girl and the eagle all at once. She had grown up in a world where that eagle symbolized a king whom people wanted to revere, a ruler who had never burned or pillaged or murdered, and seeing him use that eagle for his name boiled red hot fury in her veins.
Sasha felt her heart quicken inside her chest in response and when her eyes met the too familiar eagle, it took all her strength to keep her knees locked in place. Memories swarmed inside her mind, things she had kept tightly under lock and key for fear of weakening herself in a moment just like this one. That eagle reminded her of the same one she had found on the outside of her childhood house, of the hammering in her chest as she pushed the door open and found her family butchered inside, of the sting of the blade against her throat as she tempted herself to join them. Every time she saw that eagle, and she had seen it so many times in her desperate journey across the kingdom, she was transported home in an instant. The world could be falling apart around her but every time that eagle appeared before her eyes she was ten years old again and her father's blood was running through her helpless fingers.
"He did this." Sasha repeated, looking around at the destruction, shocked she actually felt no surprise at all. She hadn't realized she had accepted that the Pretender's claws extended quite this far. "He did this." Perhaps the smoke had confused her into thinking she could be safe, even here, even with someone like Dara by her side.
Suddenly all this made sense. Sasha shook her head and smiled more from instinctive pleasure from figuring out a confusing puzzle than from an actual burst of happiness. Something had been off about this entire fire from the beginning and now she knew what it was. It hadn't been the Pretender's influence, the feeling in the pit of her stomach only seemed to deepen after that discovery, so it was something else entirely. And then she noticed and it was the easiest discovery of them all.
"There's no smoke." Sasha exclaimed, her voice hushed but her tone impassioned. "The remains of a fire smolder for days after the actual fire stops burning. There should be smoke or at least embers of some sort. But there is nothing here but charred remains. It smells like smoke, but there is no smoke."
"I'm not following you and we don't have time to chat. Help me coax the girl out from under the wagon." Dara turned away from Sasha and began to walk away, but Sasha grabbed her forearm and clamped down tight.
"Listen. There's no smoke, which means the fire has been over for days. Someone else is still alive, Dara, someone who is taking care of that girl."
"You don't know that." Dara shook her head firmly. "She could be dying right now and just too terrified to move."
"She wouldn't be alive this long otherwise and you know it. We both know it. They've got to be bringing her food and water, and if the Pretender's men left them alive, they are no friend to us. We have to get out of here before they come back." Sasha's voice had lowered to a plea but her grip hadn't loosened. She wasn't prepared to leave Dara behind but her instincts were already screaming at her to run and save herself. Survival wasn't an impulse she could combat for long.
"We need to get out of here, I agree, but I'm not leaving without her."
"Dara, if they catch us here we're dead. Do you understand that? Do you understand what you're risking? She's one of them! She belongs to them!"
"I won't leave anyone else behind!" Dara shouted back, her voice ripped to shreds by emotion, hot tears simmering in her eyes. Sasha paused for a moment, a retort plump on the tip of her tongue, but she could see the resolve in Dara's settled brow and hear it in her tone. Dara wasn't going to leave without this girl, and Sasha wasn't prepared to leave without Dara. She had lived alone for too long now, living simply for the sake of saying she had survived another day, and now that she had a friend to pass the time with she wasn't in a rush to go back to a lifetime full of solitary moments. If Dara was hellbent on saving this little girl then Sasha couldn't let her do it alone.
"Alright, then lets get your kid and lets go."
Dara smiled, grateful and more relieved then she wanted to let on. The little girl's frozen gaze drummed an emotional beat inside her own frightened core, summoned memories of watching her world collapse from a child's helpless perspective. The death, the destruction, the memories, those she couldn't fight, couldn't erase. But the loneliness she could prevent; she could save this little girl from that, if nothing else. But was she enough? Dara hesitated for a second, her gaze flitting between those wide blue eyes and the forest from which she still expected a soldier to attack. Extinguishing fear would be much easier if Dara wasn't so frightened herself. She paused for a moment, unaware how to tackle the monumental task before her. Growing trust in barren ground was a job for a parent, a teacher, not a terrified little girl running from the past and towards it at the same time.
There was a soft brush against the calloused skin of her palm, a light squeeze of reassurance, of faith, and then release. An unspoken push forward and a wordless support. Dara nodded her head a few times before moving towards the wagon with hesitant steps. A few moments later she could detect Sasha falling into step next to her, and when Dara slowly descended onto her knees, she could feel Sasha hovering over her shoulder. They could do this, the two of them. One nurturing, the other protecting. One watching, the other waiting.
Dara knelt until she could feel the heat of the earth against her cheek, a steady and pulsing beat, Mother Earth's anger thrumming through the soil in retaliation and mourning. Her eyes were level with the ground, but shadows had encased everything beneath the wagon. A pair of frightened blue eyes peered back at her, still and wide, and Dara tried to force a smile on her face. It faltered, trembled, before taking root and allowing the tips of her teeth to shine through. If she allowed the little girl to see that she was just as scared, just as horrified, than they would never coax her out. It was safe haven, a place where she couldn't see the destruction around her, couldn't even she the hand in front of her face, and Dara understood that. She knew what it felt like to struggle with the urge to bury your head, shield your eyes, and do anything just not to look in front of you. Somehow, someway, she had to convince the little girl she could be safe out here, too.
"Hey there. My name's Dara. Can you tell me your name, sweetheart?"
Silence.
"That's alright. Sometimes when I'm scared I don't want to talk either. And that's alright, honey, you don't have to talk if you don't want to. But can I just see your pretty face?"
There was the slightest rustle, the sound of movement, but still Dara could see nothing besides those wide blue eyes.
"Is this your doll?" Dara stretched her arm until she could grip the rag doll's hair. She held her up, smoothing down her blackened dress, making sure the doll was in clear range of those waiting eyes. "She's a very nice doll. I had one just like her when I was growing up. What's her name?"
There was definitely movement now. Dara could see the shadows shift and slither into different positions as a pale white elbow came into focus.
"She's been waiting patiently for you all this time, honey, but I'm sure she's lonely now. I bet you she's just as scared as you are and she needs you to make her feel better. I'm sure she'd love it if you would come and play with her."
A tiny hand slipped through the shadows, emerging from underneath, fingers waving and reaching. Dara scooted the doll back ever so slowly, waiting until the hand followed, loosening the shadow's grip. Those grasping finger's followed obediently, until the little girl had all but crawled out from under the wagon. Her face was still cast to the ground, her little legs pushing off the exhausted soil as she chased the doll, and when her hand finally closed around the doll she looked up at Dara. Blue eyes were the dominate feature on her small face, long blonde hair trailed in the dirt as she lay on her stomach, looking up.
"There you are." Dara smiled, a cold rush of relief settling in her limbs, and she pushed herself up onto her feet. The little girl lay there, staring silently, her hand tangled in the doll's hair. Dara took a step backwards, towards Sasha, hoping the little girl would want to follow. Try to follow. "Can you stand up with me? Please?"
She waited a second, her gaze never wavering, and Dara thought for a second she wasn't going to move at all. Could she be in shock? It was possible; a child's mind was hardly capable of registering things an adult has yet to come to terms with. There truly are no words to help make such a thing understood because such atrocities are incomprehensible by nature.
"Dara, we've got company. Five or six minutes, I'd say." Sasha sounded skittish, scared, and when Dara turned to follow her gaze she detected the dark outline of three people walking towards the village. They didn't look like soldiers, but if they were the people Sasha had been afraid of, those who the Pretender left alive in a situation such as this, than they would cause just as much trouble.
Dara nodded in silent affirmation and turned back to the little girl, time weighing on her like never before. They had to leave. Now. "Honey, it's time to go. Come on." She extended her hand, silently pleading, begging those tiny fingers to grab on.
The little girl sat still for a moment, twisting her fingers further and further into the yarn doll's hair, before pushing herself into a standing position by thrusting her palms against the ground. Dara forced herself to stay still as she fell back down once, and then twice, before finally retaining her balance the third time and looking around triumphantly. Dara smiled at her encouragingly and extended her arm even further, lengthening her fingers as far as they would go. The little girl just had to take a few steps forward, just had to slip her hand into Dara's, and then they would be ready. She had to come of her own accord, had to willingly leave and walk with Dara, even if she was too young to understand what such an action would mean. Dara knew she would remember what it felt like to watch her family burn, to hear the screams of her neighbors, because grief knows no age limit. If the little girl was ever going to feel safe again, it was going to be because she went with Dara of her own free will.
Dara watched as she took a few tentative steps forward before falling back down, her legs too tiny and uncoordinated to work effectively. The little girl was persistent, Dara would give her that; twice already she had pushed herself off the ground, taking a few wobbly steps forward before falling down again. She didn't know how to walk. She had adopted a halting, frightened gait but she couldn't truly walk. Dara didn't understand. She was a tiny little girl, to be sure, but she looked as if she should have learned to walk already. In the palace, there were a half dozen children her size and smaller who were always underfoot, running down the hallways on stubby legs or tottering through the kitchen in search of a sweet. It almost looked as if this one had taught herself.
"Now, Dara, we need to leave now. They are going to be here any minute and we don't want to stick around for any sort of reunion. Grab your kid and let's go." Sasha was forceful, almost angry, but Dara could hear the tremor in her voice and sense the fright in her ramrod posture.
"I don't want to force her, Sasha; I don't want her to be more frightened than she already is. I want her to know if she comes to me, she's safe. I need her to know she can still be safe."
"We're all going to be dead if we don't get out of here now." Sasha stated flatly, and Dara groaned low in her throat as she could see those people reach the edge of the village. They were closer, so much closer, and fear dropped cold and solid in her stomach as memories tapped on a tightly locked door.
"Alright, we need to leave now, sweetheart. Come on. Just a little faster." Dara wormed a smile into her voice but even she could tell how false her sweetness was. They were coming, and all she could think of now were dancing red flames and loud painful screams. Her head swam with thoughts, recollections, fears and she could swear the Earth began to spin faster.
"That's it." Sasha enforced as the dark figures hit the center of the village, finally detecting the two girls standing on the outskirts, pointing and discussing before breaking out into a run. "We can make nice tomorrow. Dara, run, damnit!" She lunged forward and wrapped an arm around the little girl's waist, holding her tight against her chest with both arms, forcefully knocking into Dara with her elbow and ebbing her forward.
They broke out into a run together, the men on their heels, loud shouts all the adrenaline they needed. Trees blurred past them in a snarled mess of green and brown, colors mixing and bleeding into each other, but nothing mattered besides the solid thunk of feet against earth and the matching rhythm of a friend. They were free, for now, they had escaped. The men had long given up, their threats and pursuit ending a few minutes onto the rockier part of the mountain trail, but they kept running. They were chasing reassurance more than they were outrunning fear, desperately seeking comfort, and as long as their feet beat against the ground and their heart thundered in their ears than they could pretend safety lay at their destination.