When we finally reach the other side, I’ve got nothing left. Scrambling up mud and rocks, I can’t even feel my own legs, but, somehow, manage to get myself out of the water.
“This way!” a soldier shouts on the other side of the canal, the group of lights, like a swarm of fireflies, following his call, and barreling down upon us.
Dorian and I scatter into the brush and drop to our bellies side by side. It’s here, with his arm heavy and wet, yet still providing warmth, hugged around my lower back, we make eye contact.
The sliver of moon above shines down on the thin layer of ice frosting the ground. We both breathe heavily. Dorian’s lips are a mere blink away when he speaks. “You okay?” He rests his forehead to mine, and, the warmth of his breath grazing my cheek, suddenly I’m not so cold anymore.
I part my lips to tell him I think I’m all right, but I can’t seem to find the right words.
We’re breathless from swimming and running and freezing, and I’m shaking from fear and adrenaline, yet we’re somehow at a standstill. All the world whooshes around us. An owl screeches, the sound quickly drowned out by wind howling through branches. It’s as if we weren’t nearly washed out to sea. As if we’ve been lying in the forest, huddled next to each other all along.
Imperi soldiers march in the distance, the canal rushes by, the moon and the night and the brisk wind all move on—yet it’s silent.
Until something heavy cracks right above us.
I pull away with a gasp.
Dorian follows my gaze upward.
The heavy branch creaks again and part of it falls, missing us by mere inches.
There’s another sharp crack, the tree shifts above us, and before I can get on my feet to run, Dorian, still tethered to my waist, lifts me up and rolls me over twice so I end up on top of him.
The branch, tall as Dorian, lands with a crash and a horrible thud in the exact place we were lying.
“I’m beginning to think”—Dorian’s words brush my face—“you’re bad luck, V.”
All I can do is shake my head in disbelief. My heart pounds into my ears, the intensity of the moment only amplified by a stupid, broken branch, nearly flattening us to nothing.
We untether, I awkwardly slide to the side off his body, and we lie still, waiting to hear any sign of where the Imperi soldiers are, if they’ve crossed the canal too.
But after waiting and shivering from being soaked and chilled to the bone, Dorian finally risks a peek. Standing slowly, he scans the area. “I don’t see them.”
I half sit up and take a look. The swarm of fireflies is moving away, back down the opposite end of the canal and toward the Hill.
Dorian stands fully, lending a hand to help me up next to him.
The crack of a flare goes off too close to where we stand.
Once again, we take off running, but in the opposite direction, hiding tree to tree, searching for some sign of the thing—where it went off.
I tug on Dorian’s sleeve the moment I spot it. The faint glow of the flare illuminates the night as a dim cloud of smoke on the other side of the forest near Imperi Hill, not at all as close as it sounded.
Another fires away, popping like firecrackers and then bursting into a flash of light. Then another and then nothing. Still, we keep going, treading carefully, to the only den this side of the canal.
From there, we travel through a winding tunnel until we come up behind the market, near the waste and refuse bins. Dorian motions his uncle’s shop is to the right and, shadow to shadow, each step calculated and light, we make our way there. I immediately place our location—we’re behind the glassmaker’s shop.
Slipping in through the back door, we walk down the hallway and then directly downstairs to the cellar.
The second Dorian closes the door behind us, almost in unison, we breathe a deep sigh of relief. I lean forward, placing my hands on my knees, trying my damnedest to ignore how even one misstep could have sent us spiraling into Sun knows what horrible fate.
I feel Dorian’s hand on my back, gently patting me. “Nice work back there, V.”
I glance up, then stand fully, placing a hand on my hip. “You too.”
Looking away, like he’s trying to resist the grin pulling at his lips, he quickly succumbs, finding my eyes and giving me a grand smile. It’s in this moment I realize he likes it when I’m sassy just as much as I like it when he is.
There’s a small stint of silence when I think he’s going to say something meaningful, but when we both spot that a fire, hot tea, and a loaf of bread await us across the room, the moment’s gone.
Dorian and I immediately huddle before the fire, both of us convulsing from the cold. I’m pouring us each a cup of tea when his uncle descends the stairs carrying a pile of blankets.
He stops dead when he sees we’re drenched. “Get a bit more than you bargained for, eh?”
“We ran into a group of angry Imperi soldiers and got to take a swim in the canal,” Dorian explains.
“I see. Here … Wrap up, get warm, I’ll put on more tea, bring some soup down.” Dorian’s uncle quickly introduces himself to me before he takes the stairs two at a time to get more blankets and dry clothes.
Dorian loads another log on the fire while I grip a mug of hot soup between my palms, sipping gingerly, basking in the warmth. It’s his uncle’s special chicken stew recipe. It’s mostly broth, but I’d drink hot mud right now if it was offered to me.
The fire roars back to life as Dorian sits down next to me. He’s wearing a pair of his uncle’s pants that are about six inches too short and five sizes too large, plus a similarly ill-fitting tunic. Each time he reaches forward to stoke the fire, the tunic rises and exposes his midsection. Just a couple of inches above the waist of his pants. And, for the life of me, I can’t help but look every single time it happens, which reminds me of that first day in weapons training when he was battling the targets. Shirtless. Sweating.
I’m suddenly quite warm, our bone-chilly swim a distant memory.
I’ve also donned a set of Dorian’s uncle’s clothes, a long button-up white tunic and some trousers I’ve cinched at the waist with a length of rope.
“So,” Dorian says between sips of soup and bites of bread. “Nico takes the main tunnel when he’s finished with Dogio meetings, about two hours after fishing’s over? You’re positive?”
“Always.” But I consider that a minute. “I mean, it’s what he’s done for years. Things have changed though…” I stare into the fire, imagining Nico in his Imperi uniform. The image turns my stomach, and suddenly I’m not enjoying the chicken stew so much. Pulling my knees to my chest, I curl into myself to soothe it. “He and Arlen always have an hour of mentor training, followed with another hour of advanced government.” Dorian gives me a look like Why? His brow knit. “I don’t know.” I shrug. “I suppose they learn how the government works … or how to run the government … or how to overthrow rogue governments.”
“Fair enough.”
“From there, they go their separate ways: Nico takes the tunnel back to his house, and Arlen takes the stairway up the ravine. They live on opposite sides of the Hill.”
“He’ll be alone?”
“He should be.”