Post by Kris11 on Oct 20, 2013 5:49:42 GMT 10
Title: winter is coming
Rating: PG
Prompt: "Winter is Coming" (#93)
Summary: Soon, Sandry's war for the throne would begin. One by one, Briar, Daja, and Tris take the last steps of their journeys to her side in the darkness.
Notes: This is part of the 'Falls the Shadows' dark!circle 'verse I've been playing in, where Niko didn't find any of the four. I've been told that this series is getting confusing, which is fair enough. Here is the chronological list of everything that's going down. Always Us, Lies the Promises Hold and this one, Winter is Coming, are the only ones that aren't strictly linear, so they are on the list more than once. I do suggest reading at least the bolded stories to get the necessary context.
Always Us (Section 1)
We, Like the Ghosts Have no Memories
Lies the Promises Hold (Daja)
The Incessant Dissolving of Silk
^Lies the Promises Hold (Sandry)
^Lies the Promises Hold (Briar)
^Winter is Coming (Briar)
If You Do, If You don't
Rise Up Above It
^Always Us (Section 2, Sandry)
^Always Us (Section 2, Briar)
Long Live
^Always Us (Section 2, Daja)
^Winter is Coming (Daja)
^Lies the Promises Hold (Tris)
^Always Us (Section 2, Tris)
^Winter is Coming (Tris)
^Winter is Coming (Sandry)
Fighting a war that's already lost
^Always Us (Section 3)
Briar opened his eyes to darkness. His arms were pinned to his sides by the damp, curved hull on one side, and the rough canvas covering a crate on the other. His hip was past pain, numb from immobility.
He had been hiding in this small space for nearly a week. With the sailors on watch for stowaways after Toad's discovery just outside the harbour of Hajra, Briar hadn't dared move except when driven by thirst, and then only in the darkest hours of the night. He slept fitfully. It was one of those brief respites of unconsciousness from which he had just awakened. His hand was gripped around the handle of his knife and he loosened it... incrementally. He wouldn't be thrown overboard without a fight, like Toad. He had fought for his life for more than a year in the convict docks. He had fought for this chance to stowaway and escape that dead-end fate. If it ended here, it would be after a fight they'd remember.
But no footsteps approached his hiding place. Instead, there was an echoing, grating noise, a splash outside the ship, and the rhythmic, metallic clang-clink-clang of a chain.
They were lowering the anchor.
Briar shifted his weight, pressing his lips between his teeth and squeezing his eyes tightly as blood rushed to his legs. If they were going to be unloading, he couldn't be found hidden in the ship's cargo.
Slipping out from behind the crate, Briar wasted a few precious moments giving his body time to adjust to the movement. His head spun a bit, his legs tingled painfully. Briar scuttled around the cargo, making his way towards the ladder leading to deck by memory and touch. He scrambled up, pulling himself up into the fresh, salty air above. It was night, but the stars and few burning lanterns seemed too bright, even as much as they were a relief. The darkness had taken on a life of its own, almost, as it surrounded him in his solitude.
Briar crept onto deck, trying to keep close to cover. They weren't in harbour, he noticed. He could see only the darkness of the ocean all around the ship.
Above him, there was a shout. Spinning, he looked up at the sailor leaning over the railing.
"Who're you, then?" the sailor shouted, already moving towards the stair to the lower deck.
Briar ran.
There was nowhere to hide, or escape to, of course. But as he avoided the sailors, alerted by the spotter's shouting, Briar tried to think of a way to survive it. He had fought his entire life just to make it another day. He didn't know how to give in and beg, like Toad had. Instead, surrounded on three sides, Briar brandished his knife, and teeth in a grin.
"Come on, then," he panted. He glanced to his right to track one of the sailors who was trying to stop the bleeding on his arm as he crept closer, and Briar saw the lights. They had put down anchor outside the harbour. They must be waiting for daylight to sail the rest of the way, Briar thought, but the lights were close.
He couldn't win a fight against them all. He could stay alive only one way.
Briar threw himself forward. He slashed in a small semi-circle to his right as he threw out his left elbow, clearing a space in the circle of men around him. Sprinting to the railing, he was up and over before anyone could catch hold.
His stomach flew into his throat. His arms waved, trying to find balance against the pull of gravity. He looked down at the water below and closed his eyes as he hit it forcefully. Darkness surrounded him.
Daja opened her eyes to darkness. She was careful not to move as she listened to the sounds of the Summersea prison. She had made that mistake before, and pain had nearly stolen her consciousness before she could calm enough to control it, breathe through it.
Slowly, she turned her head to one side, the musty straw sharp as it poked into her cheek. She closed her eyes when after straining against the darkness she saw no new food or water had been placed in her cell. No matter how vigorously Duke Frantsen's prison torturers had been in their duties, Daja would drag herself up for the meager – and random – rations. As it were, she tried to settle back into sleep, ignoring the burning of her ribs around each breath, the throbbing of her leg, the sharp lines on her back. She needed to build her strength against infection and disease, and all she could do for that was save her energy.
She could tell them how to make the boomstones and it would all stop –
No. She was too stubborn, she supposed, and it would get her killed, but she wouldn't be used for someone who wanted power for themselves, not again.
There were noises in the hallway, right outside the door, where they slipped in through the bars, and then the door was unlocked. Daja pulled herself into a seated position. It didn't do much for her dignity, made sweat break out on her forehead and brought her breath in uncontrolled little pants, but she refused to be caught completely defenceless when they came for her. It would do nothing to try to stand and fall, so this was the best she had.
Her guards were not the ones to walk in.
They did not bring a light with them, and all Daja had were impressions. The girl who walked in first was slender, short though she held herself like she had height, and like Daja should believe it, making her most likely noble born. Her hair and skin were light, Daja thought, though they were covered with a large hood, masking her features in deep shadows. The boy entered behind her, sliding along the wall so no one could get behind him. His hand hovered obviously around his belt, though Daja couldn't see the weapon he carried. His gaze hovered even more obviously on the girl standing in the middle of the room.
They couldn't be more than a year in difference between them and Daja herself, and neither had any reason to be here. No guards entered behind them and Daja felt her interest, and nerves, pique. She stilled a fidget, kept her gaze steady on the girl instead of flicking between the two of them. Her ribs throbbed painfully.
She knew better than to get into an argument with someone who had more power than she did. It was a pointless exercise: she had learned that winning meant exactly nothing when the other person could do what they wanted at the end of it, regardless. So, Daja gave them nothing, keeping her expression calm-water empty as she met the girl's gaze squarely, unafraid.
(okay, she was afraid, but if they didn't know it, they couldn't use it against her)
"I know what the Duke wants from you," the girl said, her voice quiet in the shadows, but cool with confidence. "I am willing to take you from here, and meet the price you name for you to not give him exactly that. We are planning to make things very ... unpleasant for my cousin in the next few months, and it would be unpleasant indeed, for us, if you were to share what you know with him."
"You want what I know?" Daja asked, forcing her voice into polite disinterest when it wanted to shake. "The line would run from here to Capchen if everyone knew the secrets I held. You kaqs don't understand. I am not selling myself as a weapon. You can do what you wish and it will not change my mind."
There was a long moment of silence. Daja steadied her rushed breathing. Finally, the girl nodded. Daja rocked back in surprise. "I don't want my cousin to have your boomstones more than I need to have them myself," the girl explained. "If what you want is to leave and never come back, that is what I will help you do," she said, as if Daja should just believe her, Daja thought incredulously, as if she – against all reason – didn't. "We –" she glanced back at the boy, bit her lip. "We will make due." When she looked back at Daja, she smiled, a tiny tremulous thing, and Daja felt a twist in her belly.
"She's good for her word," the boy said grudgingly, as if he had better things to do. "Wouldn't say it 'bout no Bag easy."
Daja looked into the shadows of the girl's face for a long time knowing that that you couldn't find something to trust in someone else's eyes, knowing that putting herself in these strangers' hands was tempting the gods to play her for a fool, but... the noble girl met her look for look and Daja believed. She nodded.
"Briar is going to help you up," she stated, waving the boy forward.
"Ribs are broken," Daja said, holding out an arm.
"Well, then, this'll hurt, but keep ahead of the ouch 'til we get you outside. You look strong enough to manage, yeah?"
"Stronger than you," Daja muttered over the buzzing in her head and the boy – Briar – huffed a laugh in her ear.
"Careful," the girl said, hovering. Daja took a moment as she stood, her sight fading out and returning slowly, her balance gone. She leaned against Briar's arm, the pressure of it on her back bringing her back with sharp points of pain. She pushed on Briar's shoulder as soon as she felt steady and they followed the girl from Daja's cell. She had to cough around the lump in her throat at that. She'd not thought she was getting out. Neither of her new companions looked at her as she sniffed and wiped her face against her shoulder. There was an understanding in the privacy they offered her, and Daja felt a link between them that was more than an arrangement and understanding. She didn't examine it too closely.
Along the long, narrow corridor all the torches had been snuffed out. It still smelt of smoke. They turned a corner silently, walked down a set of steps that jarred Daja into a set of harsh breaths until they were at a wooden door. The bar that would usually hold it closed was leaning against the wall. The key was in the lock, and the girl stepped forward to turn it.
"Where are the guards?" Daja asked quietly.
"Bribed them to remember business elsewhere," the girl answered, opening the door and looking out into the tiny courtyard. The door to the cells had been guarded inside by prison guards, and outside by the Duke's Guard when Daja had been brought in. Now, the courtyard was empty and they walked across it as if they had the right to be there.
"Some bribe," Daja huffed, out of breath. The stone was wet and cold against her bare feet.
"Trader, you have no idea," Briar muttered back, and Daja had a moment of wonder at what she was getting into. Who were these people? The practical side of her whispered that if she was going to throw her lot in with anyone, someone with these kinds of resources – and these nerves – were the ones to lay her bets with. She didn't bet on bad odds, and she wouldn't bet on many people standing against these two kids who could pull off a prison break with such nonchalant calm.
The pain was tugging behind her eyes, and she couldn't quite catch her breath. Briar took more of her weight as they walked down a narrow, sloping alleyway. There were streetlights burning at the other end of it, and the noble girl's steps faltered.
"Just a minute, Duchess, they're right there, go on," Briar huffed into Daja's ear. "She's no light-weight."
That got them moving again, and they walked out onto the street, Daja's eyes slipping shut before they reached the carriage waiting with a driver, wearing black and grey, no livery. She was helped inside by both of them, Briar's hands steady and firm on her back, the girl's gentle on her arms and then she was seated and she could hear Briar snap something to the driver outside and the carriage was rocking as they began driving away, and she was fading fast.
"Sleep, Daja," the girl said. "We'll be there soon."
"What's your name?"
"Sandrilene fa Toren. But you must call me Sandry."
Daja smiled at that, but couldn't make a joke at the high-handed manners of a girl who would break a Trader weapons-builder out of the Duke's jail; she was too tired, Sandry's hand too soft and calming as it rested on her hair. Daja's breathing calmed and everything faded. Darkness surrounded her.
Tris opened her eyes to darkness. She could hear people moving about the house and she rolled over, climbing out of the bed on silent feet. She looked out her open window. The moon was still high: it was late, but there were voices in the downstairs room that tempted her across the room.
She hadn't thought she'd sleep, hadn't thought she trusted these strangers enough for that. And she didn't, not really. She moved the chair out from under the doorknob before she could coax the lightning from the copper where they guarded her. She walked into the hallway, slipping into the darkness comfortably. Sparks roamed through her hair, lightning around her in flashes, making the shadows jump and stretch.
That was new. Her lightning had been quiet since the hospital. But she had been taken by mages, again... healers, and brought to this new city where she had no safe place to hide from people, no known haunts, nothing besides the voices of the girl she heard on the wind who spoke in ways Tris understood.
The voice she followed to this place: where soldiers guarded in secret (though they hadn't noticed Tris as she haunted the rooftops); where the boy and girls planned violence and taking and clung to the shadows and secrets and each other; where magic pulsed and danced, like it did inside Tris, in angry erratic bursts, uncontrollable and untamed and nothing like the temples wanted her's to be.
They had invited her inside, and how could she refuse them. She wanted to see how it turned out for these people like her. She didn't – she didn't want to belong. She didn't need them, or anything. She was just curious.
That's all.
And curiosity drove her down the steps to the main floor, her bare feet silent against the carpeted floor as she followed their voices to the small sitting room. The walls were covered with tapestries, though Tris couldn't make out the details of each image; they seemed to dance in the shadows refused to still enough to be seen and understood.
She stood in the doorway for a long moment before she registered the silence. All three were looking at her. Tris had met them the night before – when they had invited her into the house and their war – but had been too hazy with fatigue to notice their differences. Tris was struck by them now. Briar slouched against the far wall, his arms crossed. He was dressed plainly, with dark, tightly cut clothes that made him blend almost completely into the shadows of the room, except for the glint of knives that he never quite let sit still. Daja, in contrast, was a study of stillness; she hardly spoke, and did so only in well-planned, steady sentences. She was seated by the fireplace managing to look dignified even fighting off a fever caught in the Duke's dungeon. The ends of her many braids brushed against the knitted blanket wrapped around her shoulders as she turned her attention from Tris to Sandry. Dressed in expensive cloths that were sewn together in bizarre, jigsaw ways and which moved, unnaturally, Sandry stood in the middle of the room watching Tris calmly, as if she had said all she had to about her upcoming fight for the citadel, and it was now – truly – Tris's decision as to what she did about it.
Tris didn't believe that. People always wanted you to choose until you didn't choose their way... but, they had left her in peace with an open window and an unguarded door. They were waiting in her silence, now, waiting for her.
Tris didn't want a home. She wasn't a child looking for comfort. She just wanted something that was hers because she wanted it, not because it was all others would give to her, or because no one had taken it away yet.
She nodded. "I'll stay." Briar and Daja smiled at each other briefly, and Sandry clasped her hands together. "I get paid for this," Tris continued, "and stay here –"
"Yeah, yeah, Coppercurls," Briar interrupted. "You'll get your druthers if you're as dangerous with that magic as them temple folks seem to think."
"You'll find out if you ever call me that again."
Daja settled back into her chair and looked to Sandry. "This should be fun," she said, her tone dry.
Sandry ignored the sarcasm and nodded. "We're all together," she said, instead. The room quieted. "As we should be."
Daja's eyebrows rose incrementally. Briar rolled his eyes, opening his mouth to argue, but Tris slipped out into the hall and didn't hear. She didn't know about this should be nonsense. Life happened, and she was making the best out of what she was given, fighting for it if she had to, and that was all there was to it. Should be together indeed.
Climbing the stairs, she slipped back into the room she thought of as hers. She breathed easier, alone again. Tris thought about never being taken and forced into lives she didn't want. She thought about having the power to protect herself. She thought about a girl hidden in shadows who refused to let people shape her life; a boy who stood against the world with knives in his hands and a sharp tongue to match who would fight for what he needed because he knew how people took and never gave back; she thought of the Trader who was quiet, calm words and violence she didn't want to use, but had in spades because other people would use it, and there was no talking them out of it. They saw the world the way Tris did, and they didn't hide in their minds and hollows from it. They stood against it, and, all right, Tris wanted. She wanted them to stand by her, too, because she was tired of hiding.
Tris made sure her shutters were open wide, set lightning and a chair against the door and settled into bed. She wouldn't be leaving them, then, and they didn't need to know why. She closed her eyes as she set her head on the pillow. Darkness surrounded her.
Sandry opened her eyes.
The other four were inside, abed. It was a rare moment of peace; she knew Tris liked to wander the rooftops at night, and that Briar was often out in the city during these hours. Daja, too, would be awakened by bad dreams or lingering aches, though less often as she healed and grew stronger. But, Sandry's fabrics and threads had accepted the three into their domain easily, and would let her know if one of them woke and needed her. In the meantime, she was alone in the dark study, looking out the window to the moonlit courtyard garden.
It had begun, her war against her cousin. She had expected some trepidation, but instead was remarkably calm. She didn't just have soldiers on loan from her Imperial cousin anymore, after all. Now she had her mages, belonged to this circle of four. She rather thought they were a force to be reckoned with.
It would all be put to the test in the next few months, she knew. Winter was nearly upon them; she could feel the weight of the rains in the winds coming in over the ocean, the chill in those from the north. Their war would emerge from the shadows and immerse the entire city in its throes.
And soon, Summersea would open its eyes to darkness.
Rating: PG
Prompt: "Winter is Coming" (#93)
Summary: Soon, Sandry's war for the throne would begin. One by one, Briar, Daja, and Tris take the last steps of their journeys to her side in the darkness.
Notes: This is part of the 'Falls the Shadows' dark!circle 'verse I've been playing in, where Niko didn't find any of the four. I've been told that this series is getting confusing, which is fair enough. Here is the chronological list of everything that's going down. Always Us, Lies the Promises Hold and this one, Winter is Coming, are the only ones that aren't strictly linear, so they are on the list more than once. I do suggest reading at least the bolded stories to get the necessary context.
Always Us (Section 1)
We, Like the Ghosts Have no Memories
Lies the Promises Hold (Daja)
The Incessant Dissolving of Silk
^Lies the Promises Hold (Sandry)
^Lies the Promises Hold (Briar)
^Winter is Coming (Briar)
If You Do, If You don't
Rise Up Above It
^Always Us (Section 2, Sandry)
^Always Us (Section 2, Briar)
Long Live
^Always Us (Section 2, Daja)
^Winter is Coming (Daja)
^Lies the Promises Hold (Tris)
^Always Us (Section 2, Tris)
^Winter is Coming (Tris)
^Winter is Coming (Sandry)
Fighting a war that's already lost
^Always Us (Section 3)
Briar opened his eyes to darkness. His arms were pinned to his sides by the damp, curved hull on one side, and the rough canvas covering a crate on the other. His hip was past pain, numb from immobility.
He had been hiding in this small space for nearly a week. With the sailors on watch for stowaways after Toad's discovery just outside the harbour of Hajra, Briar hadn't dared move except when driven by thirst, and then only in the darkest hours of the night. He slept fitfully. It was one of those brief respites of unconsciousness from which he had just awakened. His hand was gripped around the handle of his knife and he loosened it... incrementally. He wouldn't be thrown overboard without a fight, like Toad. He had fought for his life for more than a year in the convict docks. He had fought for this chance to stowaway and escape that dead-end fate. If it ended here, it would be after a fight they'd remember.
But no footsteps approached his hiding place. Instead, there was an echoing, grating noise, a splash outside the ship, and the rhythmic, metallic clang-clink-clang of a chain.
They were lowering the anchor.
Briar shifted his weight, pressing his lips between his teeth and squeezing his eyes tightly as blood rushed to his legs. If they were going to be unloading, he couldn't be found hidden in the ship's cargo.
Slipping out from behind the crate, Briar wasted a few precious moments giving his body time to adjust to the movement. His head spun a bit, his legs tingled painfully. Briar scuttled around the cargo, making his way towards the ladder leading to deck by memory and touch. He scrambled up, pulling himself up into the fresh, salty air above. It was night, but the stars and few burning lanterns seemed too bright, even as much as they were a relief. The darkness had taken on a life of its own, almost, as it surrounded him in his solitude.
Briar crept onto deck, trying to keep close to cover. They weren't in harbour, he noticed. He could see only the darkness of the ocean all around the ship.
Above him, there was a shout. Spinning, he looked up at the sailor leaning over the railing.
"Who're you, then?" the sailor shouted, already moving towards the stair to the lower deck.
Briar ran.
There was nowhere to hide, or escape to, of course. But as he avoided the sailors, alerted by the spotter's shouting, Briar tried to think of a way to survive it. He had fought his entire life just to make it another day. He didn't know how to give in and beg, like Toad had. Instead, surrounded on three sides, Briar brandished his knife, and teeth in a grin.
"Come on, then," he panted. He glanced to his right to track one of the sailors who was trying to stop the bleeding on his arm as he crept closer, and Briar saw the lights. They had put down anchor outside the harbour. They must be waiting for daylight to sail the rest of the way, Briar thought, but the lights were close.
He couldn't win a fight against them all. He could stay alive only one way.
Briar threw himself forward. He slashed in a small semi-circle to his right as he threw out his left elbow, clearing a space in the circle of men around him. Sprinting to the railing, he was up and over before anyone could catch hold.
His stomach flew into his throat. His arms waved, trying to find balance against the pull of gravity. He looked down at the water below and closed his eyes as he hit it forcefully. Darkness surrounded him.
Daja opened her eyes to darkness. She was careful not to move as she listened to the sounds of the Summersea prison. She had made that mistake before, and pain had nearly stolen her consciousness before she could calm enough to control it, breathe through it.
Slowly, she turned her head to one side, the musty straw sharp as it poked into her cheek. She closed her eyes when after straining against the darkness she saw no new food or water had been placed in her cell. No matter how vigorously Duke Frantsen's prison torturers had been in their duties, Daja would drag herself up for the meager – and random – rations. As it were, she tried to settle back into sleep, ignoring the burning of her ribs around each breath, the throbbing of her leg, the sharp lines on her back. She needed to build her strength against infection and disease, and all she could do for that was save her energy.
She could tell them how to make the boomstones and it would all stop –
No. She was too stubborn, she supposed, and it would get her killed, but she wouldn't be used for someone who wanted power for themselves, not again.
There were noises in the hallway, right outside the door, where they slipped in through the bars, and then the door was unlocked. Daja pulled herself into a seated position. It didn't do much for her dignity, made sweat break out on her forehead and brought her breath in uncontrolled little pants, but she refused to be caught completely defenceless when they came for her. It would do nothing to try to stand and fall, so this was the best she had.
Her guards were not the ones to walk in.
They did not bring a light with them, and all Daja had were impressions. The girl who walked in first was slender, short though she held herself like she had height, and like Daja should believe it, making her most likely noble born. Her hair and skin were light, Daja thought, though they were covered with a large hood, masking her features in deep shadows. The boy entered behind her, sliding along the wall so no one could get behind him. His hand hovered obviously around his belt, though Daja couldn't see the weapon he carried. His gaze hovered even more obviously on the girl standing in the middle of the room.
They couldn't be more than a year in difference between them and Daja herself, and neither had any reason to be here. No guards entered behind them and Daja felt her interest, and nerves, pique. She stilled a fidget, kept her gaze steady on the girl instead of flicking between the two of them. Her ribs throbbed painfully.
She knew better than to get into an argument with someone who had more power than she did. It was a pointless exercise: she had learned that winning meant exactly nothing when the other person could do what they wanted at the end of it, regardless. So, Daja gave them nothing, keeping her expression calm-water empty as she met the girl's gaze squarely, unafraid.
(okay, she was afraid, but if they didn't know it, they couldn't use it against her)
"I know what the Duke wants from you," the girl said, her voice quiet in the shadows, but cool with confidence. "I am willing to take you from here, and meet the price you name for you to not give him exactly that. We are planning to make things very ... unpleasant for my cousin in the next few months, and it would be unpleasant indeed, for us, if you were to share what you know with him."
"You want what I know?" Daja asked, forcing her voice into polite disinterest when it wanted to shake. "The line would run from here to Capchen if everyone knew the secrets I held. You kaqs don't understand. I am not selling myself as a weapon. You can do what you wish and it will not change my mind."
There was a long moment of silence. Daja steadied her rushed breathing. Finally, the girl nodded. Daja rocked back in surprise. "I don't want my cousin to have your boomstones more than I need to have them myself," the girl explained. "If what you want is to leave and never come back, that is what I will help you do," she said, as if Daja should just believe her, Daja thought incredulously, as if she – against all reason – didn't. "We –" she glanced back at the boy, bit her lip. "We will make due." When she looked back at Daja, she smiled, a tiny tremulous thing, and Daja felt a twist in her belly.
"She's good for her word," the boy said grudgingly, as if he had better things to do. "Wouldn't say it 'bout no Bag easy."
Daja looked into the shadows of the girl's face for a long time knowing that that you couldn't find something to trust in someone else's eyes, knowing that putting herself in these strangers' hands was tempting the gods to play her for a fool, but... the noble girl met her look for look and Daja believed. She nodded.
"Briar is going to help you up," she stated, waving the boy forward.
"Ribs are broken," Daja said, holding out an arm.
"Well, then, this'll hurt, but keep ahead of the ouch 'til we get you outside. You look strong enough to manage, yeah?"
"Stronger than you," Daja muttered over the buzzing in her head and the boy – Briar – huffed a laugh in her ear.
"Careful," the girl said, hovering. Daja took a moment as she stood, her sight fading out and returning slowly, her balance gone. She leaned against Briar's arm, the pressure of it on her back bringing her back with sharp points of pain. She pushed on Briar's shoulder as soon as she felt steady and they followed the girl from Daja's cell. She had to cough around the lump in her throat at that. She'd not thought she was getting out. Neither of her new companions looked at her as she sniffed and wiped her face against her shoulder. There was an understanding in the privacy they offered her, and Daja felt a link between them that was more than an arrangement and understanding. She didn't examine it too closely.
Along the long, narrow corridor all the torches had been snuffed out. It still smelt of smoke. They turned a corner silently, walked down a set of steps that jarred Daja into a set of harsh breaths until they were at a wooden door. The bar that would usually hold it closed was leaning against the wall. The key was in the lock, and the girl stepped forward to turn it.
"Where are the guards?" Daja asked quietly.
"Bribed them to remember business elsewhere," the girl answered, opening the door and looking out into the tiny courtyard. The door to the cells had been guarded inside by prison guards, and outside by the Duke's Guard when Daja had been brought in. Now, the courtyard was empty and they walked across it as if they had the right to be there.
"Some bribe," Daja huffed, out of breath. The stone was wet and cold against her bare feet.
"Trader, you have no idea," Briar muttered back, and Daja had a moment of wonder at what she was getting into. Who were these people? The practical side of her whispered that if she was going to throw her lot in with anyone, someone with these kinds of resources – and these nerves – were the ones to lay her bets with. She didn't bet on bad odds, and she wouldn't bet on many people standing against these two kids who could pull off a prison break with such nonchalant calm.
The pain was tugging behind her eyes, and she couldn't quite catch her breath. Briar took more of her weight as they walked down a narrow, sloping alleyway. There were streetlights burning at the other end of it, and the noble girl's steps faltered.
"Just a minute, Duchess, they're right there, go on," Briar huffed into Daja's ear. "She's no light-weight."
That got them moving again, and they walked out onto the street, Daja's eyes slipping shut before they reached the carriage waiting with a driver, wearing black and grey, no livery. She was helped inside by both of them, Briar's hands steady and firm on her back, the girl's gentle on her arms and then she was seated and she could hear Briar snap something to the driver outside and the carriage was rocking as they began driving away, and she was fading fast.
"Sleep, Daja," the girl said. "We'll be there soon."
"What's your name?"
"Sandrilene fa Toren. But you must call me Sandry."
Daja smiled at that, but couldn't make a joke at the high-handed manners of a girl who would break a Trader weapons-builder out of the Duke's jail; she was too tired, Sandry's hand too soft and calming as it rested on her hair. Daja's breathing calmed and everything faded. Darkness surrounded her.
Tris opened her eyes to darkness. She could hear people moving about the house and she rolled over, climbing out of the bed on silent feet. She looked out her open window. The moon was still high: it was late, but there were voices in the downstairs room that tempted her across the room.
She hadn't thought she'd sleep, hadn't thought she trusted these strangers enough for that. And she didn't, not really. She moved the chair out from under the doorknob before she could coax the lightning from the copper where they guarded her. She walked into the hallway, slipping into the darkness comfortably. Sparks roamed through her hair, lightning around her in flashes, making the shadows jump and stretch.
That was new. Her lightning had been quiet since the hospital. But she had been taken by mages, again... healers, and brought to this new city where she had no safe place to hide from people, no known haunts, nothing besides the voices of the girl she heard on the wind who spoke in ways Tris understood.
The voice she followed to this place: where soldiers guarded in secret (though they hadn't noticed Tris as she haunted the rooftops); where the boy and girls planned violence and taking and clung to the shadows and secrets and each other; where magic pulsed and danced, like it did inside Tris, in angry erratic bursts, uncontrollable and untamed and nothing like the temples wanted her's to be.
They had invited her inside, and how could she refuse them. She wanted to see how it turned out for these people like her. She didn't – she didn't want to belong. She didn't need them, or anything. She was just curious.
That's all.
And curiosity drove her down the steps to the main floor, her bare feet silent against the carpeted floor as she followed their voices to the small sitting room. The walls were covered with tapestries, though Tris couldn't make out the details of each image; they seemed to dance in the shadows refused to still enough to be seen and understood.
She stood in the doorway for a long moment before she registered the silence. All three were looking at her. Tris had met them the night before – when they had invited her into the house and their war – but had been too hazy with fatigue to notice their differences. Tris was struck by them now. Briar slouched against the far wall, his arms crossed. He was dressed plainly, with dark, tightly cut clothes that made him blend almost completely into the shadows of the room, except for the glint of knives that he never quite let sit still. Daja, in contrast, was a study of stillness; she hardly spoke, and did so only in well-planned, steady sentences. She was seated by the fireplace managing to look dignified even fighting off a fever caught in the Duke's dungeon. The ends of her many braids brushed against the knitted blanket wrapped around her shoulders as she turned her attention from Tris to Sandry. Dressed in expensive cloths that were sewn together in bizarre, jigsaw ways and which moved, unnaturally, Sandry stood in the middle of the room watching Tris calmly, as if she had said all she had to about her upcoming fight for the citadel, and it was now – truly – Tris's decision as to what she did about it.
Tris didn't believe that. People always wanted you to choose until you didn't choose their way... but, they had left her in peace with an open window and an unguarded door. They were waiting in her silence, now, waiting for her.
Tris didn't want a home. She wasn't a child looking for comfort. She just wanted something that was hers because she wanted it, not because it was all others would give to her, or because no one had taken it away yet.
She nodded. "I'll stay." Briar and Daja smiled at each other briefly, and Sandry clasped her hands together. "I get paid for this," Tris continued, "and stay here –"
"Yeah, yeah, Coppercurls," Briar interrupted. "You'll get your druthers if you're as dangerous with that magic as them temple folks seem to think."
"You'll find out if you ever call me that again."
Daja settled back into her chair and looked to Sandry. "This should be fun," she said, her tone dry.
Sandry ignored the sarcasm and nodded. "We're all together," she said, instead. The room quieted. "As we should be."
Daja's eyebrows rose incrementally. Briar rolled his eyes, opening his mouth to argue, but Tris slipped out into the hall and didn't hear. She didn't know about this should be nonsense. Life happened, and she was making the best out of what she was given, fighting for it if she had to, and that was all there was to it. Should be together indeed.
Climbing the stairs, she slipped back into the room she thought of as hers. She breathed easier, alone again. Tris thought about never being taken and forced into lives she didn't want. She thought about having the power to protect herself. She thought about a girl hidden in shadows who refused to let people shape her life; a boy who stood against the world with knives in his hands and a sharp tongue to match who would fight for what he needed because he knew how people took and never gave back; she thought of the Trader who was quiet, calm words and violence she didn't want to use, but had in spades because other people would use it, and there was no talking them out of it. They saw the world the way Tris did, and they didn't hide in their minds and hollows from it. They stood against it, and, all right, Tris wanted. She wanted them to stand by her, too, because she was tired of hiding.
Tris made sure her shutters were open wide, set lightning and a chair against the door and settled into bed. She wouldn't be leaving them, then, and they didn't need to know why. She closed her eyes as she set her head on the pillow. Darkness surrounded her.
Sandry opened her eyes.
The other four were inside, abed. It was a rare moment of peace; she knew Tris liked to wander the rooftops at night, and that Briar was often out in the city during these hours. Daja, too, would be awakened by bad dreams or lingering aches, though less often as she healed and grew stronger. But, Sandry's fabrics and threads had accepted the three into their domain easily, and would let her know if one of them woke and needed her. In the meantime, she was alone in the dark study, looking out the window to the moonlit courtyard garden.
It had begun, her war against her cousin. She had expected some trepidation, but instead was remarkably calm. She didn't just have soldiers on loan from her Imperial cousin anymore, after all. Now she had her mages, belonged to this circle of four. She rather thought they were a force to be reckoned with.
It would all be put to the test in the next few months, she knew. Winter was nearly upon them; she could feel the weight of the rains in the winds coming in over the ocean, the chill in those from the north. Their war would emerge from the shadows and immerse the entire city in its throes.
And soon, Summersea would open its eyes to darkness.
Maybe once we'd have seen it during Smackdown!