Kelsea sat up in the dark. She’d heard a child scream in pain, somewhere beyond her own walls. She looked automatically to the left, searching for her fire, but there was nothing, not even the glowing hint of ashes. It must be almost dawn.
She reached to her bedside table for the candle that always stood there, but her fingers closed on nothing. Fear broke over her in a wave, sharp fear with no clear source. She groped, frantically now, and found that even the bedside table was gone.
A woman shrieked outside, her voice escalating until it cut off in a short, choked grunt.
Kelsea threw off her covers and jumped to the ground. Her feet landed not on the cold stone floor of her room but on what felt like hard-packed dirt. She rushed toward the door, not left across her own chamber, but ten feet to the right, through the kitchen area, steps she knew as well as her own name.
Throwing open the door, she cringed at the bitter cold of the night air. The village was still bathed in darkness, only a trace of dawn visible on the horizon. But she could hear pounding feet, the sound of many people running.
“Raiders! Raiders!” a woman shouted from one of the houses behind her. “They’re—”
Her voice cut off without a trace.
Terrified, Kelsea shut the door and threw the bolt down. She groped on the kitchen table until she found a candle and matches, then lit a single weak flame, cupping it with her fingers to hide the light. Jonarl had made their house well, out of hard-baked mud leavened with small stones. He’d even given her a couple of windows, made of broken glass that he’d salvaged on several trips into the city. The house had been a lovely wedding present, but the windows made it difficult to shield light from the outside.
When she went back into the bedroom, she found William sitting up in bed, blinking sleepily, looking so much like Jonarl that her heart nearly broke at the sight. Jeffrey was still mercifully asleep in his crib, and she scooped him into her arms, keeping him wrapped in his blanket, and held out a hand to William. “It’s all right, love. Up now; I need you to walk. Can you walk for Mummy?”
William climbed out of bed, his toddler’s legs dangling for a moment before he dropped to the ground. He reached up and took her hand.
Booted feet pounded through the street outside. Male feet, she thought automatically. But all of the men were off in the city, trading wheat. Panic was trying to dig into her mind like a fever; where could they go? The house didn’t even have a basement to hide in. She shifted Jeffrey to her other arm and dug in the corner for her cloak and shoes.
“Can you find your jacket and shoes, William? Let’s see who can find their jacket first.”
William stared up at her, bewildered. After a moment he began digging through the pile of outer clothes and blankets. Kelsea moved a stack of quilts and found Jonarl’s winter cloak, still sitting there neatly folded. That was the closest she came to crying, right then, with her dead husband’s cloak staring up at her from the ground. Nausea rose in her throat, good old morning sickness, which always picked the worst possible time to show up.
The front door burst open, the flimsy wood bar shattering into two pieces, which landed on either side of the kitchen. Kelsea cupped one protective hand around Jeffrey’s downy head, then grabbed William and shoved him behind her with the other.
Standing in the doorway were two men, their faces blackened with soot. One of them had a bright red cloak, and even Kelsea knew what that meant. Caden? Here? she thought wildly, before he moved forward and laid hold of Jeffrey where he slept in her arms. The baby woke up and immediately began to scream.
“No!” she cried. He shoved her backward and tore Jeffrey free. Kelsea collapsed into the corner, grabbing the table leg to keep from falling directly on William. Her hip hit the wall with bruising force, and she groaned.
“Get the boy,” the Caden told the other man, then disappeared out the door with Jeffrey. Kelsea shrieked, feeling something pull loose inside her. This was a nightmare, it had to be, but when she looked down she saw that her left foot had landed in her own right shoe as she fell, and now the shoe stuck up at a crazy angle. This detail alone precluded the comfort of nightmare. She grabbed William and shoved him behind her again, holding up her hands to ward off the man standing over her.
“Please,” he said, leaning down to extend a hand. “Please come with me. I don’t want to hurt you or the boy.”
Even beneath the soot, Kelsea could see that his face was pale and drawn. He looked about Jonarl’s age, maybe a bit older . . . the greying hair made it difficult to tell. He had a knife in the hand at his side, but she didn’t think he meant to use it; he looked as though he’d forgotten about it himself.
“Where is he taking my son?”
“Please,” he repeated. “Come quietly.”
“What the fuck is taking so long, Gate Guard?” a hoarse voice barked outside.
“I’m coming!”
He turned back to Kelsea, his face twisting. “Please, for the last time. There’s no other option.”
“William needs his cloak.”
“Quickly, then.”
She looked down at William and saw that he had slipped on his own shoes, and held his cloak in one hand. She knelt in front of him and helped him put it on, doing the buttons with shaking fingers. “Weren’t you smart, William? You beat Mummy.”
But William was staring up at the man with the knife.
“Come now, please.”
She took William’s hand and followed the man out the front door. Briefly she cursed Jonarl for dying, for leaving them alone this way. But of course, it wouldn’t have made any difference. It was the middle of March, and all of the men in Haven had gone to trade wheat in New London, as they did every year at this time, leaving the village defenseless. Kelsea had never thought about it before. The village had never faced this sort of trouble, not since the invasion; they were too far from the Mort border to worry about raiders.
Outside, she was relieved to see the big Caden with Jeffrey carefully balanced on one hip. Jeffrey had quieted a bit, but that wouldn’t last long; he was emitting little snuffles, rooting around on the front of the man’s cloak for a breast. When he didn’t find it, the screaming would begin.
“Come along,” the Caden told her.
“Let me carry my son.”
“No.”
She opened her mouth to protest, but the other man, the shorter one, grabbed her arm and squeezed it gently, warning. She took William’s small hand and followed the Caden down the street toward the outskirts of the village. The horizon was lightening now, and she could see the vague outlines of houses and stables around her. Other groups joined them as they went, more women and children. Allison and her daughters emerged from their house, and Kelsea saw that Allison had a red slash down her arm, that her hands were bound.
She was braver than I was, Kelsea thought unhappily. But most of the women looked like Kelsea herself, dazed, their faces as bewildered as though they’d just awakened from a dream. She stumbled along, dragging William beside her, not understanding where they were going, only knowing that something terrible was happening. Her chest burned, but when she looked down, there was nothing there.
It was only when she rounded the corner of John Taylor’s house, now empty and darkened, that she understood everything, the meaning of all these men, the women and children dragged from their homes. The cage stood high and stark against the lightening horizon, a symmetrical black silhouette with several human shapes moving inside. Another empty cage stood beside it, surrounded by mules. Looking away from the village, Kelsea saw several more of them, lined up perhaps several miles distant, in the direction of the Mort Road.
This is the punishment, Kelsea realized. She could recall two occasions when one of Haven’s villagers had been pulled from the lot. The village treated the allotted as dead, holding a wake and speaking of them in doleful tones of grief. They’d all watched the shipment go by on the Mort Road many times, and each time Kelsea had been secretly thankful in her heart that it wasn’t her, wasn’t her husband or children.
This is the punishment for my relief.
The grey-haired man turned to her. “I must have your son now.”
“No.”
“Please don’t make this difficult. I don’t want them to think you a troublemaker.”
“What will you do with him?”
He pointed to the second cage. “He’ll go in there, with the other children.”
“Can’t I keep him with me?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“That’s enough,” a new voice rasped. Out of the darkness came a tall, skeletal man in a blue cloak, his gaunt face pitiless in the grey dawn light. Kelsea knew him, but did not know him, and she recoiled instinctively, trying to shield her son as he approached. “We’re not here to debate with these people, Gate Guard. Time is of the essence. Split them up and put them in.”
The Gate Guard reached out and grasped William’s wrist, and William yelled indignantly. Hearing his brother’s shouts, Jeffrey began to scream as well, beating tiny, angry fists against the Caden’s cloak. Kelsea grabbed William’s arm, trying to keep him close, but the man was too strong for her, and William was screaming in pain; if she didn’t let him go, he would be pulled apart. She forced herself to release his wrist, and now she was screaming herself.
“Lady! Lady, wake up!”
Someone grabbed her shoulders and shook her, but she strained toward William, who was being hustled away toward the cage. It was a cage built for children, she saw now, filled with small, crying forms. The big Caden turned and strode off in that direction as well, taking Jeffrey, and Kelsea screamed without words, helpless to stop. She had a strong, clear voice, often chosen to sing solos at church, and now scream after scream pealed forth, terrible screams that echoed across the Almont Plain.
“Kelsea!”
A slap cracked across her face, and Kelsea blinked, her screams cutting off as sharply as they’d begun. When she looked up, Pen was there, perched on the bed, his hands resting on either side of her, surrounded by the familiar comfort and firelight of her chamber. Pen’s dark hair was rumpled from sleep, and he wasn’t wearing a shirt. Seeing his chest, muscular and well proportioned, with only the lightest dusting of hair, Kelsea felt a sudden, unaccountable urge to run her fingers across it. Something was burning her.
The cages!
Her eyes widened, and she sat up quickly. “Oh, God.”
Mace bolted into the chamber, his sword in one hand. “What the hell?”
“It’s nothing, sir. She had a nightmare.”
But Kelsea was already shaking her head as he spoke. “Lazarus. Wake everyone up.”
“Why?”
Kelsea shoved Pen to one side, threw off the covers, and hopped out of bed. Her sapphire popped loose from her nightgown, blazing blue light across the room. “Wake them up now. We have to leave within the hour.”
“And go where, pray tell?”
“To the Almont Plain. A village called Haven. Maybe all the way to the Mort border, I don’t know. But there’s no time to lose.”
“What the hell are you talking about? It’s four in the morning.”