Chapter 8: A Warranted Escape
A Final Peace
"Jasmin," I said the word softly, frightened of what was coming next.
"Roisin," Her voice was shaking, rage seeping into every letter.
"We have to leave Powell's Square," I hated it. Powell's Square was the closest thing to a safe haven anywhere in the eveward regions of Lafleur. More than that, it was my home.
Jasmin took the arrest warrant down from the town's announcement board. It wouldn't do much, but she produced a cold-flame from both hands. "This is wrong, and they know it."
I was wanted for murder, treason, and evasion of conscription. Apparently Lord Montgomery and Lady Magnia had not arrived in the first district. They'd been found dead under their upended carriage only a sun's journey from that distant city. There was no indication that their death was violent, and they hadn't been crushed.
There was no mention of Delia or her family. I understood that they were all commoners, conscripts at that, but that didn't change the fact that I'd love to know whether they were safe.
Presumably, Delia wasn't in the upended carriage, given that I was assumed responsible for two murders. So I had to believe that she was okay. Her husband and children were a wish too far to hope, so I settled on Delia herself.
"So, where do we go?" I couldn't think clearly enough to select a destination.
"We can think of that once we're on the road. Let's get ourselves together first."
The only thing on my mind was what would've happened if we'd been in town when the warrant arrived. It was certainly lucky that we'd been gone, but that didn't change the fact that they'd been there, looking for me.
It had been two moons since Delia was taken. I'd finally managed to work up enough energy in my recovery to walk seven miles. That was far enough for Jasmin and me to walk all the way to my cave in Ehler's Cliff.
She didn't approve of the idea, but Jasmin was mostly supportive as we approached the gate just after breakfast.
The youngest Danner boy was watching the gate and waved at us with a smile. He never said much, but friendliness was never lacking.
Walking out the deimward gate so early in the sun felt oddly transgressive, even though it was the one time of sun that such an excursion was entirely permitted and perfectly ordinary. Jasmin seemed to notice my tension because she took my hand lightly and gave it a soft squeeze. Somehow that was enough to relax me and help focus my attention on the road.
Our journey along the deimward road was quiet, very little of note happened for the first two full miles.
Right around the same spot I'd hidden the sun Delia was taken, dozens of Queen's Heart vines covered in blossoms that looked like they were bursting at the seams to bloom early. It was odd to see them so ready for a freeze. Odder still, one of them had apparently bloomed just before harvest.
Taking in the scene, I stopped, holding Jasmin's hand tightly so she'd stop with me.
"Everything okay, Roisin?"
"It's nothing. I just remembered something important, but now I have the feeling I'm forgetting something dreadfully unimportant."
"Do you want to stop and consider it?"
My silence, I suppose, was answer enough for the moment. Jasmin moved in front of me and held both hands, waiting wordlessly herself. For probably a few minutes, we just stood together. Then a soft breeze blew past, ruffling my hair against my neck.
Warmth.
"It's unseasonably warm, don't you think?" Jasmin jumped when I finally spoke. "Look around us a moment. What do you see?"
She humoured me, leaning back without releasing my hands. "Plants. I see a lot of lush green plants." Returning her gaze to me and narrowing her eyes. "What am I supposed to see, Roisin?"
"Queen's Heart." The words were a whisper. I caught myself as they slipped out, but she'd already heard it.
"What, exactly, is Queen's Heart?" She offered a helpless smile, hoping for me to fill her in.
I took a long while to decide how to answer. "It's a deadly herb sometimes used in perfumes. You smell like it. But more importantly, it's another name for silverthorn."
Jasmin looked around a second time, holding my hands a bit more tightly. "Where?"
"All around us." I took a sharp breath. "Jasmin, is it presently the third sevensun of the eleventh moon?"
Her whole face twisted, the deep lines of her forehead returning. "Yes? Why?"
It was my turn to make a dreadful face. "I'll have to think on it more. Something strange is about, and I don't know enough to reasonably sort it."
The last mile before we stepped off the road was a return to the silence that had accompanied us up to that point. When I stopped at the appointed spot, Jasmin's eyes suddenly went wider than I'd ever seen.
"Everything okay?"
"Oh it's fine." I smiled broadly. "This is our stop. Sort of."
"Roisin, are you okay? There's nothing here."
I moved to the eveward side of the road and looked carefully about before setting my left foot gingerly on a stone I'd laid two years before. I didn't need people seeing a worn path from the road and into the woods. My right foot instinctively landed on the next stone, and I waved at Jasmin to follow my steps.
We moved in parallel steps, a dance I'd created myself, until we were far enough from the road that we could continue without fear. I hopped off the last stone and looked back at Jasmin, who was giggling at something.
"What's the joke, my lady?"
"There's no jape or jest or other humour. I'm having fun, Roisin."
Why hadn't that been my first thought?
I took her hand, and we walked the rest of the way. When the forest cleared and delivered us to the base of Ehler's Cliff, I beamed at her.
"Welcome home, Jasmin."
Stepping into the space caused the cold-flame lamps to spring to life, their calm blue lighting the cave enough for both of us to see. There was only one place to sit, only one place to lie down and sleep, only one of everything. But it was cosy, and Jasmin seemed to think so until she noticed the three sheets of paper on the wall.
As Jasmin stepped close, she took in the small shrine, and set a hand to her heart. Obviously, Jasmin knew who the couple in the picture were. After several silent seconds, she kissed the fingers of her right hand and placed them to the bottom of the graphite drawing.
No words passed as she read the orders, fully letting the gravity of it all settle on her shoulders. I was shocked when she finished reading them and didn't immediately apologise for her hand in all of it – or at least her hand in my father's conscription, even if she didn't do it explicitly. Instead, she looked at me for another wordless second as a tear slid down her cheek.
Finally, Jasmin smiled. "So what do you do here?"
The walk back to Powell's Square was somehow much lighter than the trip to the cliff and my cave. I couldn't reason what changed, really. We just sat there and chatted, much the same way we would if we'd stayed at the house.
But I couldn't stay at the house. I needed to gather some things from the cave. Something was eating at me, and getting out to handle that earlier rather than later meant I could stop worrying.
Or so I thought.
We arrived back in Powell's Square to concerned looks from everyone around town. It wasn't particularly abnormal to have people staring at me like that, but since I'd taken up my walks with Jasmin, it'd usually been smiles. People would greet us with a friendly wave and a "Roisin. Miss Hawthorne. Lovely sun, no?"
I don't know what led us to the town centre, but pinned to the announcement board was the poster calling for my arrest. Apparently they were being posted in every district in an effort to cast a wide net. For one particularly dangerous – apparently – fish.
A Name and A New Path
Our preparation was three suns of frantic packing, gathering, and purchasing. I hadn't really considered money until then, but Jasmin apparently had, in her words, "enough that it's not a problem".
The night before we left, Mrs. Reed came to the house and forced Jasmin to go do something more important, insisting she had a necessary bit of advice to impart, woman to rascal. I took no offense at the descriptor. We both knew she said it with love, and it was enough to get Jasmin out of the house.
"I'm glad you didn't need to use that dagger, Roisin," Mrs. Reed was straight to business the moment the front door of the house closed. "But I'm realising I might have presumed too much about you. Do you know how to use a blade?"
"Sharp part away from self." My flat delivery scored a gentle slap to the back of my head. "No, ma'am."
"Was that so hard?" She smiled softly. "You are going to face a lot of trouble from here on. Get it. Show me how you handle it."
I retrieved the blade from its hiding spot within my pillow cover. Honestly, I wasn't certain how it had stayed hidden for nearly two moons, but I managed. As I held the weapon awkwardly, still sheathed, by what I assumed was the hand part, Mrs. Reed shook her head violently.
"Child, if you can't get this first thing right, you and your bonnie noblewoman won't make it three suns before the queen's guard find you and string you both up for crimes neither of you committed." She was stern, but soft. "Now. Unsheath that and show me how you hold it, how you swing it, how you stab with it."
Going through the motions, Mrs. Reed corrected every move, every part of my grip, each detail until she was satisfied. After I got it down, she made me practice until I was no longer awkward with the motions.
"How do you know this stuff, Mrs. Reed?" The question felt like an accusation, but could I help being shocked?
"Well before I ran the general store, and before Mr. Reed made me a Mrs., I was just Iron, servant girl to a blacksmith. Then I was Thorn, page to a captain of the guard. Both those fools made the mistake of teaching me their trades. Both of them ended with a blade in them. And then I became Mrs. Reed."
My jaw hung slack at the revelation. In response, Mrs. Reed pulled another dagger from somewhere and used the flat of its blade to shut my mouth gently before disappearing it back to the void.
"Now. Roisin. Given that we're the evemost district in this region, you and your Miss Hawthorne will need to be travelling mornward. If you find yourself by some misfortune in the tenth district, ask around for the Daughters of Thorn. By now there may also still be some Sisters of Iron out there. Neither group is a resistance, per se, but both of them will help you on your way."
Mrs. Reed didn't wait for any further reply. Why was it always like that? Every single person in my life had a habit of revealing some secret then disappearing.
Or worse. Being in the wrong place and being actively disappeared.
When we left town the next morning, I attached the dagger to my belt, hopeful I'd never need the impromptu lesson I'd gotten from Mrs. Reed. Jasmin noticed, but didn't say much as she took me in, rugged adventuring clothes worn loose enough to make me look like a man – admittedly a very young or immature man, but a man nonetheless, thanks to my hair.
Jasmin, meanwhile, had returned to the finery she'd worn when I awoke, or a version of it, packing more practical clothes in her bags. She was a vision of defiant beauty already, but the whole look came together when she strapped a rapier to her belt. "You're cooking. The least I can do is defend us, Roisin," she'd said when my eyes nearly bulged out of my face.
She wasn't wrong, but that didn't change whatever it was that was happening in my stomach at the sight of her.
"I'm not about to argue," I'd said it without looking her in the eyes, "but I am curious where the hells that rapier's been hiding."
"A Lady," she teased, "never shares her secrets, dearest."
Just before we headed out of town on the mornward road, Mrs. Reed and the grocer met us at the gate there, leading a horse in our direction. They didn't say anything, but I was certain Mrs. Reed gave me a strange look as she handed the horse's lead to Jasmin. The grocer, then Mrs. Reed, gave each of us a deep hug and waved us on our way.
The mornward road was the most dangerous possible route we could take not because it was likely to be heavily populated with queen's guard or other authorities, but because no sane person travels the mornward road out of or into Powell's Square after the ninth moon. Which I supposed should have made me question everything about Jasmin, but it really just made me admire her more.
What a terribly odd thought. Not that I hadn't considered it in the time we'd known each other, but that I would think her boldness – or stupidity, though they were often the same if stories were to be believed – would make her more attractive.
Not attractive. Admirable.
Absolutely none of that was the point.
We set out on the mornward road, our gifted horse holding the bulk of our gear, and I left the second district behind without another look. I couldn't say why as we travelled, but I was certain then that I would never see my home again, so I did all I could to prepare myself for whatever I would call home in the future.
Two suns passed without incident before we came to a fork in our path. If we turned deimward, it would take us through the Veiled Plains directly to the first district. If I said the notion wasn't tempting, it would be a grave lie. But I knew such a thought was death. Meanwhile turning phobward would lead us along a treacherous and roundabout path to Blue Stone.
Even just thinking of that far off port city twisted my heart. Before I understood that conscription was permanent, I had longed to see it with my mother when at last she returned from the war.
"Regardless of what happens next," Jasmin said the words with some hesitation, breaking me from my own introspection, "I believe it best that you and I take on new names while we travel. When it's clear you're on the run, efforts will double to find you." I didn't need to ask why she assumed that. "And at some point, our connection will become clear."
At the thought of taking a new name, I recalled something from long before, when I'd asked my father about my name.
Names are gifts, Roisin. But they can also be weapons. They serve as blessings from those who came before and reminders of who we're meant to become. What we choose to do with our names, well that's our choice.
For reasons that no one else can understand, people sometimes abandon their names, choosing to become something more, or perhaps something less, but certainly something different. Your mother once had to. She abandoned her true name to become Omela of Powell's Square, and as Omela, she never looked back.
What I'm saying is that you don't have to be Roisin if the name stops serving you. Or if the name becomes a danger. Or if the name takes something from you. ^tarant-lesson
"Afina," the name came unbidden to my lips. It felt safe and comfortable. Like eating a warm meal on a cold twelfth moon night. Somehow I knew the name wasn't mine, but that it would serve me better than any name had a right to. "Afina Roisin Thornleaf, of the Blue Stone Thornleafs."
Jasmin, to her credit, only blinked twice before smiling. "Are you sure you want to take the name of the most notorious criminal family in the mornward region?"
"My mother was a Thornleaf," I whispered it, hoping that wouldn't be the final thing Jasmin needed to turn against me at last. "Before she became Omela the healer, and before she became – what was it you called her? Sturdy? Da always told me to remember the name. Just in case."
"And Afina? That doesn't even sound like a real name."
I shrugged. "We chalk it up to Thornleaf eccentricities, and hope that's enough." Jasmin's laugh told me she seemed to be in full agreement with the idea. "How about you, Miss Hawthorne? What ever shall we call the good Lady Myrtia?"
"What was that name you asked me about?" She was almost glowing with excitement about something. "When you asked about the blue haired woman. What was the other name?"
"Salora?"
"Perfect. I'll be Salora Primrose." As she spoke, there was a flash of green in her eyes, like the leaves of the forest around us were reflected in her. I wasn't sure I liked the idea, since we still didn't know what the name was. "If you slip up and call me Jasmin, we can just tell people it's my goddess name, and you've always preferred it, ever since we fell in love."
"Since we ... what?" I felt the heat rising at the thought.
"Why would a Primrose and a Thornleaf be travelling together if they weren't star-blessed lovers making a life for themselves, Afina, my dear?" Her broad smile widened as my clear discomfort mounted. "We don't have to do anything to prove we're in love, but it's what people will assume. Especially since we're taking the phobward road toward district ten, where the Primrose family originate."
I grimaced as she spelled out how obvious it was, knowing she was correct. After a moment's consideration, I realised how I could regain the upper hand in this. "Fine, my love," the words oozed sweetness, "then are we married, or simply lovers, running from responsibility and into each other's longing and loving arms?"
Jasmin's deep blush accentuated the green I was certain seemed to be settling in her eyes, but just as quickly as I saw it, the colour vanished, and she grabbed my wrist, dragging me unceremoniously down the phobward fork and toward the dangerous future laid out before us.