Zara Veylinn's Arc

Chapter 5 of 12

Zara waited until the boots on the road faded into the fields. Then she crawled to the crooked window and looked out at the gate. Two guards had become six. A checkpoint table now sat under the arch, and a lantern hung above it. Every cart was stopped. Every hood was pulled back. The scream from the cart driver had done more than draw guards off the wall. It had closed the way in. She sat back in the dust. Zex watched her from the floor. "They will search every wagon by morning," he said. "You cannot walk that gate. Not with the ring. Not with me." She pressed her fist against her mouth and thought. The hound was gone into the fields, driving fog away from the guards. If she called it back now, the fog would return with it, and the gate would only tighten more. "There is another way," Zex said. He lifted his good hand and pointed at a crest stitched inside his torn coat. Two names. She had seen them at the trade docks in her documents. "My cousin captains the night watch at the side postern. He owes my house a debt. If I walk to the postern on my own feet and speak my name, he opens it for me and one servant." Zara stared at him. One servant. A witness who had seen her face was offering her the gate on his back. "You would name me as your servant," she said. "In front of a captain." He nodded once. "He will not look at a servant's face. He will look at my seal and my blood." He coughed. "You saved me twice. I pay what I owe." She pulled him up. His arm went over her shoulder. She wiped ash from her hair into her cheeks to dull her skin, tied a rag over her head, and bent her back like a girl who carried things. They stepped out into the dusk. The tall ceremonial arch of the capital rose above the road, its painted lines lit by torches. She kept her eyes on the dirt. At the side postern, Zex spoke his name to the captain. She did not look up. She heard the captain's breath catch. She heard a seal pressed against wood. A bolt slid. A small door opened. Zex leaned harder on her and walked her through under the wall. No one asked her name. No one lifted her chin. The gate shut behind them with a soft, final sound. Inside the capital, Zex sagged against her and pointed down a narrow lane toward a shuttered house his family still owned. She had crossed the wall. She had one night left, a wounded noble bleeding through her tunic, and a hound still loose in the fields behind her. She had entered as a servant. Tomorrow she had to walk out as a queen.