Mara’s POV
“Child.”
Old Sira’s voice is barely a whisper as she slips into the cellar while the guards bicker by the far door. She moves like a shadow—small, bent, wrapped in layers of patched shawls.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I murmur.
She presses a finger to her lips. “Hush. I’m not letting them gut another girl.” She reaches into her shawls and produces a coil of cord and a thin, water-stained map. “High Tide hides footfall. You remember that, don’t you?”
My throat tightens. “Sira…”
“No time.” She thrusts the items into my lap. “Storm says it’ll surge early. That’s your blessing.”
Aster vibrates with interest.
“We can run.”
“Why are you risking this?” I ask, staring at the map’s faint inked lines—alleys, drains, storm channels.
“Because I knew your mother,” Sira says. “And because I won’t let Kade own another woman.”
The word hits me like a fist.
“Own?” I whisper.
Sira’s eyes flick to the stairwell. “I overheard him. After tomorrow, he’ll claim you for ‘service’ in his private chambers.” She spits on the floor. “Rotten viper.”
Aster surges—wild, furious.
“We kill him.”
Not yet. But the fire inside me flares.
I grip the map tighter. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. Use it.” Sira cups my cheek briefly, her hands warm despite the cold. “High Tide will drown your tracks. Move fast. Move silent.”
The cellar door bangs open, and Sira scurries away like smoke. The guards return. I tuck the items under my apron.
Hours later, as I scrub another platter, I hear them again—talking openly, laughing.
“…Kade says he’ll break her in after the marking…”
“…likes his women frightened…”
My hands shake. The platter slips, clattering loudly.
“Careful,” the guard snarls. “Break anything and I’ll—”
A bell rings outside—sharp, distant, wrong.
One.
Two.
Three.
The storm bells aren’t supposed to sound until dawn.
Aster shivers with anticipation.
“The surge comes early.”
I freeze with the cloth half-twisted in my palm and feel the room tilt on that thin sound. Storm bells, midnight-born, cutting through cellar stone like bright knives. The guards trade looks—annoyed first, then alert.
One mutters, “False strike?”
The other shrugs, but his hand drifts toward the latch. I keep my eyes on the platter, pretending to polish, letting the rhythm of the bell settle in my bones.
High Tide hides footfall.
Sira’s words thread through me like a stitch pulling skin closed. I slide my knee against the table leg and wedge the map deeper beneath my apron, feeling the damp edges brush my thigh. The cord I coil around my waist under the fabric, tucking the knot into my belt loop so it doesn’t clack or show.
Breath in, breath out.
The bells roll again, farther now, then nearer—the city answering itself, tower to tower, center to span.
I risk a glance at the guards. The tall one squints at the ceiling like he can see through stone. “If it surges early, we’ll be hauling sand by dawn.” His partner snorts. “As if we don’t already haul her mouth.” He kicks the table leg lightly. The silver rings and settles. I don’t flinch. They like flinching. It feeds them.
Aster presses her nose against my ribs, impatient. We run now.
Not yet, I think. We need water, doors, shadow.
I study the map in memory—those thin, sea-stained lines, the way Sira’s finger tapped three points twice: the drain behind the vinegar casks, the storm channel beneath the glassworks, the alley with the cracked blue tile at the mouth. Between the first and second, a guard post that sleeps after the third bell; between the second and the third, a corner that floods first and worst. If I time it with the surge, they’ll choose stone, not me.
My fingers move without thinking, folding the polishing cloth into a thick square.
I reach for another goblet to keep up appearances. The handle knows my hand by now. Movement calms my face. The lantern spits, and the tiny fire shadow-dances across the walls, catching the gilded edges of old parade masks stored high on a beam. Open-mouthed, smiling, cracked.
Moonfell’s favorite expression: painted joy over rot.
The guards drift back to their gossip. “You think Kade really—”
“Don’t say his tastes out loud.”
“Why? Afraid the floor tells on us?”
“The floor tells him everything.”
Good. Let the floor sing. A breath of the sea rises through cracks you’d swear were sealed yesterday. It’s coming. I feel it in my teeth.
Aster licks the inside of my wrists with heat. Let me brighten your hands. One spark. The lock will forget itself.
You’ll flare and the room will scream, I warn. We need quiet more than fury.
You need both.
Later. I wrap the cord end around my finger and check the knot by feel. Quick release. No sound.
Time stretches long and elastic. The bells stop to breathe, then a new code answers from farther east—three shorts and a pause. Spill alarms near the market, the ones they test but never expect to use. The tall guard curses. “Idiots didn’t sand the gaskets.” He takes a step toward the door. The other catches his sleeve. “We leave our post, Kade strips our rations. Let the market drown.”
I taste iron where I’ve bitten my lip. They won’t move. Good and bad. Witnesses, but predictable ones.
I lower my head and whisper into the cup, “Sira, I’m listening,” as if the old woman braided her voice into the metal. The map in my mind steadies: door—vinegar casks—drain. The drain grate sticks on the right side; you kick the left. Storm channel: you go low, not high, or the first surge will bounce you back. Alley: the blue tile, you step over the crack because the mortar is loose and will swallow a heel.
Memory plays a smaller film, warmer: my mother’s hands knotting rope around my waist when I was little. “If you fall, I pull. If I fall, you pull.” Her laugh, bright and reckless above the roar of the wind on the cliffs. If you fall, I pull. I tighten the cord at my waist.
The lantern dimples again. Everything feels looser, like the city exhaled and hasn’t remembered to inhale yet.
Aster noses my heart. Now?
Soon. I need one more sound.
The deep-bell that signals outer-span watch change. That code buys me two minutes of eyes turned out, not in.
From above, low and rolling, the deep-bell answers me like a friend. One long, one long. Watch turn.
I set the goblet down without a clink. My body goes soft the way you do before you jump into cold water—loose, ready. I sit, then slide to my knees as if stretching a cramp. The tall guard glances over; I grimace at my calf. He laughs. “Careful, princess. Don’t ruin your branding posture.” He looks back at his friend.
My hand finds the underside of the table beam. A splinter bites my fingertip. Good. Blood reminds me I’m awake.
Aster flares small and warm, like a hidden coal under cloth. The drain, she whispers. The vinegar room.
I know. The guards don’t blink.
I test the knot at my waist one more time. The cord will hold. The map—my map now—nicks my thigh, reminding me to remember it. I smooth my apron with both hands, then deliberately knock the polishing cloth to the floor.
“Clumsy,” the shorter guard says without looking.
“I’ll get it,” I answer, already bending, already slipping my shoulder toward the crate’s shadow, already counting: one, two, three heartbeats. When the deep-bell rolls again, I press into the dark seam, breath held, ribs tight, eyes closed so the whites don’t shine.
The city answers with rain thundering somewhere close, like a thousand feet finding one path. The storm is here early, greedy. It wants to rush every stair. It wants to wash the words off my skin before they can brand new ones there.
Aster thrums. Now. Now. Now.
The tall guard grumbles, “I hate storm nights,” and turns toward the door to complain at the latch again.
I move.
My chance.