Inherit the Flame

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The guards, it seemed, just weren’t going to cooperate. When daybreak streamed through the tiny, most assuredly locked, window in their room, the guards knocked heavily on their door before barging in. Bleary-eyed and irritated, Ripka dragged herself to a seat in her bed, blinking back sleep. Honey sat awake in the bed next to her, gaze surprisingly sharp despite the early hour and late night. Probably a habit she’d picked up at the Remnant. Ripka hadn’t been locked in that place long enough to develop the same talent.

“Don’t you sleep?” she muttered at the guards who’d barged in, but they scarcely even glanced her way. Maids of the hotel brought in trays of porridge, fried eggs, and garden herbs, along with two tiny spoons, and scurried back out into the hall. Ripka watched all of this, dumbstruck. She’d been hoping for a communal breakfast with the boys, not a few trays delivered before she’d even had a chance to braid her hair.

The guard was beginning to close the door, the maids safely back in the hall.

“I have to use the privy,” she blurted, which was true enough, but she wanted to stop the rush of events, to have a moment to get her head on straight and possibly come up with a way to exploit their breakfast. The guard, a woman with a permanent scowl on her lips, sighed heavily and jerked her head toward the hall.

“One at a time, no dallying.”

Ripka hurried to her feet, and nearly lost control of her legs as the sore muscles screamed in protest the moment she put weight on them. Honey shot out a hand to steady her, and she took a moment to gather herself while the guard huffed in annoyance. Ripka shot her a sour look. Such impatience would never have been tolerated in her watchers.

They were shuffled, one at a time, to a small water closet stuffed at the back of the floor’s hall. Before Ripka could formulate anything like a plan, she found herself standing back in her room, the door locked firmly behind her, her nightshift too thin against the morning cold and her hair all a tangle.

“Well,” she said, scowling at the food that’d been left for them. “That was disappointing.”

Honey shrugged, stuffing her mouth so full with greasy eggs that her cheeks bulged. At least someone had the foresight to provide some soothing tea for the poor woman’s throat.

“Eat,” Honey muttered around a mouthful, arresting Ripka in a circle she hadn’t even realized she was pacing.

“Ugh.” Ripka flopped to the floor, cross-legged before her tray, and grabbed one of the crusty slices of bread. She knew she’d need her strength, but she was so irritated with the situation it was difficult to muster up an appetite. Yet, as soon as the bread touched her tongue, her stomach grumbled with anticipation. Honey giggled.

“All right, all right, you win,” Ripka said around a smile and a hunk of bread. Sweet skies, but she hadn’t realized how long it’d been since she’d eaten anything. The previous night seemed ages ago.

“What are we going to do?” she muttered around a mouthful. Honey shrugged and pushed a piece of cheese from her plate to Ripka’s. It hadn’t been a real question, anyway. She was thinking out loud, keeping her voice low so the guards wouldn’t overhear.

“Two guards in the hall at all times, it seems. One for each room. I got a look at the building as we walked up last night, and I think the guys’ room is the mirror of ours. So they’ve got a small window, too, but even if the guards wouldn’t hear us breaking the glass we’d all be shredded to bits by the time we squeezed through that little hole, and then there’s the climb down to deal with, and the walls looked pretty smooth.”

“Privy,” Honey prompted.

“No good. They’re keeping us stuck on this floor, though skies know how that trick of plumbing is being handled. And the window there is open, no glass to let the air in, but just about as wide as my forearm. Even if we could squeeze through, I doubt Enard and Tibal would make it, and there’s no way the guards would allow us to enter the privy one by one, each one vanishing just before the next. No. The privy’s out.”

“Fight?” Honey’s gaze had locked on the spoon in her hand. Ripka had seen the shiv Honey could carve from a wooden spoon. She’d hate to see what damage the woman could cause with a metal one.

Ripka winced. “I’d rather not harm the guards. They’re just doing their jobs, and not badly. And there’s no telling the positions of the other guards. We only know for sure that there are two in the hall – that might be all we have to worry about, or the other four could be patrolling the building, or waiting for us downstairs. Too risky.”

“Sick?”

“Now there’s a thought. Enard has some apothik training, just the usual first aid variety, but so do I, and they’d know that well enough as they’re all aware I was a watch-captain. I bet Tibal could fake an illness, but what we’d really need is an injury – something bloody enough to freak them out and send them into a panic. Make them run for an apothik without realizing they’ve split their numbers. Then we’d be two-to-four, or maybe three-to-four, and have surprise on our side. I’d prefer if they didn’t notice we were gone for a while, but that’s not looking likely now… Hmm. Yeah, that could work, but how to fake the injury? You got any sauce on that plate that looks red enough?”

“No,” Honey said, and stabbed herself in the thigh with the curved end of her spoon.

“Fuck!”

The tray of food flipped and scattered across the floor as Ripka lunged to her feet. Hot blood pumped down the woman’s thigh, bare below her nightshift, and pooled on the rug. Bubbles of blood popped, making a little gurgling sound, around the half-embedded shovel of the spoon, but the flow wasn’t strong enough to indicate an arterial strike.

“What the everloving fuck.” Ripka grabbed a napkin from the spilled tray and shoved it against Honey’s wound, trying to staunch the flow. It didn’t help much. They needed to get that spoon out of her, and the wound cleaned and packed with wool and salve before they could stitch it and bind it, and then –

Honey closed her hand over Ripka’s. “Better call the guards.”

There wasn’t the slightest tremor of pain in her voice, no beads of sweat-shock marred her brow. The crazy woman was just as calm as she’d been a moment before, throwing out ideas to spark Ripka’s imagination. Honey popped a greasy piece of bread in her mouth and chewed, slowly.

“You’re insane, you know that?”

Honey shrugged, though her smile was embarrassed.

No time to admonish the woman. She’d gone ahead and carved an opportunity for them all out of her own flesh, and it was up to Ripka to make the most of it. She scrambled to her feet and looked around. Honey kept on nibbling at her breakfast, calm as could be, the pool of blood spreading steadily around her, but not at a life-threatening rate.

They’d both been wearing plain linen nightshifts, and the bright blood looked rather dramatic against the beige cloth. Ripka tore long strips from one of the blankets and stashed them on the other side of the bed, where the guards would be slow to notice them. With the bloodied napkin clutched in one fist, she took a breath, worked up a false hysteria, and flung herself at the door, pounding with both fists.

“Help! Help! She’s bleeding out!”

Curses in the hall, the tromp of boots and the rattle of the key in the lock. The door jerked open and Ripka stumbled back from the guard pushing toward her, but not too quickly. She wanted the guard, the same woman who’d overseen their breakfast delivery, to get a good long look at Ripka’s blood-smattered clothes, and the dripping rag she held.

“What in the skies?”

“It’s Honey!” Ripka yelled straight into the woman’s face, working up a good tremble to add to the disturbance. The guard pushed Ripka aside and her eyes widened at the sight of Honey who had, thankfully, stopped calmly eating her breakfast.

“Ow,” Honey said.

“Pitshit.” The guard ducked back out into the hall and called at the top of her lungs, “Apothik!”

“Get Tibal!” Ripka snapped. “He was in the Fleet, he has first aid training!”

The guard didn’t even blink. She thrust a finger at the guard manning the door to the boys’ room. “Get those men over here. We’ve got an injury.”

“What in the pits happened?” The other guard jangled his keys as he struggled to get the door open.

“Fucked if I know.”

“I fell,” Honey said. Ripka thanked the skies that her voice was too soft, and the guards too frazzled, for them to have heard her half-hearted explanation.

To keep from being noticed, Ripka hung back as the guards ushered Tibal and Enard, still in their bedclothes, blinking into the women’s room. They did not stay confused for long. Tibal caught sight of Honey seeping blood, her hand half-heartedly clasped against the wound, and sucked air through his teeth so fast he whistled.

Enard, however, went pale as a sheet the second he spied Ripka huddling between the two beds, her nightshift a mess of blood. He regained his composure in a breath, crossed to her side and took her by the shoulders, holding her at arm’s length to get a look at the damage.

“Are you hurt?”

“None of this is mine.”

He cringed at the implication, sparing a glance back over his shoulder to Honey. She’d taken up humming softly under her breath while Tibal tried to figure out the best way to extract the spoon from her leg.

“What in the pits happened here?”

Ripka slid her gaze slowly, pointedly, to the pile of sliced rags on the floor alongside the bed. Enard nodded.

“This looks bad,” Tibal said, infusing his voice with gravelly seriousness. “Don’t one of you guards have any serious medical experience?”

The woman said, “Eshon does–”

“But it’s just the two of us today!” the male guard snapped. “Bitter pits, I told them we should stay four on rotation at all times, but no, and now look what’s happened!”

Enard and Ripka locked gazes, understanding passing between them in an instant. Just two guards today. Two very flustered guards. They shared a grin.

Then lunged.

Ripka was over the bed in a heartbeat, shouldering the door to slam it closed. The guards shouted – the words didn’t matter. The man, who’d been nearest the door, grabbed Ripka’s shoulder, jerking her back so hard she lost her footing. No time to be neat about things. She stumbled into him and took the opportunity to jam her elbow, hard as she could, straight into the man’s ribs. He woofed air and doubled over.

She gave him no quarter. Clutching his wrist, she wrenched his arm around behind his back and turned with the movement so that she stood behind him, yanking up on that twisted arm as hard as she could. He lurched, his back slamming into her chest, and in that moment she felt him draw breath to cry out. There were no other guards about, but there were certainly enough civilians in the hotel to run and call for help from the local watch.

They needed time. Time they wouldn’t get if he got that shout out.

She struck him on the back of the head with the heel of her palm, felt his jaw snap closed and heard his teeth jar and clatter against each other. He gurgled a yelp, and before he could orient himself and try to pull away she stepped backward, overbalanced him, and spun, throwing him face-first onto the bed.

Blood smeared the sheets where his face connected. He bucked, trying to fling her off, but her legs were longer than his and she had them planted firmly while he was bent over, booted toes just barely dragging on the ground. With his face shoved in the blankets, she had control. She glanced up to see Tibal and Enard scuffling with the female guard. Enard pinned her arms back while Tibal tried to get a strip of cloth around her mouth as a gag.

“Keep them silent,” Ripka ordered, and though she didn’t raise her voice it was whip-strong with the snap of command. Pits below, but that felt good.

Enard and Tibal wrestled the woman to the ground and got her tied off properly, then hurried over to help Ripka with her thrashing charge. With their help, it took no time at all to get the guard hog-tied, gagged, and blindfolded.

“Now?” Enard asked.

Tibal strolled back over to Honey’s side and made quick, easy work of removing the spoon and tying off the wound with a few leftover scraps of cut-up sheet. “Got a place to go to ground?”

“Yes,” Ripka said, unwilling to elaborate while the guards were within earshot.

“Right. Lass is good to walk, but you’ll be hurting a bit, won’t you, dear?” He helped Honey to her feet and she shifted her weight over to her injured leg experimentally. Her grimace was all the answer any of them needed.

“I’ll carry her,” Enard said, “she’s light enough.”

“Good man.” Tibal stroked his chin, eyeing both women. “New Chum and I can stroll out of here without raising any eyebrows, but you two look a mess.”

Ripka flicked the bloodied hem of her nightshift. “I doubt either of you could walk out of here. They saw us all walk in, remember? And who knows who’s on staff this morning. We’ll need to harness the same confusion – use the shock of the blood to our advantage.”

“The uniforms?”

“Perfect.”

It wasn’t easy going, stripping the guards of their uniform jackets, but between the four of them – and a carefully applied knife by Honey to gain compliance – they managed to get all the coats clear without letting either of the guards get too close to escape.

“Sorry about this,” Ripka said as she peeled the sleeve off the last of them. The sharp edge to the woman’s muffled voice told her all she needed to know to understand her apology was most certainly not accepted.

“You boys,” she chucked the coat to Enard, as Tibal was already donning the man’s jacket. “Make a good show of things, eh?”

Tibal and Enard shared a grin, and went to work.

They burst down the stairs of the hotel, Tibal dragging Ripka by falsely bound wrists. Her blood-spattered nightshift stuck to the tops of her thighs as she snarled and twisted, making the best show she could of trying to break free of Tibal’s hold while he swore under his breath and dragged her along. Her bare feet skidded on the floor, and she was glad the hotel went to the trouble of keeping it swept clean. She was even gladder to know that underneath Tibal’s coat was a sack of the woman’s clean clothes.

“Make way!” Tibal barked.

Patrons screamed, swore, and generally made a mess of things as they leapt from tables and scurried to the sides of the room, cleaving a wide path down the center of the hotel’s common room.

“What is the meaning of this?” A woman with finer clothes than the regular barmaids stalked toward them. She caught sight of Ripka’s bloodied clothes, hesitated a step, then pushed herself forward. Respectable, if irritating, woman.

“Got a fight on our hands,” Tibal snapped, holding his head to the side and keeping his hat tucked down. “Move off now, injured girl coming.”

The woman stepped to the side, peering up the stairs. “Injured? Shall I send a runner for the apothik?”

“A runner!” Tibal spun on her, yanking Ripka’s wrists as he did so. “This woman is bleeding, ma’am, she’d be bone dry by the time your runner got there and back. We’ll take her ourselves, it’s faster. But mark me, don’t you dare touch a thing in those rooms upstairs. The two remaining prisoners are restrained, but that’s an active crime scene! Touch nothing until after the watch arrives to begin their investigation, and then only after they have told you it’s all right to do so. Do you understand?”

“Ye – yes? You’re leaving, with prisoners still locked up here?”

“They’re contained, I swear it. Touch. Nothing. Now move!”

Their patroness paled and scurried away as Enard stomped down the stairs. He carried Honey in his arms easily. For all that muscle, the woman was surprisingly light. As he strode into the common room gasps sounded all around, every last eye glued to the figure being carried, not to the man carrying her. If they were lucky, no one would realize the two guards who had checked in were a man and a woman, not two men, until they were well away.

Honey mustered up a little groan so pitiful Ripka wondered if the pain was finally starting to get to her. Enard didn’t hesitate a breath. He strode right past Tibal, hustling as if the woman’s life depended on it, and kicked the door of the hotel open into the brilliance of the day.

The street in front of the hotel was lightly trafficked, and every eye that landed on them was quickly averted. The black cloak of the Honding family’s private guard was enough to grant them some degree of anonymity. No one would look too hard at a Honding guard, and they certainly wouldn’t stop to question one.

Still, as they progressed through the neighborhood, Honey whispering subtle directions into Enard’s ear as he held her, Ripka’s skin began to itch with the attention they were drawing. A palace guard may be untouchable, but the presence of two in the city was something to remark upon. And two of them escorting two bloodied women even more so. She imagined rumors spreading outward from their position like wildfire, and shivered.

“This can’t hold,” she whispered to Tibal.

He nodded, grim-faced. Probably he’d realized that from the second they stepped into the street, maybe even before. This type of game was his speciality, after all.

“We’ll find a quiet place to adjust in,” he said, then coughed subtly to alert Enard to fall back to his side.

They abandoned the path toward Latia’s house, winding though it was, and decided to veer in the opposite direction, lest the rumor of their presence eventually lead their future pursuers to Latia’s doorstep. At the first sight of a narrow alley free of windows and nearby pedestrians, they ducked down the shadowed street, and took a moment to catch their breaths.

Ripka and Honey changed as best they could, covering their nightshifts in long, thin robes that they’d found in the hotel chests. They didn’t look like proper day clothes, but they covered the blood well enough, and neither one of them had anything to wash with.

“The jackets?” Enard asked.

“Ditch them,” Ripka said. “They draw more attention than we’d like.”

“The four of us draw more attention than I’d like.” Tibal stripped off his jacket and tossed it in a heap against the alley wall. The men, at least, wore thin trousers and shirts, if not any shoes. Luckily going barefoot was not an uncommon sight in Hond Steading – their streets were smooth and free of firemount glass.

“You’ve a point,” Enard said. “Especially with Honey’s injury and both of your, ah, appearances. Forgive me.” He flushed.

Ripka snort-laughed. “We’re a mess, it’s true. All right. Honey and I know where we’re going, so we should split up with you boys. Honey, Enard’s about your height, do you think you can walk if he gives you his shoulder?”

“That’s fine,” she said, poking at her leg absently.

“Don’t overdo it.” Honey just looked at her, doe-eyed, so Ripka turned to Enard and said, “See that she doesn’t overdo it.”

He gave her a flimsy salute and offered his arm to Honey, who hobbled over to accept it. Tibal watched her intently, no doubt understanding that she’d split them this way to keep him by her side. She had no reason to doubt Enard and Honey’s loyalty, but Tibal was another story. Despite his recent interest in her plans, he could just as easily disappear into the city right now.

And if he did that, she knew deep down that she’d never see him again.

“See you there,” Enard said, oblivious to the tension thickening between her and Tibal. The pair shuffled their slow, painful way out into the street.

“Better give it a moment,” Tibal drawled. “Wouldn’t want anyone seeing us come out right after.”

“Right.”

“Or you could tell me where we’re going, and it’ll look even less suspicious, us waiting to leave one right after the other.”

There it was. The challenge she’d felt was coming since he’d given her that hard look while she bundled Honey off with Enard. She straightened the lay of her robe’s tie. “Better if we stick together, in case of trouble. Two sets of hands are better than one.”

“You expecting trouble?”

She held her arms out in a gesture that illustrated just how ridiculous she currently looked. “You seen me lately? I’d half expect the watchers to pick me up to evaluate my mental health if I were walking around alone.”

He snorted. “And if we get separated?”

Well then. She didn’t have anything to answer to that, aside from the fact that she feared that he’d fake separation just to get away from her. But subterfuge was Detan’s game, and she was tired of being on delicate footing with Tibal.

“Would I ever see you again?”

He blinked at her, real slow, the most surprised expression she’d ever seen on his weathered face. Took him a moment to register she wasn’t fencing with him any more: she’d laid the tension between them bare at his feet and bade him have a long look. So he did, in his own mind, tugging on his whiskery mustache with one hand while he thought. It occurred to her then that he hadn’t shaved since the Remnant.

“What’s for me, there?”

“You know what,” she said, unable to hide her frustration. “I’m trying to do right by this city. Trying to keep it from falling into the same pit Aransa did. We have a chance here. We’re prepared. To walk away now… I could never live with myself.” And I don’t think you could either, she didn’t say, but the words stretched out between them anyway. Some things didn’t need to be said to be clear as a spring rain.

“City’s not my responsibility.”

“Isn’t it, Tibal Honding?”

His head snapped back, those dark eyes narrowing, and for just a moment she thought she’d triggered his well-hidden temper. But no, that wasn’t anger ghosting his features. That was pain, pure and simple. She’d hit him. Hard.

“That ain’t my name.”

“The Dame seems to think it is.”

“You think everything the Dame says is gospel?”

“Convince me otherwise.”

“Not my job to put your head on straight, and we don’t have time for this nonsense.”

“I’m making time. Talk, Tibal. What in the fiery pits is your relation to the Dame?”

“Why are you so damned desperate to know?”

“Because you told me a story.” She stepped toward him. He stepped back. “Don’t you remember? At Thratia’s party, you told me all about how you and Detan met. How he stumbled across you, and you found common ground in trying to control your tempers. You earned my respect with that story, before I ever knew you. And I’m wondering now – how much of the time we shared together was based on lies? If your tempers are mirrors, then…” She let her gaze slide to the shadow of a firemount.

“You think I got the power, too?” He yanked his hat off and slapped it against his knee to clear the dust. “Woman, haven’t you been paying attention? What Detan’s got is rare, I can’t shift sel any more than the Dame can. And anyway.” He twisted the brim of his hat between his fingers, picking at the singed spot that had been Detan’s doing.

“What I told you was true.” He held up a hand to stop her asking more questions. “I wouldn’t lie to you now, and I didn’t then. You want to know what the Dame knows? Fine.” He blew air through his whiskers hard enough to make them flutter.

“Rew Honding is my father by blood, though I never met the man. Some uncle of the Dame, old feller, but my ma liked him well enough for a night and sent him along the next day. Didn’t know who he was at the time, till the Dame came along collecting any information she could about Honding bastards. Eletraia – that’s Detan’s mother – had just died and the Dame wasn’t one for birthing her own heirs. Anyway, she made a note of my existence and moved along, ma never heard from her again. But I did.

“She came by the settlement I’d ended up in after the Fleet had let me go ‘cause the war with the Catari had gone cold. Ma was doing well enough, running her tavern, and I didn’t have any taste for that work, so I’d found an engineer to take me on repairing airships.

“One day the Dame shows up, real quiet like. Came in on a small ship with just a pilot and a single guard, a man named Gatai. You’ve seen him around the palace as the keymaster, but I always suspected he was more than that.”

He tipped his head back, squinting at the sky as if he could see his past painted in the clouds. Ripka held her breath to keep from peppering him with questions. This was the most she’d ever heard him talk all at once.

“Anyway. She wasn’t dressed up fancy or anything, but I knew her, and she looked bad. Real tired. Said her heir had been in some trouble, maybe lost his sel-sense, and was rambling the Scorched a lost man. But she’d been keeping tabs on him, and he was flying straight my way. Asked me to keep an eye on him, help him pull himself together. That if she were to lose him then I was the only one of the bloodline left, and it had to be maintained. Was real animated about that. I told her to go suck gravel. But…” He sighed and shook his head. “Detan showed up the day after she left. I ain’t never seen a man so much the mirror to me before. Never met a soul who understood… Shit.”

He shoved his hat back on hard enough to cover half his forehead. “That’s what you wanted to know, anyway.”

“I didn’t know,” she said, quietly, and reached out to touch his arm lightly in comfort. He shook her off.

“Now you do, and I don’t want to hear a damned thing about it again, understood? This ain’t my city. Never going to be. I mean it, this city ain’t my responsibility.”

“Is your conscience your responsibility?”

He pursed his lips, spit on the dry ground, and grated out the words, “Wherever it is you’re going, Leshe, I’ll be there.”

Leshe. He never called her that. Captain, sometimes, and mostly Ripka. But her last name… There was only one person she knew of he consistently called by his family name, and it was, she thought, maybe the greatest honor he could hand her.

“See you there, then,” she said, and told him the way to Latia’s house – how to mark it, by its shape and its color and its position against the side of a firemount. Then she left him in the alley, stomach churning with uncertainty, to begin the circuitous route to Latia’s.

Leaving him there, not knowing for sure whether he’d come or not, was the greatest leap of faith she’d yet taken in this city. She hoped they both landed on their feet.