His partner, Emil, turned heel and ran.
Maynya scrambled to her feet. Phineas twitched beneath her, shouting, swinging…at nothing. She aimed a kick with as much strength as she could manage and got the man squarely in the balls.
He doubled over. His scream rang in her ears.
She shot a hurried look around. Emil had headed back toward the meadow where she’d been captured. She’d have to go the opposite way, deeper into the woods, closer to the Virtus border.
She hurried away, gasping at the fire in her ribs where she’d been kicked.
A half hour later, Maynya still ran. She stirred up the fauna as she passed, chasing chattering birds to the treetops. A chipmunk got under foot. In sidestepping it, she tripped over a gnarled root and went sprawling. The sting in her palms and knees joined forces with her ravaged rib cage to bring tears to her eyes. She staggered up, pressed on, using reddened hands to fend off low-hanging branches swiping at her face.
She’d covered a good three miles during her flight, but for all she knew, the barbarians might be fast on her heels. Whatever she’d done back there, she had no way of knowing how long it might last.
What had she done? Witchcraft?
She shuddered.
No, the flash of light from Carla’s passing had somehow awakened an amazing ability. Like an infant grasping at a rattle for the first time with no knowledge how, Maynya had unwittingly groped inside two men’s minds, found their fears in the shadows, and shaped them into life-sized rats. Were the creatures real? If so, she could do wonderful things when she learned to harness the power. Perhaps she might read hunger in a starving child’s mind and conjure food.
On the other hand, what if she never learned to harness Carla’s gift? Suppose she lost herself at an inopportune time and created an illusion in front of her own people? The Mystics would surely think her a witch and brand her chest with a W. They’d throw her across the border into Virtus, where the barbarians would crucify her.
She started running again.
A clearing came into view through thinning trees. Maynya gasped. She’d gone too far, clear across the border between Sanctimonia and Virtus.
“Help!” A woman’s voice rose from the meadow, spurring a flock of sparrows into noisy flight.
The chattering birds swarmed, cut into the forest, and dove toward Maynya before fleeing deeper into the woods.
Had she conjured them, as well? No, they’d come on their own, chirping a warning to save her from whatever danger loomed.
“Over here,” the woman cried. “Come open the latch.”
“No. Leave us be.” The voice of a second woman rose above the first.
Maynya ignored the sparrows. She hurried out of the trees to help.
Eight women stood captive in a wooden cage fitted onto a flat carriage. They sported the long black braids and signature floral dresses of fellow Mystics. Horses had been hitched to haul them away.
“Hurry, before the barbarians return!” A wide-eyed young woman of perhaps twenty gripped the bars at the back of the cage, the swell of her belly stretching the fabric of a faded dress. “My child can’t be born in this awful place.”
Maynya bunched her fists. Did the cruelty of barbarians know no bounds? Someone’s pregnant wife had been stolen for sale as a bride to another man.
“Please!”
She glanced around, creeping forward. “Where are your captors?”
One of the women pointed toward a cabin in the near distance. “They’re settling accounts with our own border guards.”
Maynya stopped. “Our people wouldn’t do that.”
The woman spat. “Sentries are corrupt on either side of the border. Ours will trade anything for coal, even women, apparently.”
“Just let us out,” the pregnant one screeched.
“No!” The other shot a fierce gaze at Maynya. “We’re bridal stock now. You know what could happen to you.”
Maynya knew she’d hang if caught trying to save anyone, but she’d cheated death once already. She examined the cage’s latching mechanism, a heavy wooden bar lowered into a metal grip. The captors hadn’t padlocked it, apparently judging it impossible to open from inside the cage.
“Be gone while you still can,” one of the women said.
“Go home,” said another.
“Leave us be.”
“They’ll kill you.”
Could she ever find such inner strength as these selfless Mystics? They’d probably fought like hellcats to avoid capture. All were bruised and bloodied. Dresses torn. Braids in disarray. Yet now that they’d been caged, they wouldn’t think of endangering her life to regain their freedom.
Maynya knew without a doubt what course she must follow.
A shadow of grief had been clinging to her from the moment she’d been touched by her imagined sister. She choked back a sob and glanced over her shoulder to bid a silent farewell to a land she might never see again. “Did they count you?”
“Aye,” a woman said. “They know we are eight.”
“Then eight you’ll stay.” She struggled to lift the latch, gritting her teeth against the pain in her ribs until she pulled the lever all the way up. She swung the gate open and motioned to the pregnant woman. “Climb down.”
“No,” a woman said. “We told you—”
“Silence!” She didn’t know where the power in her voice came from. Her cry stilled everyone in the cage.
The pregnant woman jumped down and started to run, but in the wrong direction. Maynya caught her by the arm. “Are you able to climb a tree?”
“Y-yes.”
“Hurry into the woods, find a tall one, and stay hidden until nightfall. Then go home. Is that understood?”
The woman nodded.
“You must latch me into this cage first.” She climbed into the makeshift prison and pulled the gate closed. “We’ll be eight again.”
PART III: THE RAPTURE
CHAPTER 23
Virtus, nearing his destination
The great desert’s scrubby nothingness gave way to an increasing number of shacks and lean-tos. Quintus Laskaris had gotten within a few miles of the capital at last. But the end of his journey did little to lift his spirits.
He dismounted beside a stream. While
