anyway. We don’t want to make our track too easy to follow. Come. Only a little farther.” He set off again, moving a bit more slowly.
Still, to Dart, it felt like a full run. She did her best to keep up.
At last, Yaellin pointed to a wait-carriage, drawn by two horses, and led them up to it. The coachman was currying one of his two mounts. Yaellin had fixed his masklin in place to hide his face and used folds of shadow to cloak Dart and Laurelle from direct view.
“Good ser,” the coachman said, straightening as Yaellin drew beside him.
“We would borrow your carriage if it’s unencumbered,” Yaellin said.
“Certainly, ser. I was about to start my day. Where’bouts can I carry you?”
Yaellin stepped to the door of the enclosed carriage. “I shall tell you once we’re away.” He ushered the two girls inside, then followed, taking the opposite bench.
The coachman closed the door, then clambered into his seat in front. A jingle of a belled lead announced their departure. The team drew the wagon with a creak of wheels.
“Keep low,” Yaellin whispered to Dart and Laurelle. He opened the tiny hatch to speak to the coachman. The exchange was muffled, but Dart heard a bit. They were heading for the far side of the city, a half-day’s journey. Yaellin passed up a heavy pouch of coin. Dart wondered how much of it was for their travel and how much was to buy the man’s silence.
After Yaellin closed the hatch, he fished into an inner pocket of a cloak and removed a tiny vessel of crystal. “Hold out your hands,” he told them. “Palms up.”
Dart trembled, arms shaking. Even this was a strain.
Yaellin removed the jar’s glass stopper. A dipping wand was attached to it, wet with the vessel’s contents. He touched it once to Dart’s left palm, then her right. She felt an itchy tingle. Yaellin anointed Laurelle’s palms the same way, then his own.
“Wave the air,” he instructed and demonstrated by wafting his arms a bit. Dart mimicked him. She smelled a slight stench to the air.
“It’s an alchemy of air and black bile,” Yaellin said. “A nulling recipe concocted by my father. It hides one’s path from all who seek it with Grace. It works only if one is not touching soil.” He wiped his palms on his cloak. “The blessing lasts for only a quarter bell. Hopefully that’ll be long enough to break our trail so we can clear the inner city.”
He leaned back into his seat.
Dart did the same. Her head felt full of butterflits. The growing light of the dawn stung her eyes, and her stomach churned. The bounce and pop of the carriage over broken cobbles did not help settle matters.
Yaellin noted her unease. “Dart, what’s wrong?”
She shook her head, fanning the ache behind her eyes. A new twinge rose from her navel, a dull tugging as if her innards sought a way to escape her belly.
“I think she’s taken ill,” Laurelle said, taking her hand. “Her skin is cold.”
Yaellin reached over and felt her brow. His eyes narrowed.
Dart pushed his hand away. The effort narrowed her vision, sparking lights at the corners. The tugging throb behind her navel grew worse. A moan rose to her lips. She rubbed at her belly.
Yaellin kneeled before Dart.
“Something’s wrong,” Laurelle said.
Dart barely heard her. She curled in on herself, bent double in her seat. “Stop…” she gasped. By now, her navel felt as if it were ripping open. She hugged her arms tight over her belly, as if to hold her guts inside. She retched, but nothing came out.
“What’s wrong with her?” Laurelle asked.
The world darkened. Dawn receded back toward night. Dart slipped away to another time, another place. She had been in a wagon, then a boat.
Rocking, rocking, rocking…
All alone.
No, not alone.
She pictured a tiny form nested against her belly, nuzzling, suckling. Where it ached now.
“Pupp…” she moaned aloud. “No…”
Yaellin’s voice sounded far away. “What’s this delirium?”
“A creature. I saw it.” Laurelle’s words fluttered in and out of Dart’s hollow head. “… claimed… always with her.”
“And it’s still with her?” Yaellin hissed. “Why didn’t someone tell me?”
“Gone…” Dart murmured. “Trapped by stone… wall…”
“The Eldergarden!” Laurelle exclaimed. “The creature must still be back there.”
“Trapped,” Dart gasped, knowing she had to make herself understood. But her world had gone black, laced with agony.
“Need…”
A hatch grated open, and Yaellin yelled, ordering the carriage stopped and turned about.
It happened too slowly. Dart faded, slipping into oblivion.
Then the carriage was around. Dart felt a syrupy warmth suffuse her. The pain remained, but it ebbed ever so slightly. The carriage trundled forward, heading back upward. Though Dart could not see it, she felt it with every strand of her being. The taut pull on her navel slackened. The world remained dark and painful, but she could breathe again.
Yaellin returned to her, his hand on her knee. “I saw the creature in your dream,” he said. “I never imagined it was still with you.”
“Saw it in her dreams?” Laurelle asked a question Dart was too agonized to voice.
“After I heard your tale of the shattered illuminaria,” Yaellin said, addressing Laurelle, “I thought Dart might be the one. Impossibly brought here, to the one place she must not be. I had to be sure. So I snuck into Dart’s room two nights back and cast a blessing of dreamsight upon her.”
Dart groaned. So it had been Yaellin. He had been in her room.
“I wakened her earliest memories. I saw my mother… my father
… stealing her away. I saw it all through her dream eyes. Even the tiny form of the creature.”
“Is it some daemonspawn?” Laurelle asked. “Was she cursed?”
“I… I’m not sure.”
Despite the agony, Dart heard the obfuscation behind Yaellin’s words. He knew more than he was willing to speak, but she did not have the strength to confront him.
“If it’s separated from her now, the loss must be causing her this pain. We must head back.” Worry etched his words.
The carriage continued back the way they had just come. Dart felt strength return to her with every turn of the cart’s wheel. The world slowly returned in shades of gray.
“Where will we go?” Laurelle asked. “Not back to the Eldergarden.”
“No, we can’t risk that. We’ll have to find someplace close to the castillion as refuge. Then I need time to think.”
“Where-?”
Something struck the side window, startling all. Dart lifted her aching head enough to look. A large bird perched on the window’s sill. It cocked its head one way, then the other. A raven.
Dart gasped and pulled away from it. Her most intimate fears were tied to ravens. She pictured another set of ravens, flocked above her, staring down. She again felt rough hands pinning her, hot breath at her throat.
The dark bird pecked at the window, drawing her back.
“It’s a messenger,” Laurelle said, pointing to the white tube tied to the bird’s foot.
Yaellin reached to the window latch, releasing the pane.
“No,” Dart moaned.
Ignoring her, Yaellin pushed the window open. The bird hopped to his arm. “Air blessed,” he said, noting the glow to the bird’s eyes. “Homed to me.”
“Is it from Chrism?” Laurelle asked, frightened.
