Ironhold, Trial One (Ironhold #1)

CHAPTER THREE

“ Open this door!” the official bellows again .

I can see the terror on my mother's face now.

“Lyra, they’re here for you. You need to get out of here. You need to run.”

“Run? Why? They were grateful to me for saving them.”

My mother's expression hardens. “And how long do you think the gratitude of an Aetherian lasts? They’ve seen what you can do, and now they want you. I told you, they’re looking for talents.”

More fists hammer on the door, obviously those of the soldiers with the grey-robed official.

“Open the door,” the tax collector demands, “or we will break it down and claim everything within.”

“Go!” my mother says to me. “Get out of the village and wait for them to leave. Quickly, go out the window!”

The urgency in her voice is enough to spark me into movement, even though I'm still reeling in shock in the moment. I hear a heavy thud as a shoulder hits the door. It holds for now, but I can't believe it will hold much longer. I also can't believe that they're doing this. I just saved their lives, and now they’ve come for me? That is wrong. Absolutely wrong.

I make it to the window. There is no time for me to grab any of my few belongings. Instead, I push back the shutter and clamber out, even as I hear the splintering of the door beneath a second charge by the soldier attacking it.

“There!” he yells. “She's getting away!”

I make it out of the window into the space between the houses. There are lines of washing hanging here, drying in the sun. I dart between them, hoping to get away before the soldiers can pursue me.

I hear sandals slapping on the shingle between the houses, following. Angry shouts come from behind me.

“Stop there! Stop in the name of the emperor!”

I keep running. I am not going to slow down, even for an instant. I don't want to find out what will happen if they catch up to me. I dodge between the buildings, trying to make my way down to the shoreline. If I can do that, maybe I can get to a boat and row out somewhere they cannot follow. Maybe I can lose them in the water.

I do not know, because I have never been pursued before. All my life I have been safe in Seatide. My mother has been respected, and I have been treated well by the people of the village. I have only ever been greeted by friendly faces, and now I am being chased. And for what? Because I saved people using my talent? It makes no sense.

I keep running anyway, hitching up the hem of my dress so that I can move faster. I glance around to see one of the soldiers following me, a terrifying sight in his armor. It is enough to make my heart hammer in my chest, making me dodge this way and that, trying to lose him. I leap over a small fence, running through a garden where people have planted vegetables, sprinting past a small shrine, continuing to try to make it to safety.

I take twists and turns at random, striving to confuse my pursuer. I suspect he is faster than me in a straight line, so my only hope is to use my greater knowledge of the village. I move through the houses, determined to lose him.

For a moment, I lose sight of him, breaking contact in the pursuit. I look around, desperately trying to find somewhere to hide. I throw myself at the wall of one of the shacks, climbing it as best I can, pulling myself onto the roof and lying flat in the hope that the soldier will not find me. I feel sure that he will hear my ragged breathing, hear my heart pounding, it is so loud. I force myself to stay still, waiting as I hear sandals thudding past.

I dare to breathe a sigh of relief, and the moment I do, I know I have made a mistake. A hand grabs my leg. I cry out and look around, seeing that it is the other soldier. He must have seen me climb up here, and now he is trying to drag me from the roof. I kick out at him, feeling my own sandal come loose as I try to break his grip.

I tear loose from him, and then I’m running again, across the tops of Seatide’s houses, trying to find a way out of the predicament I’m in. I kick my other sandal loose, running barefoot, hoping that I can move faster that way.

The soldiers are keeping pace with me. I look this way and that, but they’re following smoothly, not giving me a way to break for the shore. Instead, I can only leap from roof to roof, trying to find something that might help me.

It only takes one misstep. I miss my footing on one of the leaps. Not by much, but it is more than enough when my situation is so precarious. My arms pinwheel, my hands scrabbling at the edge of the roof, but I still fall. It isn’t far, but I hit the ground hard, groaning. It takes me several seconds to rise, and now the soldiers are almost on me.

I run again, out into the village square this time. There’s still a crowd of people there in the wake of the bear’s attack. Maybe if I can get to them, they will help me. Surely they will be grateful to me for saving them?

The soldiers are faster. One moves to cut me off, while the other moves behind me.

“Help me!” I call out to the other villagers. “Somebody help me.”

There are enough of them that if they all try to help me together, they will easily overpower the two soldiers. Surely after what I've just done saving them from the bear, they will want to help me?

But no one moves forward. I can see the fear on their faces and a kind of gratitude that it isn't them the soldiers are targeting. They might like me, might be grateful for everything I've done, might respect my mother, but they still aren't going to intervene against trained soldiers of Aetheria. I'm sure each of them fears that the first one to do so will die at a soldier's hand. Or maybe they just fear what will happen if the soldiers come back in force.

I look from one soldier to the other, trying to judge the best way to run as they close in on me.

“Leave my daughter alone!”

My mother is there then, trying to get to me. One of the soldiers turns to her as she approaches.

“Stay back!” he commands.

My mother keeps coming and he hits her, back-handing her casually, hard enough that she goes sprawling in the village square.

“No!” I cry out. “Mother!”

I try to go to her, and that is a mistake. Maybe if I had taken the opportunity to run when the soldiers were distracted by her, I might have been able to flee again. Instead, the soldiers are waiting for me as I try to go to my mother. The two of them grab my arms, holding me between them as I try to struggle. I kick out at them, trying to get them to let go, but all that does is earn me a slap across the face that makes my head ring and tears well up in my eyes.

I am dizzy after that blow. Dizzy enough that they are holding me up as much as holding me in place. I can see their eyes roving over me, and fresh fear rises in me of what they might do next.

I see the figure of the grey-robed official approaching, moving slowly, not hurrying. He looks annoyed, the way he might have if someone had tried to hide a few silver pieces away from his inspection.

“Running? Foolish.”

“Help us!” I call out again to the other villagers.

The official laughs at that. “Help you? That rabble? Even if they could somehow take on two trained soldiers of Aetheria, they know it would only mean a squadron of them would return to this village and raze it to the ground. They aren't going to help you.”

“Why are you doing this?” I ask. “I saved your life.”

“Yes,” he says. “And in so doing, showed exactly the kind of gift for magic that the empire sends me out to seek. My talent is for finding such things, and I knew I sensed something in this village. I will be well rewarded for bringing you back.”

“You can't just kidnap me!” I insist.

He shakes his head. “This is not kidnapping. You are not a citizen of Aetheria. You do not enjoy the protection of its laws. Indeed, those laws are clear. All magic flows outwards from Aetheria. All those with it must be brought. We are quite entitled to take you.”

“What are you going to do with me?” I demand.

“ I’m not going to do anything,” the official says. “But I'm sure they'll pay a good price for you at Ironhold. They are always seeking those with talents.”

He says it as if it is the most natural thing in the world for him to enslave me like this. As if it is only right that he can walk into a village and decide to take someone from it. Already, the guards are pulling my arms in front of me, manacling them together, then fastening a short chain to those manacles, one of them holding it almost casually.

“I have done nothing wrong!” I insist.

The official frowns. “You say that as if it matters. All that matters is what you are. And what you are not. You're not a citizen of the city. You live in lands conquered by it. You have a talent it desires. Your fellow villagers should be grateful to you. I was going to have to take several of them to make up for the lack of taxes from this place. Instead, it's only going to be you. As of this moment, you are the property of the Aetherian Empire.”

My mother groans, starting to rise, starting to try to save me. The soldier who is not holding my chain only knocks her back into the dirt again. The one who is holding it jerks the chain, forcing me to march along with him or be dragged along the ground.

The shock of what is happening to me starts to hit me fully. Tears start to fill my eyes as I stumble along after him. Through them, I can see my village, my home, receding behind me step by step.

I saved lives today, and only my reward for it has been to be claimed by Aetheria.