The Phoenix People

Chapter Thirty-Five

I was shaken violently awake the next morning. Blearily, I registered a sobbing Robin hovering over me. I sat upright quickly, almost colliding headfirst with the tearful woman.

Something was horribly wrong if Robin was crying.

"Oak...Dove...they're being arrested," she whimpered.

I sprang out of bed, instantly alert. Annamarie was already awake and halfway out of our bedroom, nightgown stretching over pants. She looked quite odd. I took a step forward, directly onto a folded pair of pants that had been left for me.

"Hurry," Robin begged, her voice cracking, and I yanked the clothing on underneath my nightgown as Anna had done, following the woman out of the room as fast as my legs would carry me.

We wove through the halls of the base, heading for the exit that the council, my friends, and I had taken while departing for the forest. Urgency pushed my feet to move faster and faster: go, go, go.

Robin had stopped crying. Her face was a mask of stone, only her red cheeks and the tear tracks that stained them giving her seemingly calm exterior away.

We tumbled out into the alleyway. Anna was waiting for us there. Without a word, we took off for the stables.

There, Melody, Theo, and Griffin already awaited us. August emerged from a nearby stall, leading a horse. As I fetched Dawn, the urgency in the air made my stomach churn.

Robin and Anna shared a horse, as did Melody and August. I realized that only Robin and Theo were dressed normally and had weapons. The rest of us had been fast asleep.

We thundered out of the stables, bent low over our horses. At the moment, I didn't care who saw me, and doubted the others did, either.

Robin took the lead, darting down alleys and onto small streets. We followed her trustingly, her words ringing in my ears: "Oak...Dove...they're being arrested."

On their first day back aboveground, too.

I spurred my horse on, faster, faster. Finally, we turned onto a street behind a black cart emblazoned with the all-too-familiar royal insignia. It had been moving at a moderate pace, but when the driver saw us, he whipped his horses into a gallop.

We pulled up alongside the wagon easily. What now? I wondered urgently.

Robin was saying something to Anna. Then, she placed her hands on the hilts of the knives at her waist.

As I watched in horror, Robin swung one leg over her horse so she was riding sidesaddle and used the creature's stirrups to push herself toward the cart.

Time seemed to slow as I watched Robin, black braid flying behind her, draw her knives in midair as she reared back.

She slammed into the wagon, digging her daggers into its side, and time resumed its previous hectic speed.

Robin lost the grip of one of her daggers, although it remained embedded in the wagon. She cried out once, sharp and short, before regaining a hold on both weapons and painstakingly using them to pull herself up until she was at a position where she could use them as footholds. She scrambled onto the top of the wagon and lay on her stomach to pull her knives free.

I was so focused on watching Robin that the landscape around me was a blur. My horse steered itself. leaping over obstructions and avoiding pedestrians.

Robin bent low over the wagon roof, carving a gap in the thin wood. After what seemed like hours, she dropped into the wagon. Seconds later, I saw Oak feebly wriggling out of the hole his wife had hacked. He lay on the rooftop, gasping for air, but recovered quickly enough to help lift his daughter through the hole. Robin followed close behind.

"Melody!" she screamed.

Melody and August pulled their horse up aside the carriage. As carefully as was possible in their precarious situation, Robin and Oak helped Dove jump into August's waiting arms. My heart stopped as the child's feet left the wagon roof, but seconds later, she was sandwiched between Melody and August. They peeled off from our group and tore down a side alley.

Robin glanced behind us and her eyes widened in fear. I copied her to find that Andrew's personal guard was pursuing us. I whipped my head back around and saw Theo and Griffin leading Anna away - it was far too dangerous for the halfbreed preteen now.

It was just the criminal couple, the cart driver, Audric's guard, and me. Fear constricted my throat.

Oak swayed, clutching his side as he bent over slightly with pain. Robin gestured me closer and I steered my mount as near to the cart as she could get without rubbing against it.

Theo and Griffin re-entered the street just as Oak prepared to jump onto Dawn. I carefully scooted back, leaving ample room in front of me for him to fall.

Oak lept. Time once again dipped in speed.

He landed and immediately began falling off of my horse. I untangled one hand from Dawn's mane to hug him to my chest and veered off of the street, down an alley as the others had done.

Oak was limp, unconscious. To hold him in place, I was losing my control over my horse. We flew faster and faster, further from the prisoner cart, down increasingly unfamiliar alleys. My arms burned with the effort of both attempting to control Dawn and holding Oak in place.

The mare leaped over an upturned cart and my grip was lost.

I went flying, slamming into the dirt. The world went dark.

*

Light. Noise.

Piece by piece, a blurred reality returned to me.

"Stay with me, Princess! Alexia! Stay with me, you hear?"

Melody?

Suddenly, pain. Pain so intense that I nearly lost consciousness again.

Someone was moaning. Horrible, low, broken moaning.

Is that me?

I was lying down but somehow still moving. Moving quickly. Figures hovered over me, surrounding me, suffocating me.

"What happened?" Theo?

"She and Oak fell off the horse as they were escaping. She broke Oak's fall, luckily for him."

"Injuries?"

"Broken arm and leg. One fractured rib at least - it's broken skin, see? We - we don't know what else." Melody sounded strangely strained, rushed.

"Oh, gods!" Anna. Her worried face loomed over me and a small drop of wet hit my face. "Father!" Anna screamed, her voice cracking.

I succumbed to the pain.