The Gold in the Dark

Chapter Thirty-Two

Despite Natlin's protestations, Pila and Alan had bombarded Tia with questions when they'd gotten back to the tent, but her one- and two-word answers stoppered the conversation in short order. Eventually Alan gave up and Pila stomped outside to start packing up the wagon, trailing grumbles behind her.

Tia felt no hesitation about going with them back to Fenlick. She couldn't stomach staying at the academy, not when every moment would bring some fresh reminder of her slain friends. Natlin loosed a sigh of relief when Tia said she'd travel back with them. From the look of it, she'd been gearing up for a fight.

She took a seat by the cookstove as Natlin went to go find her some proper clothes, a blanket, and a crutch. Her body ached as tendrils of heat pushed the cold out from her limbs, but she didn't mind. It felt good to hurt.

That night she lay beside her sister in one of the cramped wagon beds, her tossing and turning twisting the sheets into knots. Sleep came in fitful spurts; she didn't trust herself to close her eyes. Any foray into dreams could only bring nightmare after nightmare.

So far, everyone's fears had remained unfounded; no more bombs had gone off. Yet the killer continued to elude the city guards, so the king's ban on travel in and out of Haplyr remained in effect. The boundless rumors twining their way from ear to ear hinted the perpetrator was Corimian; the speed at which he'd struck down the dancers certainly seemed magical. The city held its breath as the hours dragged on, waiting for a capture that seemed less and less likely to happen.

The next morning Tia took up her same seat by the cookstove. She didn't eat, as she wasn't hungry, and hardly moved. Tears came and went and came again, and she let them fall silently, turning her head so the others would not see.

Pila eventually came by and pressed a bowl of soup into her hands. It was an action so unexpected, so unlike the distinctly un-motherly candlemaker, that tears rose again to her eyes. What she wouldn't give for everything to return to the way it had been before the Queen's Fair massacre.

She looked down at the bowl of soup in her hands. Danger—everything around her could serve as a dangerous reminder. The steam wafted upwards...

Wynna looking at her, clutching a steaming mug of hot water, jittery with excitement. "I don't care so much about the rest of me being cold. But I can't stand having a cold nose!"

She stifled a cry as her hands burned with a sharp heat, and she blinked back to the present. She'd slopped some of the broth over the rim onto her hands. Her stomach rumbled, and she hated herself for it. Eating, sleeping, carrying on into the future... it was a betrayal of Wynna and all the others.

The others. Wynna's staring, deadened eyes had fixed her in place, but from the corners of her vision she had seen the figures slumped on the ground. Annet, Suse, Prin, Brissa... the company dancers... And what of her teachers? Had Master Maaj survived? Mistress Oerfall? She envisioned the dance mistress observing her protegees from behind the curtain, oblivious to the man skulking behind her in the shadows with his knife at the ready.

Hands shaking, she set the bowl down on the ground and curled in on herself, trying to disappear.

~

Time crawled as the entire city waited for the killer hiding amongst them to be found. She had never heard the city so quiet.

Everything was wrong. Why was she here, cozy by a stove in the presence of loved ones, while Wynna—

Stop! She clutched her head in her hands, trying to drive out the spiraling thoughts.

"Tia?"

She raised her head and met her sister's shocked gaze. Good—anything to distract her from the enemy that was her mind.

Natlin sidled over to the cookstove. She took in the cold bowl of soup on the ground, then cast her sister a wary look.