Elara looked at the angry commoner who stood before her.

  “I don’t believe we’ve been formally introduced,” she said frostily.

  “Aye! Why don’t you introduce me to your Tiatian whore, Zaphar?” the woman sneered back.

  “Tiatian?” Zaphar asked in surprise. Elara didn’t react. Technically, she was Tiatian. And this wasn’t the first time she had been called a whore.

  “You just stole her out of the Tiatian Embassy, you fool!” the woman declared. “What else is she going to be?”

  Zaphar threw his hands up in despair. “This one,” he said to Elara, “is Calis Marr, of whom we have spoken. As for the other way around… are you sure you want that?”

  Elara flushed as she realised how foolish that idea was. The longer she could stay anonymous, the better.

  “No,” she admitted.

  Zaphar grunted approvingly. “Then this one,” he said to Calis, “is my employer. Not a lover, or whatever you are thinking.”

  “You expect me to believe that? You won’t even tell me her name!”

  “There is no need for names,” Zaphar said. “We are leaving and going our separate ways. You will not be speaking.”

  “That’s what you think,” Calis declared. “I’m coming with you.”

  Zaphar sighed. “You can’t. We are leaving Bures.”

  “That’s what your note said. I’m leaving with you.”

  “You can’t. We are crossing the front lines,” Zaphar explained.

  “We are? Where are we going?” Elara asked. She hadn’t thought through what would come next.

  Zaphar looked at her. “Do not say it, but I think you can guess where I will take you. If you wish otherwise, then so be it, but there is only one place that I can take you.”

  “Elitra?” Calis exclaimed. “You can’t! We haven’t—you haven’t—”

  “Not Elitra,” Zaphar agreed, rolling his eyes. “But it is not a place for you. You need to stay here.”

  “I won’t! And if you think you’re getting out of the city with someone following you and calling you out for your philandering ways, think again!”

  Zaphar stared at Calis. “You wouldn’t.”

  “Of course I would! I’m not letting you sneak out of here with another woman!”

  “It’s not like that,” Zaphar said pleadingly. “It’s just business.”

  “I don’t believe you,” she said bluntly. “And I’m still known to the guards as a thief-taker. They’ll believe me.”

  At least until I identify myself, Elara thought, but that is to be avoided at all costs.

  “Zaphar,” she said quietly.

  “Yes?” he said. “Boss?” he added with a glare at Calis.

  “I don’t think we can get away from her,” Elara said. And killing her probably isn’t an option, she reflected. Elara didn’t have the means, and Zaphar didn’t have the heart—or lack of one—to kill someone he knew. They could try tying her up and leaving her somewhere, but that… led to problems, both immediate and delayed.

  “Can your escape route handle three people?” she asked instead.

  Zaphar scowled. “Yes,” he admitted, “As long as she is quiet.”

  “Then I think we have to take her. We can’t waste more time out in the open discussing it.”

  Zaphar deflated slightly. “Why couldn’t she listen to the note?” he muttered. “It was a good note.”

  “I’m glad you have decided to see reason,” Calis said with a smirk.

  “This will not end the way you want,” Zaphar told her. “You will regret not taking my advice. It was good advice, and you did not take it.”

  “That only shows how little you know,” Calis declared. “I always get what I want.”

  Zaphar shook himself. “We need to move.”

  * * *

  “We’re taking a boat?” Elara asked softly. “But boats aren’t allowed to sail at night. It’s dangerous.”

  “Some captains like to leave without their cargoes being inspected,” Zaphar explained. “Easier to do that at night.”

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  “Smuggling?” Elara asked in dismay. “We’re getting smuggled out of the city?”

  “It happens,” Calis said, her face neutral. “It’s not as foolproof as you might think, Zaphar. I’ve tracked down a bunch of debtors who got out of the city that way. The captains will spill the beans for anyone who pays them.”

  “They can’t spill what they don’t know,” Zaphar argued. “That is why the boss has no name, and they are not to be knowing our destination.”

  “Do I get to know either of those?” Calis asked. Zaphar glowered at her.

  “Once we get off the boat,” he said.

  Elara watched silently as soft words were exchanged, along with gold, in the near darkness. Sailors beckoned them forward, and the group was led belowdecks. Once below, they could use a dimmed lantern to see by.

  “If’n we get stopped afore we leave the city,” the sailor said, “You need to get in here.”

  He pointed at a small hold, level with the deck. It looked uncomfortable and cramped.

  “We’ll throw some ropes over it. Mostly they won’t check, long as you’re quiet,” the sailor said.

  “Regretting your decision?” Zaphar asked Calis.

  “Not at all,” Calis said. Her smile did look a little thin, though. “We’ll finally get some private time.”

  “No playing around,” Zaphar said sternly. “This is serious business.”

  The sailor nodded vigorously.

  “So now, we just have to wait?” Elara asked.

  The sailor nodded again. “Won’t be long now,” he said.

  The boat did not, in fact, get stopped, and the cramped hiding place went unused. That didn’t make the trip any more pleasant, however. Once the all-clear had been given, Zaphar sat down on the deck and leaned back against the hull. He seemed equally indifferent to the dampness that seeped through the boards and the incessant questions that came from Calis.

  “Get some sleep,” he suggested. “They’ll keep sailing until after dawn.”

  He closed his eyes, taking his own advice, or appearing to. Calis glowered and asked a few more questions, but Zaphar ignored her.

  The two women eyed each other uneasily in the near-darkness. Calis didn’t seem to want to start a conversation, and Elara was unsure of what she should say.

  We will have to tell her something at some point, she thought. But as the longer the awkward silence grew, the longer she had to think of exactly what.

  She only realised she had fallen asleep when Zaphar woke her. Now she was damp, her hair and borrowed trousers slick with whatever had been in that bilge water.

  “We’ve docked,” Zaphar said softly. “Time to leave.”

  He looked over at Calis, perhaps debating whether to wake her or leave her to travel further down the river. He grimaced as she started moving on her own.

  “I need a bath,” Elara declared. Her nose had been overwhelmed by the smell of rotting wood and stagnent water, but she suspected that she smelled badly of something.

  “It will have to wait,” Zaphar said, sourly watching Calis get to her feet. “We get off here, then travel up river to see if we can find some horses.”

  “Up river?” Elara asked. Zaphar nodded.

  “If they talk to the captain they find that we got off here. So they ask if we got a different boat. We didn’t. So they ask if we got horses or a carriage here. We didn’t.”

  Elara felt a brief pang when Zaphar mentioned carriages. She had expected that they would be travelling by carriage. That was the standard method for those with the means, after all. From the look on Zaphar’s face, Elara did not think they would be taking one.

  “So they think we are continuing the journey on foot,” Zaphar continued. “And they might guess where we are going, so they head off that way. In the meantime, we go the opposite way, and find some horses.”

  “Adequate,” Calis grunted. “That might delay me a bit, if I was the one chasing you.”

  “Delay is all we need,” Zaphar said. “Our destination is safety, we just need to get there first.”

  “Where are we going, anyway?” Calis asked.

  “Up river, like I said.”

  Elara was hardly a soft and pampered noble. She wasn’t ready to accompany the army to war, but she did excercise regularly. However, she had never walked this far in her life. Her shoes were new, still stiff. Her trousers were damp from the boat.

  Complaining would do no good and would be beneath her dignity as a royal. She kept her mouth shut. The increasingly worried glances that Zaphar kept giving her suggested that she was having a harder time keeping her thoughts off her face.

  “Not long now,” he said.

  “That’s the third time you’ve said that,” she snapped.

  Zaphar shrugged. “I do not actually know how long it is,” he admitted. “There must be another village this way, since there is a road.”

  He paused and cocked his head. “Which we should be getting off,” he said. “Quickly. This way.”

  He started shooing them off the road and into the forest that lined the riverbank.

  “What? Why?” Elara protested.

  “Riders,” Zaphar said.

  “Why does that mean we have to hide?” Calis asked.

  “Because,” Zaphar explained. “We do not want to be meeting people.”

  “Why not? I’m not hiding from anyone.”

  “See if we come back, then,” Zaphar said, turning his back on her and heading into the undergrowth. Elara followed, hoping they wouldn’t be going too far from the road. She wasn’t confident navigating through a forest, and she was fairly sure Zaphar was no woodsman.

  They were almost out of sight when she heard it. The drumming of hooves, a large company of them. Thirty at least. Zaphar swore at Calis, who was still standing at the side of the road, but pulled the two of them further into the forest.

  They found a hiding spot where they could keep an eye on Calis and waited for the riders to go past. Zaphar cursed, when they didn’t go past, slowing to a stop in front of the the woman.

  “I know them,” Elara whispered. “The Glimmering Lancers. One of my father’s rapid response forces.”

  “I think Lord Nos had a run-in with them,” Zaphar said, frowning.

  “Yes, their captain had to give up his sword as compensation.”

  “Ah, that was where it came from?” Zaphar exclaimed. At Elara’s questioning look, he explained. “I was with Lord Nos when he traded it to a Fae.”

  “I haven’t heard that story,” Elara said. “Can you make out what they’re saying?”

  “They are looking for a kidnapped princess, they say,” Zaphar said with a wince. “I think Calis may be suspecting something, but she is not saying anything.”

  “We were going to have to tell her eventually.”

  Zaphar grunted. “They don’t seem to be looking for the boat, they think you are headed to Kirido on horseback.”

  “We are headed to Kirido on horseback. Or we will be,” Elara pointed out.

  “Yes, it is not good. We don’t have to worry about them catching up, because they are ahead of us. But they are between us and safety.”

  The riders seemed to have finished their interrogation. The captain rode back to the head of the line and led them off.

  “What should we do?”

  Zaphar scowled. “For now, the plan is the same. We need horses, so we find that village.”

  He waited for the riders to get out of earshot before coming back to the road. Elara thought that Calis might have been getting a little worried. She hid her relief as Zaphar stepped out of hiding.

  “Well, well, well. It seems that not everyone is so reluctant to answer questions! You stole a bona fide princess?”

  “This is why I don’t tell you anything.”