MARKS- Chapter 21

 Chapter Twenty-One

The fog is heavy with ice this morning as I make my way to the river. Winter has settled in over the land, holding it captive. The soil by the riverbank is frigid, but not so frozen I can’t dig up some drakeroot. Liddy was ecstatic about her pink dress, and some of the other mothers have asked me to make pink fabric for them. Drakeroot grows in scattered bunches along the river, and I dig through the hard, cold ground until I have half a dozen or so plants.

An icy wind cuts through my cloak. I cup my hands and blow on them, wiggling my fingers though I can’t feel them. I gaze across the horizon, where the King’s castle rises above the city’s skyline. I’m so close to him, yet so far away at the same time. Hidden under a rock, but he could find me. The threat weighs on me, heavier each day.

I could leave, take off now and no one would follow me. I could make these people safe. Or I could be found by a guard or someone loyal to the King. What if they do things to me to make me talk? And I’m the reason these people die anyway, even if I’m not here? I finger the edge of my cloak then turn. The man standing guard at the door merely nods when I make my way back into the cavern. His face shows no concern, no relief that I’m back. Maybe leaving is best. For them and for me. 

After lunch I call Liddy over to me. She bounces, as only four-year-olds do, and stands in front of me.

“Want to help me with something?” I ask.

Her eyebrows shoot up to her hairline.

“It’s a secret,” I whisper. “So you can’t tell anyone. All right?”

She nods, her eyes wide and serious.

I take her hand, so small in mine, and we go to my workshop. “We’re going to make a special color today.” I poke the fire to life. “Can you guess which one?”

“Which one, Gretta?”

I spread the drakeroot on the table. “Well, it’s the color of babies when they’re first born. Sometimes it’s the color of a sunset.”

She cocks her head, brows furrowed as she works out my puzzle.

“And I think it might be your favorite color,” I prompt.

“Pink!”

“That’s right.” I grab a pot and throw the roots in. “So everyone can have a pink dress.”

“Even you, Gretta?”

“No, not me.” We don’t have that much fabric. And I’m not sure I could wear so delightful a color as pink. The fabric would probably jump from my skin in protest.

I get lost in my work, watching the dye carefully before it merges from pink to red. Liddy perches on my stool as I work and asks me a million questions.

How do you make pink?

Do you think my doll can have a pink dress?

How come Papa doesn’t wear pink?

Yesterday I saw a squirrel; can squirrels see me?

Gretta, how come you always braid your hair?

Will my hair be long like yours some day?

Her questions never stop, just blend and merge to some new line of thinking. Amazingly enough, her scattered thoughts make perfect sense to me. Sometimes she sings, and I’m surprised to find myself joining her, remembering songs I haven’t heard since I was her age. She stands over the pots as I dunk the fabric in, her hands clapped together in front of her. When I pull a piece out, she clutches it in her fist.

"No, no,” I tell her, but it’s too late. Pink coats her entire hand. She scampers back to her stool. She stares at her hand, her wide eyes getting - unbelievably - even bigger. Huge tears well up in them, and my heart very well may drop out of my chest.

I throw the fabric over the line. “It’s all right,” I tell her. “Come on.” I lower her from the stool, even though she’s plenty big enough to get down on her own. Part of me just longs to pick her up as often as I can, holding her close and relishing her smallness. I smile. “Let’s go wash your hands.”

Not a big deal. Her stains wash off.

I take her hand and we walk to the main room, then head to the springs. We’re nearly there when voices bounce off the walls. Did I miss the ribbon being down? But no, it was still on its hook. I take two more steps and wonder if someone forgot, and we’re about to walk in on them bathing. But it’s multiple voices I hear. All men’s.

We round the corner and I halt to a stop.

There are men here.

Guards.

#

For two seconds I can’t breathe. Six guards stand along the spring’s edge. A scream erupts in my stomach, but I swallow it. I have to warn the others. I put my hand on Liddy’s shoulder and push her behind me, then take a step backwards.

Liddy darts forward.

“No!” I reach for her but she’s quick, slipping from my fist like a fish. My heart stops beating and everything around me freezes. Except for Liddy, her tiny legs taking her farther and farther away from me. She rushes into the arms of one of the men.

Nolan.

Nolan is one of the guards. I do a quick scan. The rest are men from here, too. I collapse to my knees. Oh Saints.

It’s not real. It’s not real.

Liddy is safe.

I sit back and force myself to breathe, willing the nausea to pass and my heart rate to return to normal.

Nolan carries Liddy and crosses over to me. “Sorry to scare you.”

“It’s all right.” It’s not. Good heavens, it’s not. Even now my heart is still flying so fast in my chest it may skip right out of my skin.

Nolan whispers something to Liddy and sets her down. She scampers up the tunnel. I watch her leave then turn back to Nolan.

“You’d best go on too, Gretta.”

There’s a sadness in his eyes. A solemn truth or fear that settles like dead weight in my stomach. It’s as if he’s resolved himself to something.

I stand and turn up the tunnel. When I reach the main room, I continue down to my workroom. Then keep going, groping in the dark and tiptoeing so the men can’t hear me coming from this direction. When their voices bounce off the walls, I freeze and press myself into the rock.

“Remember, three bells mark the changing of the shift. We won’t have long.”

That’s Nolan’s voice. I inch forward, straining to hear.

"Three drops are all it may take,” he says. “You have the vial, then?”

Another voice answers. “Yes. And you’re sure he won’t know?”

"Drakeroot has no smell,” Nolan answers.

Drakeroot. I picked drakeroot weeks ago for Liddy’s dress. Nolan had fingered the fabric and asked me how I made that color. Drakeroot grows along the river. I pointed it out to him. Drakeroot makes pink dye. Or red. Or it can kill you if you drink it.

Saints above. These people aren’t just rebelling against the King.

They want to assassinate him.

 

MARKS- Chapter 20

 Chapter Twenty

My life, I realize, is not that different from what it was weeks ago. I get up, I help someone with chores, then I go to work in a room full of color.

It’s reds and blues now, colors Nolan requested and that I have no idea what they’ll be used for. Blues are easy; woad plants are abundant in the woods, even this time of year. The men who go out hunting bring me back armfuls.

Red is an altogether different story. The drakeroot plants are few and far between and hard to pull up from the ground. Not to mention the stain it leaves on my fingers makes me feel like I constantly have blood on my hands. So I’ve learned to start with red, then finish with blue. It leaves my fingers purple and my heart not so weighed down with images I can’t forget.

I throw blue wool over the line as my mind blurs with words. I’ve read the newspaper cover to cover, looking for the Lyran sentences. I asked Nolan if I could try and point the ones out that were real. I took the first copy to him with six sentences circled.

He smiled and said only one of my guesses was right. And that there were twelve more hidden in the paper.

It’s absolute madness. What they’re doing is working for now, but how long will that last? Their actions seem so dangerous and so small at the same time, like steering a rowboat into a headwind. Are they really changing anything? They are careful and calculated. Not impulsive like the King.

Like me.

Guilt nags at me. Here they’ve shared their secret with me, and I hide who I am and what I know. I’m so different from Ward. He serves the King and yet fights him, as different from me as color is from a blank canvas. He’s tall and fierce, and I cower in corners. Truth pours out of him like rain from a cloud. And like a sky with no clouds, truth does not fall from me.

I pull a remnant of wool from the pot, the blue dye dripping off the ends. A small thing, but it comes from my hand, and unlike my words, won’t kill me or anyone else. Or get me kicked out of here. These rocky cavern walls have finally begun to feel like home. I don’t want to leave them. And what about these people? I haven’t talked to many beyond Ward’s family, but they’re all innocent here. And deserving of safety, surely, even if they can’t have a good life.

My stomach grumbles, protesting my decision hours ago to skip lunch. I roll my shoulders, the kinks between them popping like a fire. No smells of dinner have wafted down the hallway, so it’s too early for that. I’d love a walk outside but know I can’t pop my head out for fresh air whenever I want. A sigh looses itself from my tight chest, and I lean against my worktable. This room is squat and fat, whereas the room with the printing press is long and narrow. How many other rooms are buried right under the King’s nose?

I peer down the room’s edge, where it narrows to a darkened abyss that leads who knows where. My fingers twitch as I stare at the dark space where the room ends. Maybe all the tunnels connect.

No way but one to find out.

Within three steps of leaving the room, I can hardly see in front of me. I press my right hand to the rock. If I get lost, I need only to turn and press my left against it and get back where I started. Easy enough.

Three steps later I’m plunged into total darkness. I could go back for a torch, but that would signal my presence. For all I know I could be heading somewhere the married couples retreat for some privacy. There are enough young kids here that somehow they have to get made.

I breathe deep through my nose and take tiny, calculated steps, my feet lightly scraping the rock underneath me as I search for my footing entirely by feel. The rocks grow damp and the air hangs humid, smelling of moisture and secrets. I continue on and when I round a turn, light pours into the tunnel. It’s faint, but I tiptoe toward it. And finally, the tunnel ends and the springs spill out in front of me. Across from me is entrance I know of on my left, where a torch in the wall illuminates the water. I suppose this back way isn’t mentioned so people aren’t spied on while they bathe.

I take two steps forward, relishing the heat in this room and how for the first time in years I actually feel warm. Filled up. Large rocks stand before me - that’s probably why most don’t know this tunnel is here. I bet from the water you can’t even see it. I’ve only been in the water a few times since I first got here, which was what? Seven, eight weeks ago? The warm spring water is something I could indulge in every day, but I’m too scared of someone happening upon me and seeing the marks on my arm. And a bath isn’t worth someone finding out.

A splash echoes across the water.

I dash behind a rock. Blast. Someone’s going to think I was spying. My cheeks flush with heat, and I hold my breath and listen. But no voice rings out. Just more splashes. I press my back to the rock and peer over the edge. I see nothing but ripples across the surface of the water.

Then someone starts to sing.

It’s an old folk song - one my Mama sang to me when I was little. The singer continues, his voice springy and smooth. Then an arm appears as the singer swims into view.

It’s Ward.

I didn’t even know he was back from the city. Though it’s been a couple weeks since I’ve seen him, so it makes sense he’d come. His arms cut through the water as if it were nothing, just another thing Ward refuses to let stand in his way. His face bobs in the water and he smiles as he sings. He reaches the end of the spring and turns around.

I should turn and leave, but instead I’m mesmerized by his arms slicing through the water and how he sings as he swims. He ducks his head under, and when it pops up he’s standing - and thank the Saints - is facing the other direction or else he’d be staring right at me. He runs his hands through his hair, and even wet, his hairs tangle and pull in different directions. I press my hand to my mouth to keep from giggling. Hard muscles crisscross his back, and that’s when I realize Ward is naked.

Saints above.

Of course he’s naked. Who wouldn’t be naked when they thought they were alone taking a bath? My eyes zero in on the water lapping at the very bottom of Ward’s back. If he were to stand on his toes…

I close my eyes. Skies above, Gretta. I tuck myself back behind the rock.

Ward’s voice echoes across the water. “I know you’re there.”

Heaven help me. So much warmth floods my face I feel as though I’m on fire and need to douse myself with water. But the only water here is hot, and currently housing a naked boy. And there is no air in here! I tug at my collar and wonder why my neck feels forty times the size it normally is.

“Well,” his voice calls out again, “you going to hide all night or come out?”

I bite my lip and peel myself off the rock then step out, my gaze skimming the water before it gets to Ward. He’s facing me now, and thank everything above us, he’s dipped lower in the water and all of him is covered.

“I’m so sorry.” I nod to the tunnel behind me. “I was curious where the tunnel went. I didn’t know you were here. I mean, I didn’t know anyone was here. Or where I was.” Good heavens, Gretta, could you sound like any more of an idiot? “I’m sorry.”

Ward raises an eyebrow. “We should make you a guard with those kind of stealth skills, Sparks. You’d make a good assassin.”

My cheeks, though I thought it impossible, flame even hotter. He keeps standing still, wearing nothing but the ripples of the water lapping against him. Nothing on him but his bare chest and his tousled hair.

And a grin.

I tear my eyes from him and stare at the rock ceiling above us. When silence falls I motion to the tunnel. “I’ll just go back.” I pick up my skirts and turn.

“No, wait.”

I spin back to Ward.

“You don’t have a light,” he says.

“That’s all right.”

He motions to the torch behind him. “If you wait till I’m done, you can have that one.”

The thought of staying here while he swims naked makes my head spin. I force myself to look at his face. “I got here just fine without one,” I tell him.

He nods. “All right. If you’re not in the room when I get back, I’ll get a torch and some rope and come find you.”

He grins, and I nod. I get an image in my head of Ward coming for me. Chasing me. Of someone finding me in the darkness I keep myself in. If I were a cavern, would anyone plunge through the darkness to find me? I’m staring at Ward, all grin and water beading off his skin. Him all light, and I’m that dark cavern. I pick up my skirts again. “You won’t have to,” I tell him. “I can find my own way.”

####

 I practically run back through the tunnel then come to a halt as soon as I see the light from my work room. Nolan could be in there checking the fabric, and what would I say if he saw me burst out of the tunnel and asked where I’d been?

 

Oh, just spying on your naked brother-in-law.

Great skies above.

I shimmy along the rock wall and find my little room silent and empty. I scurry from the room, praying to every Saint in heaven that no one ever knows about what just happened. If there was a kingdom of misfit idiots, I would surely be its queen. Parades would be thrown in honor of my blunders.

Calm and slow, Gretta. I take calculated steps and join Blair in making dinner. Boiled potatoes again. There’s been hardly any meat for weeks now; what little kills the men get is eaten in rotation by each family. I help her scoop food on plates then sit just as Ward emerges from the tunnel. Water clings to the tips of his hair. He tosses his towel on his trunk in the corner, and settles his large frame onto a stump across from me. Stupid me, I actually look at him.

He grins, his smile stretching ear to ear. Something bubbles up inside me, a sign I shall either giggle like an idiot or burst into laughter at the absurdity of myself. I put an entire potato in my mouth. That will choke you out, you blasted bubble of laughter.

Blair hands Ward a plate. “Have a good bath?”

"It was delightful.” He takes the plate and settles it on his knee. “Best alone time I’ve had in a while.”

 

The potato I’m chewing gets lodged in my throat. I cough, the laughter or giggle or whatever it is, forcing its way out past the food in my mouth.

Blair sits down on the log beside me. “You all right, Gretta?”

I nod and swallow down both the laugh and the half chewed potato. “Yes. Just got something stuck in my throat.”

“Maybe you should try singing,” Ward says. “I do that when I need to get stuff out.”

His brown eyes hold no glimmer, and his face is so serious I can’t tell if he means it or is a really great tease. Does this lumbering boy have no shame, about anything? Not about being a guard, or loving his family, or being so casual about the fact I just saw him naked as a newborn baby?

I retrieve a small smile from my arsenal of false emotions and paste it on, then bend over my plate, careful to chew my potatoes this time. They are tiny and bland, same as always. Same fire, same potato, same meal. Nothing in this kingdom is going to change. I watch Liddy as she sits before the fire, her plate sitting on her lap. She’s spent most of her life in this cave. Is this all she’ll ever know? Other families linger in front of their fires, every stump and log occupied. What happens when these families keep growing and there isn’t room enough for them to hide? Or worse, what if the King uncovers this cavern with its secrets and it becomes nothing more than a tomb?

These past weeks I’ve thought that’s all this place is: just a tomb of the living dead. But there’s more life here than I’ve wanted to admit. I see it everywhere. In the smile on the women’s faces as they watch their children play tag. In Blair’s eyes when she gazes at Nolan across the fire. Right under the King’s nose, these people have kept on living, and living well.

Shame settles deep in my belly. I haven’t lived a good life. I’ve run and cowered and let him stop my life. And the truth is I’m jealous. I’m jealous of Blair cooking meager meals over a fire whose smoke barely leaves the room she sleeps in. I’m jealous of her loving her husband under the cover of blankets and darkness and laying her children to sleep on a cold rock floor. Because she’s living.

I don’t think I can say the same for me.

 

 

MARKS - Chapter 19

Chapter Nineteen

I stare up at the rock’s ceiling, shrouded now in darkness and the silence of night. Snores and breathing keep my thoughts company. I rehearse the truth of today over and over in my head.

These people aren’t Lyrans.

But they have found Lyrans.

And are using Lyrans and spreading news of the King.

And using words to oppose him.

Ward explained it all to me. The press not only prints news from other Kingdoms - truths our King loves to keep us ignorant of. But it also contains words from Lyrans. Things the King can’t change.

“What kind of things are they writing?” I asked Ward.

Buried in the jumble of names and random sentences are Lyran prophecies. Nothing outright, because the King knows about these papers and any sentence too bold would stand out. There is no John Mavery’s shop will never burn down, for that would be too obvious. But there are smaller things. Gideon’s boat will cross the river tonight. Seemingly innocuous, but the truth was that Gideon was sent to spy on the prince of Faraday. A boat was his only way in or out. And surely it would be discovered and he would have no way to escape. But writing about the boat meant that he would.

And now we know the alliance with Faraday is a farce.

Not surprising.

Most suspect the King can’t conquer Faraday because of a Lyran’s words written when the war was in full swing. So he can’t conquer Faraday, but maybe doesn’t know that yet.

But if he’s trying for something under the pretense of an alliance, he must know about the words, and that he can’t take Faraday by force. So what is he planning?

My brain is a twisted mass of knots trying to figure it out.

I wonder how many Lyrans they’ve found, and if any of them know me. It wasn’t until the war that we clumped together in groups, trying to protect ourselves from the King and those in the Kingdom who thought him justified in using us as weapons in his arsenal.

I roll on my side and stare at Ward, my fingers clenched around my left forearm, as if even under my clothes and the cover of darkness my marks will show. I can’t let them. I am a weapon the King cannot get his hands on. And Ward doesn’t need me. He has his Lyrans, hidden in the city and in outlying farms; contacts Nolan and the other men visit to get their words. Everything is running well, and I can stay safe. Hidden.

I wake feeling like I’ve been dragged across the open land on my back. The morning lingers, and I stare at my workspace. I wipe down the table and clean out pots and consider doing it all again just to stay busy. Lunch comes and goes, and when I can take it no more, I wander down the tunnel where Nolan and Ward and other men are working. Those running the press only glance at me when I walk in. Ward is perched on a bench, and Nolan stands, intent on whatever is in front of him.

I peer over Nolan’s shoulder. It’s not one of their papers. Instead, the Lyran poem is printed in thick block letters.

Oh writer of fate

take heed with thy pen,

What once written down

not unwritten again.

Weight of words, their power you know -

Twice then skip once

Shall reap what you sow.

The deaths of seven

The saved lives of three -

The marks of each

forever on you will be.

Words passed down for generations; a sealing of my fate I’ve heard since infancy. I exhale and relax my facial features. No tells, Gretta. Don’t give anything away.

I peer up at Nolan. “What are you trying to find?”

"Something we’ve missed.”

 

“A missing line or stanza, you mean?”

“No,” Ward says. “We know this is all of it. We’re looking for a hidden meaning. Maybe part of it is a riddle. Maybe the Lyrans have more power than we know.”

But they don’t. Our limits are too strong. As well they should be. Saints above help us if we didn’t and a Lyran as evil as the King came to be aware of his power. I sit down beside Ward. “Tell me what you know.”

“Well, we know Lyrans have their power. We also suspect they have limits.”

No blasted kidding. I keep my eyes open and curious. “Like what?”

“They can only kill seven, and can save only three. And they have marks on their arms accounting for each.”

My fingers itch to skim over my forearm and I swallow the urge.

“They can’t undo what another has written,” Nolan says.

The nausea in my stomach swirls to life again. No, we can’t.

“Their words can’t be destroyed. And their real names have to be attached to it.”

With power comes ownership of its consequences. My mother’s voice echoes in my head, her voice urgent. I rub my forearm and force myself to breathe.

“What we can’t figure out is this line.” Ward points to it on the paper. Twice then skip once.

“It means the Lyran power skips a generation,” I tell him. “Twice - that means it shows up twice in succession. Then ‘skip once’ means it skips one generation before continuing.”

He stares at me wide-eyed. “How do you know that?”

I give him a small, oh-so-very-innocent smile as the lie slips from my tongue. “I knew a Lyran when I was young. She knew what the poem meant.”

Ward studies the paper with renewed fervor. The truth of those lines settles the anxiety that always seems to be lingering inside me. I love what they mean, and am thankful that should I ever have a child, she’d never have this power. They can’t breed my power through me, though if the King found a way to live forever, he’d lock me in a cell and have me raped and bred, and my daughter raped and bred to get what he’s looking for.

I think of my power: what I could do with my words and how I haven’t done anything with them. Not really. I’ve been too scared of being caught. Fear and dread send words out my mouth before my mind can stop them. “Are any of the people here Lyran?”

“No,” Ward says. “It’s too dangerous. If the King figures out a way to find Lryans, they’d find us.”

Horror washes over me, a shower of shame I take way too often. “How often do you get these papers out?” I ask.

Ward looks not to me, but to Nolan, who nods his head. Ward turns to me. “About every six to eight weeks. It takes time to get all the words together and get them printed.”

“And do you do it to help Lyrans or to fight the King?”

His large frame bends over the words of my people, but his face in front of mine is intent and earnest. “Is there a difference?”

There is. I wonder why Ward can’t see it. “You use the Lyrans for the power they give you.” There is bite to my words that I cannot temper. Is he just like everyone else, wanting to use us?

Ward’s eyes darken, a brown so deep I don’t know the word for the color. “My parents were Lyran sympathizers because they thought no person should be used as a weapon. They were discovered hiding Lyrans in our cellar, and killed.”

I hug my knees to my chest, my heart weeping inside me. Poor Ward.

"I’ll fight the King until the day I die,” he says, “and do what I can to protect them.”

 

Them. Lyrans. His family. So many Ward feels responsible for. He doesn’t have to save everyone.

Maybe no one’s ever told him that. I open my mouth, then shut it, turning my words instead to myself.

I study Ward’s hands. Hands forced to do whatever the King wills. Ward goes to work every day, never knowing what he’ll be made to do, or what will happen if he refuses. He maintains his cover not just to save his own skin. But to save his family. His friends.

To save me.

Ward turns his attention back to the poem, and shame settles over me like a blanket. All I’ve done is hidden away, while every day he walks right through the doors of our enemy’s house.

 

 

MARKS - Chapter 18

 Chapter Eighteen

Ward, Saints bless him, says nothing about me slicing him or collapsing into his arms like a weak-willed idiot. And to further add to his gentle manner, he leads us back through the rear entrance, right to the tunnel full of my dyes and cloth. My own dyer’s guild. A haven.

He settles on a bench. I start mixing dye, half out of habit and half out of a need to do something. Besides, it can’t hurt to have more on hand.

I collect what I need, my actions awkward and stilted, like I’m moving through water. Ward doesn’t say anything. I could, but have no idea what. Comment on the weather? Ask him about his family? Everything seems either a door to something painful or an avenue on which my secret will get exposed. And then I’ll endanger them all. They’ll kick me out for fear the King will find them with me. And what if I do? What if he finds them because he’s looking for me, and all these people die? My hand shakes so badly I knock over one of my bowls.

Great Saints, Gretta, calm down.

Ward takes the dagger in his hand and begins sharpening it. The sound of metal against the whetstone fills our silence, and my fingers find their rhythm. Soon I’ve mixed everything I need and bring the dye to a boil over the fire.

I glance at Ward, who remains bent over his blade.

“Is Blair your only sibling?”

He lifts his head. “I had an older brother. He died from plague when I was just a baby.”

Not surprising. Nearly everyone in Dracon lost someone they loved to the plague. A plague a Lyran wrote. It was a mistake. An accident. Something caused by words the writers of which couldn’t anticipate. How many people have died because of the power of the Lryans? I think of the black marks on my own forearm and am too terrified of the answer to that question to give it more thought.

I don’t know what to say, because nothing can make death and suffering all right. “I really like your family,” I tell him.

And you, I want to say, but don’t because as relaxed as my muscles are, my tongue has certainly not eased out of its tension. I can’t find my words around Ward, something that drives me to madness. Surely he’ll think me an uneducated idiot who can’t string two sentences together.

“My family likes you,” he says. “Especially Liddy. I think I’ve given you a four-year-old shadow,” he says. “I guess now you can say you have a little sister.”

His words are like a thunderclap, and they startle me so much I can’t move, my hand frozen over the pot. A shudder possesses my body, a tremble for each place in me I have fear. Which is all over.

“Gretta?”

I hear Ward set the dagger on the table. My knees shake underneath my weight. I do have a little sister. And two brothers.

I did have them. All of them, once.

My breaths come out ragged and choppy, like my anger does when it mixes with the horror of my memories.

Ward stands in front of me. “Gretta?”

I stare at the dye on my fingers and look up at him. “My brother Lucas was four.” I cover my mouth with my hand, sure I’ll vomit or cry and I’m not sure which, but I need to keep it all from coming out.

Ward places a hand on my back. “He died?”

I press my hands to my side and nod.

“The plague?”

The King and his evil are a plague, so I suppose that’s true. And I can’t speak about what really happened. So I nod my head. “Yes.”

“I’m sorry, Gretta.”

“You didn’t kill them.”

Ward grabs my chin and forces my eyes to his. “Neither did you.”

My chin quivers in his hand. Bile swishes around my stomach. The King took everything from me. “I hate him.”

Ward drops his hand. “I know.”

My body shudders, as if my anger is boiling inside me. “Is it wrong to wish someone dead? And not just dead, but a horrible, torturous death?” I press my hands to my face, surprised at how clammy and cold I am. “I wish I could make him disappear.”

Ward studies me a moment. “Maybe you can. Come on.”

He heads farther down the tunnel, away from the main room, and I follow him. The light from the torches dims as we move further away, and soon we’re enveloped in darkness.

“Ward.”

He stops and I nearly crash into him. His hand gropes for mine and when he has it he tugs me along. I try not to get lost in the darkness, or the feel of Ward’s hand enveloping mine. Soon light spills out the other end of the tunnel.

“How far does this go?” I ask.

“It doesn’t,” he says as he steps into a room and drops my hand. “It connects to the room beside it.”

I hardly hear what he says, because all my senses are focused on this room. Papers are stacked on crates and boxes along the wall. Stacks and stacks of paper. And on a long wooden table in the middle of the room is a printing press.

Ward beckons me closer.

I step toward the table, my heart thundering in my chest. “You’re printing papers?”

Ward nods. Saints above. This is the underground printing ring the guard was talking about. The one who was in my house that day. With Ward.

“The King has control of everything that’s written in Dracon,” Ward says. “The only way to spread the truth is by printing a paper he at least can’t find.”

But he could find it here. And if he did…

“But why? Why not just get your stories around verbally?” My heart constricts and it’s like a dagger piercing me. “There’s no risk doing it that way.”

“It’s not about eliminating risk, Gretta. It’s about getting rid of evil.”

He takes one of the papers and gives it to me. There’s no name or title. Just columns and columns of words.

“Look at the words, Gretta.”

I study the paper in front of me. All words in script. There are no stories or headlines. Just random names. Lists of births. Of deaths. But all randomly thrown together. A puzzle?

I look to Ward but he just stares at me. I study the paper again. The sentences make no sense. There’s no order or cohesiveness. It looks like a bad print, just a jumbled mess of words. But it’s not. I stare at the words until they blur. What am I supposed to be seeing?

“Count the words, Gretta.”

I count one, then another. And another. Seven. All sentences of seven. Great Saints.

“You’re hiding Lyran sentences in here?” The air has been sucked from the room. I try to take a deep breath but can’t. Does he know I am one?

“Yes,” he says. “They’d never find it in here.” He turns to the press. “We make the letter blocks from their handwriting. We weren’t sure it would work, but so far it has.”

Lyrans are alive and writing. In things the King can find. “You have access to Lyrans.”

“A few. More each month.”

He turns the page over, and I grip the table as the room starts to spin. “How many?”

“About three dozen now.”

Three dozen? Great Saints. I didn’t even know there were that many in the King’s City. I grip the table harder to hide the tremble in my arms. “What are you doing to get them to do this?”

Ward freezes. “Doing? What do you mean ‘doing’?”

I stare at the paper then at him. “Lyrans are willingly risking their lives?”

He blinks twice. “We all are.”