Free Rise by Anna Carey

beam. “Our apologies, Princess,” I heard him say, repeating it as the figures ran toward us. “We didn’t recognize you in those clothes.”
    They escorted us on both sides, bringing us into the Palace’s main floor, where the marble statues stood, the women’s arms raised to the ceiling in greeting. But even after we were in the elevator, rising above the City, there was no sense of relief. I thought only of Moss, of the army coming from the colonies, wondering when and how I’d escape.
    I SAT ON THE EDGE OF THE BATHTUB, THE RADIO IN MY HANDS . I’d covered the small speaker with a towel, afraid Charles would hear it from the bedroom. He’d been on a site in the Outlands when the siege began and was taken back in a government car. A boy, no more than sixteen, had thrown a flaming bottle at a Jeep. He’d described how it broke against the undercarriage, igniting the seat, where two soldiers were. Even after Charles lay down for the night, he kept his eyes open, his face fixed in a strange expression. He stared at a spot beyond the floor, looking at something I couldn’t see.
    I twisted the radio on, turning it past the City stations and patches of empty static, to the first line Moss had marked in pen. A message cut the quiet, interrupted by an occasional low crackle. It was a man’s voice, stringing together several unconnected thoughts that would seem like gibberish to anyone unfamiliar with the codes. I tried to remember Moss’s directions exactly, the numbers he used to make sense of it. The message would repeat on a ten-minute loop, the second station providing the last portion.
    I’d tried to keep my voice steady as I asked Charles to arrange a meeting with Reginald, the King’s Head of Press. My father had gotten worse over the course of the day and was still bedridden. I’d said I wanted to offer a statement on his behalf. Charles hadn’t seen Reginald since the morning, and most of the soldiers in the Palace believed he’d gone to the Outlands to report on what was happening. I couldn’t leave the Palace tonight, as we’d discussed—not until I’d secured protection for Clara, her mother, and Charles.
    Everything felt wrong. I tried not to think, just copied the words from the radio, listing seven at a time down the page, as Moss had instructed. I wrote until my wrist hurt, my fingers cramped and sore, then twisted the dial to the next line Moss had marked.
    It took me nearly an hour, writing down the mumbled nonsense, then listening to it again—twice—to be certain I’d gotten it correct. When I was done I had two blocks of words, seven down and ten across. I set the papers beside each other, moving over every three, then every six, then every nine, recopying the words.
    I stared at them for a moment, these new sentences. I shut the radio off and sat there in silence. The colonies have backed out. They cannot provide support for the siege on the City.
    I held the radio in my hands, not quite believing it. The colonies weren’t coming. In one day, with one decision, the rebels had lost thousands of soldiers. What did this mean for those who’d already begun fighting? What did this mean for everyone inside the City walls? Moss had been so confident they’d come, that they’d provide the final push needed to secure the City. Everything seemed less certain now.
    I sat there, waiting to feel something, anything, but my insides felt hollow and cold. My hands were numb as I set the radio down. My pregnancy sometimes seemed more like a constant, all-consuming sickness than a child growing inside me. But since the siege began I hadn’t felt the heavy nausea. More than eight hours had passed. My stomach wasn’t tense and twisted. I didn’t feel anything, and that nothingness scared me. The doctor’s words kept coming back to me. He’d said it was still possible to lose the child, that