Free Aeralis by Kate Avery Ellison

white, wild world.
    The stairs squeaked, and Raven appeared again at the top of them.
    “Better come up now,” she said. “I don’t want my parents to hear and get curious. They’re old and keep to their room mostly, but they aren’t deaf. They don’t know about my, er, additional loyalties. I’ll bring you dinner in your room.”
    I ascended the stairs, and she showed me to a cubbyhole of a room set beneath the rafters of the house. I tumbled into the rickety bed and shut my eyes, listening to the wail of the wind around the eaves of the house as I tried to calm myself. Raven returned after a short while, carrying a tray of dense bread and a bowl of thick, congealed stew that was mostly beets and carrots with a few slivers of meat. It seemed the Frost wasn’t the only place that had experienced lean years lately.
    “We’ll leave in the morning,” she said.
    “We?”
    “I have a feeling you’re going to get lost on your own.”
    I bristled at her implication that I wasn’t capable of finding Astralux by myself.
    Raven laughed. “Relax, Frostie. I have business in Astralux myself, and I don’t see why we shouldn’t go together. Like I said, we’ll leave in the morning.”
    After she left, I ate the food slowly. It was coarse but filling. When I’d finished, I lay down on the narrow bed. Exhaustion pulled at my limbs and eyelids, but my mind was restless and my blood warm with worry. When dreams came, they were filled with the Frost, and I woke with a whisper of foreboding on my lips.
    I dressed in the dark and fumbled for my things. Voices sounded downstairs, and I opened the door. But when I stepped into the hall, I stopped at the harsh tenor of the words below. Sweat prickled across my back, and my heart slammed in my chest as I peeked around the corner.
    Farther soldiers.
     
     

EIGHT
     
     
    RAVEN’S VOICE MATCHED the soldiers’ in intensity.
    “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she insisted.
    I pressed my back to the wall and inched forward to peer over the railing. Below, three gray-coated soldiers stood in the doorway, guns in their hands and scowls on their faces. Pale morning light spilled around them, illuminating part of the room and turning Raven’s face a luminescent white. She’d drawn a wool cloak around her shoulders, and her dark hair hung in disheveled waves down her back. She seemed younger, vulnerable. When she spoke again, her tone was pleading.
    “You’ll wake my da,” she said in a wheedling tone. “He’ll be angry.”
    “If I find spies in this house, your da will rot in His Excellency’s prison. That should worry him more than his lack of sleep.”
    “Look if you wish,” she said. “You’ll find nothing, I swear it. Go on, search all the rooms!”
    The soldier gazed at her face as if he could peel off her skin with the sheer force of his stare. She returned it, her expression equal parts defiance and fright. The soldier sniffed once in derision. He signaled to the others with a snap of his gloved hand, turned on his heel, and left.
    I exhaled in relief.
    Raven’s shoulders sagged as the soldiers slammed the door behind them. She pressed one hand to her forehead and sank into a nearby chair. I heard her mutter something under her breath, and her hands trembled as she pulled the cloak tighter around her shoulders.
    I stepped to the stairs, and they creaked with my weight. Raven turned as she heard me, and her expression smoothed as easily as butter across a roll. A smirk that was rapidly becoming familiar quirked on her lips as she looked up at me.
    “Did the soldiers wake you? They have a knack for that. It must be one of the requirements for recruitment.”
    “Were they looking for Thorns operatives?” I asked.
    She snorted. “They don’t have the foresight for that. No, they were looking for Restorationists. There are rumors of them passing through this area lately—rumors planted by us, of course, to give them something to fret about. The