Free Dream Storm Sea by A.E. Marling Page B

denizens to the alleyways. Some passages had stairs, and light trickled down them. Hiresha knew the city had an upper level of walkways reserved for women. Those who could bear the heat of the rooftops walked to market without need of a chaperone.
    Hiresha spotted a stairway next to words painted in flowing letters. The sign translated to “relief for women.” A stink of offal and burning incense wafted from this alley.
    “Stop.” Hiresha pointed with one finger; the rest of her hand clenched the topaz. “I must use the facilities.”
    Arbiter Cosima glanced at the sign. “This is not suitable for a lady. Can you contain yourself until the inn?”
    “Affairs will become even more unladylike unless I stop here.” Hiresha remembered to press her knees together, the universal sign of desperation.
    A guard was soon untying the ribbons that secured Hiresha to the top of the camel. Hiresha swayed her way to her feet, stroked the fennec’s whiskered cheek one last time, and handed him to Spellsword Sagai.
    “I’ll return for him presently,” Hiresha lied.
    Naroh led the way up the stairs. Hiresha glanced behind to see Sagai passing the fox to an elite guard. The enchantress had a moment of piercing worry, but the spellsword stayed at the foot of the stairs. As Hiresha had suspected, some places a prince would not go, even a third son.
    Hiresha had often complained to the Academy chancellor about the lack of female guards. Women can be spellswords, and men enchanters. Hiresha was certain of it, though today she was happy for the discrimination.
    Not one of Hiresha’s guards followed her to the open-air hall. A series of holes in a stone bench buzzed with flies. A few women sat with their skirts up, talking, waving away insects. Naroh grasped Hiresha’s arm, and the maid positioned herself beside the enchantress on the bench. They had not gone so far from Sagai. The first shout from Naroh would bring him up the steps sprinting.
    Hiresha noted the second flight of stairs leading to the rooftops. She spoke in a low voice. “I’ve heard that happiness is a matter of perspective.”
    Naroh studied her own yak-leather boots.
    “For example, I could’ve killed you with this jewel.” Hiresha pressed the topaz against Naroh’s hand. “Instead, you’re merely rendered speechless and stuck to a latrine.”
    Naroh’s mouth clicked shut. She tried to stand, but Attraction enchantments bound her to the filthy slab. Her fingers splayed out to either side, and she could manage nothing more than outraged grunts.
    “You don’t look happy. Well, I don’t believe that perspective nonsense either.” Hiresha smoothed down her skirt and strode toward the stairs.
    One woman cringed at the struggling Naroh. “Poor girl. We’ve all been there.”
    “The peril of insufficient prunes,” Hiresha said.
    She reached the rooftops. The whitewashed stone gave Hiresha the sense she walked atop an angular cloud. Every surface blinded her. Hope had numbed her legs, and she felt as if she floated.
    I am free. No one is watching me. How blissful to be overlooked.
    Children led their mothers over paths worn black by sandals. One woman carried a table’s-worth of glassware atop her head. She smiled at Hiresha. Hiresha smiled back.
    This is happening. I’m escaping. Now to reach a high enough elevation for the wind to carry me away. Hiresha would Lighten herself, and the salty musk of the sea would whisk her inland, into the sky and freedom.
    The enchantress took woozy steps toward a tower. Its onion-shaped top shone like a second sun. A bridge arched from her rooftop to a middle level of the spire. She touched the tower's blue-tiled doorway to rebalance herself. Excitement throbbed its way from her toes to her fingers. Then she heard Sagai’s shout.
    “Hiresha! What’d you do to her?”
    The spellsword stood on the rooftop above the latrine. He leaped. He sliced through the air, crossing over three buildings in one enchantment-powered