COMMAND THE TIDES - Wren Handman Page 0,27

to her feet. The two men were getting closer fast, and desperately she looked around for an avenue of escape. There was nowhere to run—the courtyard in back had no connections to her neighbors’ yards and the only way out was via two small paths that ran down either side of her building. There was no way she could reach them before one of the men caught her.

The first man, who seemed to be in charge, drew a long knife from his boot. “Get the horses. I’ll get the girl,” he instructed his companion in Sephrian, who immediately ran to obey.

“You think you can take me?” Taya snarled beneath clenched teeth, struggling for a tone of bravado she did not feel. He gave a short, barking laugh, and switched the blade deftly from his right hand to his left; no doubt partly to show off, but also likely to make grabbing her easier.

“I don’t think it will be a problem,” he told her in her own tongue, Sanitas. “Now why don’t you stop playing hero, before you get hurt.”

His accent was strong but he knew every word, and when he spoke, his teeth fair gleamed in the firelight. This was no hired hand, but someone of rank and station. She would never get anywhere in a fight with this man, not even if both her hands weren’t tied behind her back. She moved behind the pump, even its meager protection worthwhile.

“Something! They’ll be here something something,” the man with the horses hissed, and the man in charge lunged for Taya, who stumbled away from him around the pump.

The feeling of playing a game of tag was a dizzying mental dissonance, and she wanted to laugh from the sheer exhausting terror of the whole thing.

She heard a faint noise, almost a whistle in the air, then a sound like a slap of skin on skin and the man chasing her screamed, startled and pained. She turned to see him, tripping over her own feet and falling as she did, her head hitting the ground with a sickening thump. Stars appeared in front of her eyes, and through them she saw the man pulling a knife out of his shoulder, moving and looking at the same time in trained precision. Metal hit metal as he knocked another knife from the air, retreating now, back toward the horses. It all happened so fast, and she was having trouble breathing, and there was Ryan framed in the window. He caught the edge of the window ledge and dropped to the ground, rolling with the fall and coming up into a perfect crouch. The man he had wounded reached his horse and mounted easily, despite the trail of blood he left behind. Ryan spared Taya only the briefest of glances before pivoting perfectly on his feet and taking off in pursuit of the retreating horses.

Taya heard noises from the front of the house and wanted to cry out, but she still had no breath and the world was starting to spin in sickening circles. She heard the sounds of things in the kitchen crashing to the floor, and then it seemed like the yard was full of figures: men from the house, yelling in Sephrian; neighbors screaming for the fire brigade; dogs barking; a woman screaming. Everyone was washed out and turned to puppet figures by the flames and her exhaustion. She felt like she had to remember something very important, but she couldn’t, and when she stopped trying the whole world was tilted, like a picture hanging crooked on the wall. She realized she had fainted, and someone was calling her name and someone else was screaming, and her house was truly aflame now, the heat enough to dry her face and parch her lips. Someone helped her to her feet—Antoine, the butcher from across the way. She looked around, desperate, ignoring his question.

Darren and the others were gone.

And her freedom was burning. The home she had risked so much for, all those dreams that she had made come true…burning. Antoine was helping her out of the ropes that still bound her wrists, asking her questions, but her freedom was burning, the smoke reaching out to cover the stars; she was spending all her efforts not to cry, and she could do no more.

Antoine led her like a lamb to the front of the house, away from the immediate danger. A crowd had formed, people bringing water from everywhere they could, the fire brigade