Chapter One
Finally decided to take the plunge and post a full chapter! Here we go!
Word count: 2,200
Summary: Laura sneaks into an alchemy storehouse at night in hopes of finding a medicinal herb for her sick father.
Content notices: Mild violence, mention of illness, mild blood
Laura never thought she’d be the type to commit a crime.
And yet, here she was.
Against a clear night sky, the alchemy storehouse loomed like a great block of granite, its entrance attended by a solitary pacing guard. Laura watched from the shadows of the field beyond, concealed amid a patch of dusty desert weeds, her spine burning from the strain of prolonged crouching. Clutching the heavy stone was cramping her hand, but patience was key if she had any hope for success tonight.
The guard’s dull yellow Glow lantern, hanging from a hook on the building’s face, did its best to fend off the gloom of the moonless night. Intuitively, Laura knew the field she hid out in was little more than a black void, but the night-vision tonic she’d taken kept fooling her; she could make out the cracks in the dirt beneath her feet, could count the twigs on the skeletal stalks around her as though a full moon shone overhead.
She watched as the guard approached the nearest corner of the storehouse before turning on his heel to march back, and Laura’s grip tightened around the stone, its jagged edges biting into her palm.
Almost.
As he reached the far corner, she seized her moment, rising up and hurling the rock as hard as she could. It sailed through the air, arcing over the field to a spot near where the guard stood.
With a thump and a rustle, it made contact with brittle shrubbery, and sure enough, the guard’s attention snapped toward it.
Now!
Laura darted from her cover, acutely aware of her footfalls pattering on the dirt as she hurried forward, pinning her knapsack to her body to silence it, making for the side of the storehouse. Giddiness fueled her as she sped across open land, not daring to look in the guard’s direction, not slowing her pace until she was tucked snug against the dark northern wall.
From here she crept silently alongside the building, staying deep in shadow. There might be another guard stationed at the rear entrance, but with any shred of luck, the first one wouldn’t raise the alarm.
At the corner, she knelt low, peering around slowly. This side was also lit by a hanging lantern, but to her immense relief, no one was back here. At least, not at the moment.
Still, that meant the first guard was responsible for watching back here, too, or there were others nearby. A stable and another low building were positioned in such a way that if someone inside looked out, they could easily see her.
No time to lose.
Unlike the front entrance, which was a standard door, the rear entrance was big enough to give entry to animal-drawn supply carts, closed off by a pair of massive wooden gates. An iron chain wound tightly between the gates, held fast by a heavy padlock. Laura approached, nodding to herself, and fished a set of lockpicks from her bag.
All week, she’d gathered every lock she could get her hands on in preparation for this moment, working at them for hours until she could’ve picked them in her sleep. Never mind that this lock was twice as big as those. That was just another of many hurdles to overcome tonight.
The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on her as she fumbled with the greasy contraption, trying not to jangle the chain. She’d spent the last six years of her life in the Silver Guard, a faithful servant of the law, busting petty criminals for...
Well, this.
And yet, here I am.
She couldn’t afford to feel too bad about that now, though. That could come later.
With a heavy click, the lock popped open, and Laura exhaled, realizing she’d been holding her breath. The chain threatened to slide out of place, but she caught hold of it before it could make too much noise. She deliberately extracted it just enough that she could sidle between the doors and into the storehouse.
It was tempting to congratulate herself for this small success, but the job wasn’t done yet. She drew the gates closed behind her and turned her attention to the abyss she now stood in.
A broad skylight interrupted the middle of the ceiling, a dim sprinkle of stars visible through the glass panes, but the rest of the room was a jungle of silhouettes. She dug into her knapsack again, feeling around for her portable Glow lamp, as her enhanced night vision could only do so much in an area as large and dark as this. She pulled the little lamp out and switched it on, finding herself in an absolute labyrinth of towering shelves.
Oh boy.
She took a breath, inhaling the strange scent of the place—herbaceous, with a hint of horse—and reviving her determination. Lyusk root was the prize she sought, the key to alleviating her father’s incessant, painful coughing. Of the countless herbalists and apothecaries she’d visited in the last month, not a single one had the root for sale anymore, reducing her options to two: leave her father to suffer, or raid the stores of some high-profile alchemy company.
By that point, it hadn’t been a difficult choice. Now if she could only figure out where they’d stashed that damn root.
Her cylindrical lamp was designed to concentrate its Glow, but the cavernous darkness easily swallowed its faint white beam. She started down an aisle, checking crate labels, but some of the chicken-scratch print was barely legible. Squinting, she made out the words hyssop seeds on one.
The crates on the shelf beside it were labeled iceberry leaf extract, so she placed her bet on alphabetical arrangement. That meant she wasn’t terribly far from the lyusk root, assuming this place had some.
If it didn’t...
She pushed the thought from her mind and scanned labels as she hurried alongside the shelves, hoping she wouldn’t have to climb up high. Her pulse picked up as she skimmed the L’s: lavender...lion blossom...lotus concentrate...
Magnolia bark...
No!
Maybe it was up high after all. She took a few steps back, raising her lamp over her head to try glimpsing the labels on the upper shelves, but it was no good.
Taking note of her position, she went in search of a ladder, but before she could get far, a rattle echoed through the storehouse.
Someone was opening the gate.
Laura’s heart stopped. She fumbled with the lamp, switching it off, then knelt against a shelf in the dark, hardly daring to breathe.
“Okay, good try,” drawled a voice, echoing hollowly throughout the room. “I know someone’s in here. Let’s not make this harder than it needs to be.”
She could see the guard silhouetted in the thin gap between the gates, and to her dismay, he was flanked by two others. They, too, carried Glow lamps, but theirs were much brighter than hers, emitting long beams that cut through the darkness.
They split up, their beams swinging this way and that. As one set of footsteps approached Laura’s hiding place, she chose her moment and bolted, treading lightly as she wound her way through the maze.
She took refuge against a stack of crates near the exit. One guard still stood between her and freedom.
“I’ll make you a deal,” the guard called out. “Quit wasting my time and I’ll consider letting you go without reporting you.” Laura briefly considered the offer, but it was probably a bluff. She remained silent, trying not to breathe too hard or to let her nerves gain authority as she waited for her chance to escape.
The first guard’s lamp beam continued to probe into the blackness around him as he stood firm by the gate. Come on. You won’t find me like that. Any second now, one of his friends would make their way around a corner and spot her. She was stuck here until he decided to budge.
After what felt like an hour, he finally did, grumbling to himself as he made his way between two rows of shelves.
She sprinted for the gate. In her haste to get outside, her knapsack caught on the dangling length of chain, which emitted a deafening clatter as it slid to the ground.
Crap!
The guard’s beam honed in on the entrance just as she ducked away.
“Hey!”
Laura ran for it. Her heart battered against her chest as she skidded around the corner, trying to fight down her rising panic. They were pushing through the gate now. If she could make it into town, she could probably lose them, but she had to get there first.
Adrenaline spurred her forward, her hearing muffled by the rush of air in her ears. They were falling behind, she was sure of it...
And then, without warning, she collided face first into a brick wall.
Except the wall had hands, which closed around her wrists like a vice, resisting her attempts to wrench free.
“Alright, pal,” said her captor. “Fun’s over.”
Damn it.
The other two guards caught up, shining their blinding lights into her face, illuminating her failure. She squinted at them as defiantly as she could manage, and they responded by seizing her knapsack and tying her hands behind her back with scratchy rope.
“Nothing stolen in here,” said one guard, digging around in the knapsack. “Not much of a thief, eh?”
“Get her out of here,” said another. “Let the Guardians deal with her.”
They dumped her unceremoniously onto a rickety supply cart, and with her hands bound, it was a rough landing. A flash of white erupted behind her eyes as her head clashed with coarse wood, and after that, there was blood in her mouth.
It tasted like defeat.
Someone fetched a mule from the nearby stable, and a moment later the cart lurched into motion. Laura mentally cursed herself throughout the sore, splintery ride, trying not to think about the slew of problems she’d just created for herself.
Once they got into town, she was handed over to the Silver Guard as promised. As the official peacekeepers of the Tri-Realm Republic, the Guard were, to most, a symbol of leadership, protection, and upstanding citizenship. Laura grew up admiring that black-and-silver uniform and was ecstatic the day she finally got to don it herself, but at the moment, it was the last thing she wanted to see.
It was only a matter of time now before word of this incident got to her commanding officer. Before her own uniform was taken away for good. She cursed herself again.
“Alchemy storehouse, huh?” said the Guardian, mild amusement in her tone as she untied Laura’s hands. “Must be some fun stuff in there.”
Laura dropped her gaze, examining the prickly desert burs caught in the laces of her boots. “Yeah, yeah.”
“Where’re you from?”
“Silverton.” Laura sighed. “Listen, my mother’s name is Eva Alvez, and I suppose you ought to send someone to inform her of this.” Her mother was not going to be pleased with her, but better someone else broke the news first.
“You’re Senator Alvez’s girl?” said the Guardian, scanning her. “Oh yeah, I see it. Looks like the spikefruit fell a few miles from the tree, huh?” She paused to chuckle at her own joke. “Let’s getcha back to Silverton, then.”
The Guardian took her to the Rift station, which was fortunately quiet this time of night. There were still just enough people around to stare uncomfortably, though, as Laura’s chaperone took her to the front of the line and received clearance to the gate labeled ZASSK–SILVERTON.
Rift gates were the fastest way to travel long distances, and the only way to travel between realms. Suspended within a metal archway, the gate was a translucent, rippling surface, like an upright pool of water. Peering into it, Laura could just make out the blurred figures of people milling about on the other side.
She stepped through, momentarily engulfed in the familiar staticky sensation. Her skin prickled fuzzily, and not a second later, she was in the Rift station in Silverton, the capital city of the Republic and her hometown.
The Guardian led Laura to the local Guard post, though her feet reluctantly carried her there on their own. To her chagrin, astonished faces greeted her as her comrades realized tonight’s offender was one of their own. Pointedly avoiding eye contact, she let herself be escorted into the holding room, not at all in the mood to explain.
The small room was furnished with a half-dozen chairs, a low table offering a few recent copies of Republic News Weekly, and an off-white Glow lamp fixed high on the wall. In all of her years working here, she’d never known how stiff these chairs were.
Time crawled in the silence, making her acutely aware of her pounding headache and the smarting scrape on her temple. Not to mention the constant self-reminders that, for all the trouble she’d gone to tonight, she’d come away empty handed after all.
I’m sorry, Dad. I’ll get that lyusk root for you somehow.
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