Edvard finds Yuila.
If you’re just joining this story, you may want to start from the beginning. Read into the world of shadows and mirrors.
♫♪Suggested Music: from Uncertain Times on AudioNetwork
Edvard didn't go back to the inn. He stood in the street leading to the slave camp alley, undecided on several issues. He was unaware of the passersby that hurried on to the night's festivities, flowers hanging in leis on the women, and plume feathers sticking out of the men's caps and hats. Music filled the streets, seeming to mock the anguish he had left two alleys over.
He stood to the side of a darkened corner, hands balled at his sides, trying to remember the layout of the slave camp. He could come up from the woods, but by the time he got out of the city and found his way there, it would be nearly dawn. To approach from either end of the Derans’ quarters would be suicidal; it was too well-guarded and they may be expecting him. Trying to bribe the guards or buy Mina early again may only make the situation worse for her.
A low sobbing to his side made Edvard turn, then turn again. There was no one at first, and then Yuila slowly materialized at his elbow.
"Where have you been?" he demanded. He pulled her into the alley farther, hoping no one had witnessed her reappearance.
She sobbed louder, trembling and looking to him with a wet face. "They burned her foot, Edvard, because I ran away."
"What?" He knelt as she slid down the building wall, scowling at the girl's shaken demeanor. He took her elbow and helped her up. "Mina's foot?"
The story spilled out of Yuila over the course of the next hour. She talked while they made their way back to the inn room and as he ordered her supper and wine.
He understood most of her blubbering. The Derans had picked up both girls at the monkey show. Mina had insisted Yuila escape without her, but did not know that the Crone had never actually left the slave camp. Yuila had seen them hold the hot rod to Mina's foot, had seen the other women taken into the woods as darkness fell, and had overheard that the auction was set for noon of the next day.
Edvard listened carefully as Yuila ate little between sobs, downing two mugs of red wine. He didn't ask what happened to the girls that were taken into the woods, and she didn't ask him, saying only that the girls came back weeping and unkempt. He hoped she wouldn't ask him, but she did understand enough to beg him not to let Mina be one of them.
"I don't want her to cry," the girl said quietly, finishing the second cup of wine and pushing away her unfinished plate of supper in their small room. “I don’t ever want her to cry.”
He stood and sorted through their packs. Most were nearly empty, as their clothes were still with the laundress. He found a rolled cape. "Here. Sleep while I'm gone."
"But you can't get her tonight." Yuila wiped her face with her sleeve, sniffing.
"I'm just going to stay nearby." He muttered a curse he hoped she couldn't comprehend.
"I'm going with you."
"No. You're staying here to sleep. I'll check on you in the morning and then go back to the auction."
"I can't stay here by myself."
He paused rummaging through the packs to look at her in the muted lamplight. "Yuila, you crossed half a continent on your own. You can stay one night here where it's safe."
She shook her head. "But I'm alone."
He put another cloak in the hammock. "Look. Mina's cape. You sleep with it tonight and think about her."
She began to weep again.
"In the hammock. You wanted to sleep there. Remember?"
"I want to sleep in the bed with Mina."
She began another crying jag, and he sighed, picking her out of the chair and pulling her close. This was what he had wanted to avoid on this trip; anything that could be misconstrued as inappropriately rendered if the Crone told anyone about the trip. He did not want anyone from her village hunting him down after he returned her because of her clumsy-worded recounting of the trip.
At the moment, however, he wasn't about to let her sit forlorn while her surrogate sister was imprisoned in a slavery ring.
"I know you do, Yuila," he said as she sobbed against his shirt.
"We've always been together."
He hadn't thought of it like that, but she was right. They hadn't been apart since Mina had joined them. "She'll be back tomorrow." He patted the girl's head as her arms came around his waist. "I'm going now, Yuila, but you are going to stay here and sleep."
"But I—"
"Mina expects you to behave when she's gone."
She looked up at him, and Edvard wondered if she would really believe him.
"You need to sleep tonight, so that when she gets back we can all go to the bath house and soak for a few hours. All right?"
She nodded, sniffing.
"Good." He disengaged himself from her clutch and poured her mug half full of wine, then added some water from another jug. "Drink that and no more, then go to bed. Don't look out the door and stay away from the window. Understand?"
She nodded again, settling back at the table.
Edvard took his post in the alleyway that led to the Derans’ slave camp just short of midnight. He looked out over the five rows of young women and girls tied to the stumps, about thirty-five in all. He hadn't counted them when he first found Mina several hours ago, but he had made a mental note of the general amount as he searched for her. She was located in the center part of the rows, her ropes tied and taut as any of the others. The raw scrapes on Yuila's wrists had needed tending before he left the inn room, and it made him wonder about Mina's injuries and treatment under the hands of the Derans.
He also knew they were not of the same Derans that had pillaged the trade road several weeks ago. This group, these outcasts of the tribes, were more social, of a more pecuniary bend than the other nomadic clans towns fortified themselves against. This band would capture, sell, and profit from their contraband.
And Sel Deuo was a city that would accommodate such a trade.
Thanks for reading Sombra Mundus at Claire’s Fiction Updates! Let other readers know this chapter is out.
Thanks to P.G. Waters for the use of her story!