Eliuteria

Chapter 25

 Hours later, we'd left the city behind. A glance over my shoulder showed the tall buildings of Aurael behind us and in the night, seeing the city lit up the way it was, it was beautiful. That was never really a question, though. The city was a beautiful facade hiding the truth.

Even so, looking back at the only home I'd ever known left me longing. The city was where every awful memory I had too place, but it was also where I'd left every good memory I ever had. It was the only place where I could walk the streets and be surrounded by the memory of my father, where I cold practically hear Mia's laughter echoing down the stairwell. It was where I met Ro, who had seen me like no one else did, who had changed me... loved me.

"I really was foolish."

"Yeah," I agreed and Analiese chuckled. "But I can see what you saw. It really does look magical from so far away."

Her hand slipped into mine and squeezed once. "Are you okay, Lena?"

I thought about the way my left hand twinged in pain when she squeezed it, a reminder of what I'd been through. My face had a long scar down the side, something I hadn't realized was there until I was given the chance to shower and saw my reflection. I didn't even remember Juleen doing it, but I knew it had been intentional, it mirrored where I had scarred him. Without blood caked on my face, it stood out and I had parted my hair to the side so it would hide the ugly mark. The dark helped too, they would all see it in the light though. My body was riddled with them, scars from my time with Juleen, each sensitive still and I didn't know if it was permanent or if the pain would fade.

I had been threatened, I had been forced to do things that make me sick to think of now. I had been betrayed by a person I thought was my protector and the closest thing I had to a mother. I watched my favorite person in the world die and I would probably never see the person who taught me how to be happy again.

No, I was not okay. I couldn't imagine ever being okay again.

Pulling my hand from hers, I turned my back on the city. "We should catch up."

Out of the cover of buildings, and still miles away from the cover of the Voara forest, Ahren had insisted upon traveling by night. The moons were bright enough that we could see the way. Analiese and I jogged through the darkness until their shadowy figures came into focus.

"You good?" Ahren asked, studying me and I nodded. His chin jerked toward the others gesturing that I catch up. "Then keep up."

Biting my tongue, I jogged ahead of him and walked silently for a long while. The other girls quietly talked, wondering where we were going and what was going to be waiting for us when we got there. Analiese and Mia had planned to stop and hide at the lane Analiese's family lived on, but with our guides leading the way, they'd deemed it to be too much of a risk to stop. Under the circumstances, I agreed.

Without Faedra, it would take time for anyone to put it all together, but the missing girls would not go unnoticed for too long and Juleen would be a fool not to send someone.

She hadn't voiced any fears, but I knew the thoughts of what he would do to her family had to be at the front of her mind. Analiese had been sold to the paestra to make good on debts from a poor season for crops. Most girls in the paestra were there because they were orphans—wards of the Zashar like I had been or to settle family debts. Analiese's sacrifice kept her family fed.

When Juleen's men arrived I wondered if they would be killed.

I wondered if the Morri who owned the land they worked on, the ones that Analiese considered her friends, would protect her family. If they were who she knew them to be, they would.