Shadow Road: Book 1 of the Shadows Rising Trilogy

1. An Unfortunate Beginning

3rd of Uirra, 1 year ago

I bit my lip, my eyes on my father. He hadn't moved in nearly half an hour. I wasn't going to get another chance.

Slowly, I reached down and eased the sheet of hotel stationery out of my boot. Father didn't stir, so I brought the paper up and pressed it flat on the hard side of the traveling bag resting across my knees. Still chewing my lower lip, I pulled the hotel fountain pen out of my stocking, and began writing as quickly as I could without making noise:

Aunt Sapphine:

We aren't dead. We're gone. There was an explosion at the warehouse. Everything is lost – the shipyard office, the dock, all of the outbuildings and equipment.

I stopped writing and stared at the words I had just scribbled. "Everything is lost" did nothing to describe the terror of waking up to the crash of Mr. Farspender coming in through my bedroom window because the hallway outside my door was in flames, but I didn't have time to get lost in nightmares. I blinked the tears from my eyes, took a shaky breath, and made myself keep going.

Thankfully, the explosion woke everyone before the fire spread, though now four hundred people are without an income, and two blocks of tenant housing were razed. Even our own beloved 466 didn't go unscathed. The fire jumped the square and kindled those overgrown bushes outside Father's study, and that whole end of the house went up. All of my clothing, all of my paintings, all the equipment I bought, all of Mother's things, all of it is gone.

The familiar red oval of the Tillerson's Emporium sign flashed by outside the coach window, which meant we were already passing Blunt Street. I snapped another glance at my father. He was still oblivious, so I began writing again:

We are on our way to the Colonies. Father's school friend has offered him a place in some business venture or other, and that has been the only option Father is willing to think about or discuss.

I believe he must be suffering from delusions brought on by smoke inhalation. There is plenty of employment to be found on the continent, but nothing I say or do can convince him, and we are currently in a public coach heading for Porte De Darre with barely the funds for two tickets to the Adropedes, and passage to Nimkoruguithu.

I'm worried.

I wish you had been here. Perhaps Father would have listened to you.

We passed the oxidized-green copper columns of the Tanners Street fountain. I wouldn't be able to finish everything I wanted to say.

Write to me at the Iron Dragon Inn, Lordstown-Over-the-Isle, Adropedes Islands. We should arrive there within a week.

All my love,

Grimly,

Bren.

I closed the pen, pulled the envelope out of my sleeve, and folded the letter into it without bothering to blot it. Then I slid it, blotches and all, into the pocket of my cloak and glanced at my father, my heart pounding just a little.

He was still sleeping.

Stomach knotting into a new lump of guilt, I sat back, my fingers moving automatically to my compass rose pendant, running it up and down its chain as I stared through the luxfenestre window. He had told me not to tell anyone where we were going, and I was about to willfully disobey him. I didn't want to, but did he really expect Aunt Sapphine not to care if we dropped off the face of the earth? Hadn't it occurred to him that she would be frantic? She was our only family. How could we simply transplant to the other end of the world without saying anything? I closed my eyes, fending off the niggling fear that something had come loose in my father's brain.

With a frustrated sigh I let go of my necklace, bracing myself as the stage rattled over a rut, sending our luggage bumping about on the rack above our heads. We had reached the city. The merchant's sector of Porte De Darre began rolling by, and I twisted the wiper knob to clear a skim of snow away from the panels of glass.

I had always loved Porte De Darre. There was a whimsical, sea-beaten ugliness about the place, with its salt-bleached boardwalks, and random, winding streets. My father's business was usually done in summer, when the eastern and western trade routes were open and people of every sort, from every place, filled the streets with color and music and a hundred different beautiful languages. As a child, I had spent countless hours playing on the wharves, talking to sailors and dock hands while my father worked in our Porte De Darre shipping office. The world had been much simpler then, full of fantastic new words to learn and things to discover.

Now I knew what red ink in a business ledger meant, just how many of those sailors and dockhands had been on our payroll, and how quickly everything could be lost.

As if to mirror the change in our fortunes, there was no color or music in Porte de Darre, now, either. In winter the population always dwindled to the local residents, and Barrow-Market Street lay still and cold in the early morning light, devoid of ware-hawkers and barrows, with only a few heavily clad people hurrying down the boardwalks.

I swallowed. We had become ghosts, sliding away without anyone to notice we were leaving.

Father woke as we reached Seawall Street and the road changed from old cobblestone to new pavement. He sat up and blinked around for a moment, then removed his spectacles, wiping them with the cuff of his sleeve before returning them to his nose.

He squinted through the window on his side as we passed beneath the unmistakable shadow of the Sea Gates. "Have I slept long?"

"Since New Sullyn," I said quietly.

"Oh. I apologize, my dear. What a boring trip this must have been."

I gave him a little smile, then changed the subject. "If we have time, I would like to go to Prattle's. I forgot to purchase a mending kit." Convenient excuse, that. Prattle's Sundries was right next to the P.d.D. Post.

"I'm not sure that's a good —"

"It will barely take a moment," I went on quickly. "I can be there and back before you're done at the ticket office, and prices are much better here than in Lordstown."

Father didn't look pleased, frowning and muttering about 'headstrong young women who forget things' as the stage pulled to a stop outside the Travel Bureau. I watched him until he gave me a sideways glare, then at last shook his head. "Fine! Go," he paused, then added a gruff, "But only straight there and back."

"Don't worry, I shan't talk to shady characters or gad about in dark alleys." Smiling, I opened my door and stepped down to the ground. My smile disappeared as I turned around. With a silent plea for patience, I straightened my skirts and headed for the nearest foot ramp to the shopfront boardwalk.

"Straight there!" Father called after me as he got out of the stage on his side.

"And straight back," I called over my shoulder, knowing from recent experience that he would be suspicious if I just hurried away. He probably didn't even realize he was doing it, but he was going to drive me mad before we even got to the Galvania.

Then we would both be crazy. What joy.

.................................................................

Luxfenestre: a foldable watertight window made of diamond-shaped panes of carbon glass.

Nimkoruguithu (nim-cor-oo-gwith-oo): Also referred to as Nim K; the largest city in the Coalition Colonial Region, a rough, nearly lawless place too far from Coalition influence to be kept properly under heel. More information found in the .

Lordstown-over-the Isle, Adropedes Islands (ah-drop-pih-deez): A city built across a string of small islands reaching out from the northern end of the Edonian mainland; the last stop before sailing across the Marral Sea to the colonies.

Porte De Darre (poor-tuh deh dah-reh); abrev. P.d.D