Shadow Road: Book 1 of the Shadows Rising Trilogy

12. Things Fall Apart

17th of Uirra

I found a way to disguise myself. I simply erased my own existence. It wasn't even very hard – all I had to do was become another traumatized woman in a group of traumatized women; more specifically, a woman whose name was not Brenorra Warring.

The real Indaria Westerby, publicly known as Lady Pynnewoder, Duchess of Therne, would have died of apoplexy if she knew her given name had been stolen by a lowly Guildman's daughter. She would have then died of the plague, red fever, and scurvy if she found out it was the same Guildman's daughter who stole all her underthings and threatened to mail them to the boys at Havenwood.

I had never experienced such overwhelming guilt in my life.

Not for using Pester-Westerby's name. She deserved it. But after going over and over the events of the past month, I began to think – no, to believe – that these women might not have lost everything if my father had not been aboard the Galvania. Whatever he was caught up in, whatever dark secrets those papers contained, if those secrets could be assumed to be real, then these women had lost a loved one for it. None of them had come aboard the Galvania alone. Every last one of them was mourning someone. And there I was, hiding among them while my guilt kept whispering that if my father hadn't been on that ship – if I hadn't been on that ship – none of this would have happened.

I knew that, and still I said nothing. I hid and kept my mouth shut. Even my grief felt hollow. It was too convenient. If I hesitated too long before answering a question, I could blame it on grief. And because I could blame it on grief, hopefully no one would realize that I told a huge, whopping great lie to a Captain of the Coalition Navy, and that behind my blank stare I was scrambling to keep all my facts straight.

Now, a reasonable person might have asked, "Why would you lie to a Captain of the Coalition Navy?" And they would have a point. After all, he was supposed to protect and defend us all from the likes of Bloody NaVarre. I should have been able to trust him.

Well, this morning, during breakfast, all the civilians were informed that there would be a debriefing. We were to line up single file facing the doorway to the mess and take our turn answering questions. That didn't sound so bad. Neither did the first question the Captain asked: "Name?"

But then, see, he asked if we knew or had met an Arrix Warring.

If the woman who went ahead of me hadn't whispered to the rest of us how odd it was that the Captain wanted to know about a particular person, things might have gone very differently. I might not have lied, for instance. I might have thrown myself on the Captain's mercy and begged to be taken home, even if I had been on the Galvania illegally. Up until that point, I believed I would be treated fairly if I confessed.

Except that as the butcher's wife walked away, Teg whisper-shouted after her so everyone could hear: "Hey! Why does he want to know about a man named Warring?" and there it went, that familiar slither of apprehension curdling in my middle, that sickening up-tick in my heartbeat.

I decided then that I couldn't give my own personal details. That would only connect me to my father. If I was connected to my father, I would be connected to those dratted papers, and if I was connected to those dratted papers, someone might try to make me tell where I put them. And if I told the wrong people... No. Lying might get me clapped in irons for stowing away, but I would gladly have taken that over being identified as Brenorra Warring.

Thankfully, after the performance I just gave, I'm fairly sure the Captain only thinks I'm daft.

When it was my turn, I sat down in that folding chair in front of his desk, fully aware that I was staring at him like a haddock in a barrel, while once again trying to come up with something – anything – other than the truth. This time, though, I couldn't simply refuse to answer. This time I was giving information for a government record. If I wanted to avoid being imprisoned or questioned in depth immediately, I had to say something, and make it believable.