Page 8 of The Heart Trials

“Couriering. Very important delivery today. Now, sleep.” I smile to soften the stress that’s crept into my tone. It’s not her fault she has to be drugged instead of healed.

“I can come this time. I really do feel alright. We can stop by the stream on the way home. You said you would teach me to fish, remember?” Her brows furrow somewhere between mistrust and hope. “I won’t get in the way. I’m not a little kid. I’m eight years old.”

I imagine I looked at my mother the way she looks at me now. Each night my mother would tell me the same bedtime story about the power of hope. That nothing was impossible. Her optimism didn’t save her from an early grave, and I’m not naive—the only power I have is the power I make. There were many things my mother used to say that I don’t agree with, but the body heals best with lots of rest isn’t one of them.

“Not today.” I pull the blanket to Serafina’s chin and leave her there. She will be okay. I will make sure of it.

When I slip out of the door, eyes watch me descend the stairs. But I avoid looking at Miss Omon. When I reach the last step, her stare still burns my skin. I turn back. She’s already dressed for the day, her gray hair tied back, muck boots peeking out from her skirt tied between her legs. Her chest glows faintly with dregs of a sedative wearing off. She’s never been a good sleeper. The shame over giving Serafina a Heartfiller is written all over her face. But her thin mouth stays shut. As if saying a word might break her. As if despite all this time that we’ve been fighting to survive here, some things seem to never change. My mother would think of something encouraging to say, but I turn and leave.

If today’s smuggling goes as planned, Miss Omon won’t be forced to make impossible choices again.

My hands are slick. I tear the paper beneath the address and smudge the charcoal numbers on the back before shoving the rest in my pocket and rehearsing my plan to settle my nerves. Clear the morning’s checkpoint. Get tagged to enter Skyhaven. Gather my goods and contraband. Meet the customer. Buy some medicine from someone, whatever it costs, on the way home. Get to the docks by sunset. We could be on a ship by nightfall.

Mandatory checkpoint lines already wind through Dockers Row. I find a line with Mercyenforcers who look different from the ones I saw yesterday. When it’s my turn, I’m waved forward. They don’t question my crossed arms. When a Mercyenforcer returns the Heartfiller she was about to shove into my chest back in the barrel, I say, “I need to be tagged. I’m making deliveries to the Citadel today.”

She opens her hand for my courier schedule. My throat goes dry.

“I don’t have it. But look at the address on Citadel Hill. It’s a big order for the tournament.” I hand her the rip of paper with the address. She turns it on both sides, scrunching her brow at where I smudged off everything except the address.

“What happened here?” she asks.

I smooth my hands on my lowborn dress. “Sweaty hands. It had a name. It must have gotten rubbed off by mistake.”

She turns it once more. Every delivery loaded up for Skyhaven the last several days has been double stocked. The tournament brings all the Skyborns from across the island to the Citadel arenas to watch.

“Tournament or not, you should have a schedule signed by your docker with the delivery locations and inventory list of goods.”

My heart knocks into my ribs. This royal seal and address…I hoped it would be enough. If I don’t show up to meet the customer, and it’s legitimate, the opportunity could be gone. “You have to tag me. I have to—”

One of them grabs me by the jaw firmly, and my chain pinches the corners of my mouth. “We don’t have to do anything.” I force down the lump in my throat and fish out a gold coin from my purse. They hold their hands open. When my purse is half empty, they let me go.

“Good, saltrat.” They tie a pale-blue rag on my arm, tagging me as a lowborn. I resist the urge to spit in their faces. That would get me tossed into the sea, for sure.

Once I’m free of the morning’s checkpoint, I hurry back to the orphanage without going inside. Beneath our building, under a stone on the bank of the stream, is a hole. I collect my sack of stowed Heartfillers before hustling to the Dredge to grab my crates for the day’s deliveries: fish and clamshells. And now, hidden among them, my entire stash of Heartfillers—enough to buy my way off this island.

4

The Dredge’s sleek channel winds like a spine up the island, all the way to Skyhaven. I slip into my courier boat, heart pounding, crates of disguised contraband packed tight beneath the tarp, just as the embedded crystals along the riverbank begin to pulse—soft at first, then in steady, synchronized waves. The hull shudders. The current catches, boat lurching forward, drawn uphill like a tide pulled toward the moon. The water glistens the whole way. Fifteen days ago, on Heartfillers, it was mesmerizing. Now, traveling there, I feel ill.

If this is a trap…

If I am caught…

I can’t think like that. I can’t pretend like I have options. Serafina needs medicine. Soon. This offer for so much gold—if it’s not a hoax—won’t come again. This will work. It has to.

The sea is a blur in the distance when I reach Skyhaven. The air is thin, and it takes a moment to get used to. The highborn city’s stone walls rise above me, cold and unyielding, and it feels less like protection and more like a threat. The Citadel, which houses the palace, is in west Skyhaven, where many of my Mercyenforcer customers live, breaking rules by engaging in smuggling with me. Rules I’d be hanged for.

Once my boat is moored along the wharf, I heave my bags over my shoulder. I slip between a cleft in the stone beneath the walls of the city and lower myself underground into the sewers, the fastest way to get across Skyhaven. My sack catches on the jagged stone, but a rough tug gets it through. Pungent muck races beneath the city like a river rushing to the ocean. I follow the drainage tunnels past the rotting sewage with practiced, precise steps along the curbed perimeter, in the opposite direction of the rats.

The scent of flowers hits me, cloying, like spoiled meat wrapped in silk. It turns my stomach but tells me I’m close. In the Citadel there are no ration trucks, no labor stipends, and no homes held together by rotting wood and rusted nails. Skyhaven is mortared together to be impenetrable, stone upon stone, as if the walls around the highborn city surround people worth protecting. Evergild Gardens lies just beyond the Citadel gates, a sprawling display of privilege and perfume. It always reeks.

I won’t miss seeing this place.

When the tunnel veers sharply north, I search for a specific boulder jutting from the wall—solidly climbable. I spot it, wedge my boots in the pockets in the rock. Once I’ve hauled myself over it, I drop into a small hollow beneath a storm drain and immediately hear the city bustle just above me. Shoving my body through the narrow gutter crushes my ribs, but it’s the growing stench that makes me want to retch.

Once my feet hit the cobbled street, I dig out the fish and shells from my bag, carefully separating them from the Heartfillers, brushing away any bits of brine. I tuck the wrapped fillers into the storm drain, slipping them between the grates where they won’t be seen. Then, I head for the alley where a wagon waits. I fill it with the clams and fish, spreading them out like that’s all I have. Then, I drag a tarp over the rest. With a glance over my shoulder, I shove the wagon toward the edge of the city grounds.

The route leads me to the outskirts of Evergild Gardens, where a wreath of retail shops, eateries, and city residences glisten in stonework and glass. At Evergild’s center is a manicured sprawl of shimmering fountains and flowers so pristine it hardly feels real—a feast for the eyes. I tear my gaze away from the sunlight, but the shiny and serpentine path winds through a nest of bloomed florals like it knows I’ll follow, luring me like a secret. As if every detail of this place was designed to make me want what they have. I usually turn off here for the village where most of my highborn customers are. My deliveries don’t take me near the palace often. I’ve been this close to the Citadel maybe twice before, but seeing all this without a Heartfiller burning in my chest is like seeing it for the first time.