Brightly Woven

harder. “You’ll help him get to the capital, you’ll do whatever he asks, you won’t look back.”
    “Do I have no choice in this?” I cried, as the wizard appeared behind my father. The smile on his face was small, but it was still there.
    He thought he was helping me, did he? He thought that he was doing me some sort of favor. A prisoner of my village or a prisoner of a wizard. What was the difference when you could not decide your own path?
    The sound of bells died out, only to be replaced by the sound of a hundred villagers emerging into the early-morning sky.
    “They’re here.” North was suddenly right beside me, taking my arm. I turned toward him wildly, hearing the sound of rolling thunder, of hooves.
    “What’s happening?” I asked. “What—?”
    “Sooner than expected,” my father said. He patted my shoulder twice, as he would a complete stranger. “Go before they find you here.”
    “No!” I said. “I don’t want to leave, not now!”
    North held my things as my father pulled me outside. He had a bag of his own, one I hadn’t noticed before. A fine mist of rain and fog cooled the flushed skin of my cheeks. I watched my mother, still expecting her to speak. She only looked away.
    Henry had come to find me. He was standing a short distance away from our door, his lip pulled back in anger, maybe disgust. I had never seen him wear such a hostile face—ready for battle. I tried to picture the boys I had grown up with in the dark militia uniforms, but the best my mind could conjure up was the image of Henry’s brothers playing in the mud, hitting their sticks against each other as if they were swords.
    The dirt and rocks trembled beneath our feet as the sound of galloping horses and hollering men reached our ears.
    “Go now!” My father pushed me toward the wizard. “Go!”
    “Saldorra!” a woman screamed, and it was all the encouragement North needed. He surged forward, shoving Henry to the side and taking me by the arm.
    “Delle!” I heard Henry shout, and then nothing more. A shroud of darkness wrapped around the wizard and me, and we were falling.

    The earth found us again, its jagged rocks and familiar dust breaking our fall. By the time my vision cleared, North was crouched in front of me with my loom and bag at his side, examining the scene in the valley below. The screams from Cliffton floated up to us.
    We were in the mountains, but how or why we were there seemed inconsequential. I watched as dozens of horses and men in hideous crimson uniforms overran the village below. They flooded the streets like a river of fire, moving among the scattered homes, encircling the crowd of people we had left only a moment before.
    “Did you know?” I cried. “You knew they were coming, you knew they’d—!”
    I couldn’t finish.
    I was too far away to recognize anyone. The soldiers disappeared into shops and homes, dragging the few lingering villagers outside. Chaos fell like a wall of sand, devouring everything at once. Troughs, buckets, pots, and vases were all kicked to the ground, the precious water inside wasted on dust.
    “Why are they doing this?” I whispered.
    “Your village has been dependent on Saldorra for bringing you water.” North cast a sidelong glance at me. “The soldiers need to camp here and wait for instructions from Auster about invading our country. They were planning on exchanging thewater for the villagers’ silence about them being there, which is why they can’t let the villagers have their own supply. It’s exactly what they did to Cloverton and Westfield. I warned your father last night this would happen.”
    “You warned him?” My fists lashed out blindly. I couldn’t tell my anger from my fear. “You were the one who led them here! They’re chasing you! You took that information—!”
    “Information that said they would overtake Cliffton and wait out the two-month deadline before invading the rest of Palmarta,” North snapped, catching my hands. “Listen to me! Saldorra is taking over the western villages and blocking all communication between them and the capital so the Wizard Guard and the queen won’t know their soldiers are invading from the west. Auster isn’t responsible for killing the king, and if I can convince the wizards of that, they’ll call our own war plans off! That’s why your father told us to go, because we can tell them! I have the proof they’ll need to believe us—letters, maps, everything. I need you to