Ignite the Sun by Hanna Howard

Author:Hanna Howard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Blink
Published: 2020-06-17T00:00:00+00:00

31

CHAPTER

I crept out of the Dells’ barn as soon as I could sense the sun rising beyond the Darkness the next morning, wearing my cloak, deerskin jacket, and Linden’s old leather trousers. Bronya’s scarf was wrapped several times around the lower half of my face and my neck, and I had rubbed dirt into the visible skin around my eyes so my freckles wouldn’t draw attention. I pulled my hood low, hair wrapped in a linen scarf beneath it, hiked the rucksack higher on my back, and set off.

Despite the danger, I had decided to take the Queen’s Road north, continuing toward the rebel camp, rather than search the forest for my friends. If they were dead, their bodies would have been taken to the queen as proof; and if alive, Yarrow’s magic would most likely keep them hidden. But they would be looking for me. I resolved to leave them clues and hope for the best.

The first afternoon, as I was walking between two fields of scrawny-looking cornstalks in the hazy half-light of the day, I felt and then heard the shudder of hoofbeats approaching behind me. I looked wildly around for someplace—anyplace—to hide, spotted a stile in the weathered stone wall of one cornfield, and sprinted off the road.

Vaulting over the stile, I stumbled upon landing and threw my momentum toward the scrubby weeds beside the wall. I fell with a crunch and pressed myself as close to the cold stone as I could. Golden light seeped from my skin, and I heaved it back inside with a monumental effort.

In moments the cacophony of hooves was level with my hiding spot—twenty or thirty horses at least, by the sound—and my heartbeat matched their pace. But they did not so much as pause, and after another few moments lying trembling with my face in the weeds, they had gone. I lay in the silence a long time, then finally, still shaking, pushed myself up. Sitting with my back to the wall, I breathed in and out as steadily as I could.

Coward, I thought, shame trickling in as my fear ebbed away. I knew it was not foolish to hide, since even disguised as a boy I might be stopped and questioned, but none of those rational thoughts had driven me to fling myself over a wall and lie quivering in the dirt. That had been pure, raw fear, controlling me like a puppet. The light was proof of that.

I thought of what Elegy had said that day in the forest: Being afraid doesn’t make you a coward. It’s how you react that makes you a coward.

I could not—would not—be ruled by my fear. I could use it, I could heed its advice, I could even let it fuel me . . . but I could not allow it to control me.

I would be brave, like my mother.

I sucked in several more deep breaths, and then swallowed hard.

After triple-checking to make sure no one was in sight on the road

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