Chapter 16 - Calliope

                                    

                                          
Chapter 16: Calliope
City of Jeryl, Capital of Kingdom of Delos
Calliope couldn't pinpoint the exact sound which had woken her. There were too many to count. She sat up on the couch, rubbing her eyes and stifling a yawn. As she became aware of her surroundings, she heard the screams. Shrill and loud. Constant.
She leapt from the cushions and sprinted to the small window covered in thin drapes over the kitchen sink. She pulled the curtains aside and peered outside. Annalise's hut was below ground level so her windows were level with the street. All Calliope could see were running feet and flames. She leapt back, letting the drapes fall back into place, breathing heavy.
She heard the crying now. The wailing coming from somewhere nearby as a woman mourned a fallen child. Something struck the next street over and Annalise's hut quivered with the impact. Calliope lost her footing and fell to the rough floor. Heart racing, she scrambled on all fours to the door, pulling the blanket from the couch and wrapping it around herself like a shawl that covered her head along the way. Stay hidden, Lillibet's warning replayed through her mind on a loop. She would if she could but she had to get out of here.
Calliope wrenched open the door and stumbled outside. The streets that had been all but abandoned just a few hours before had descended into chaos. The fog had been worsened by the smoke. The stench of burning flesh and the tang of metal assaulted Calliope's nose and she nearly bent over and wretched right then. But she managed to cover her nose with part of the shawl as she turned. Then she saw something out of the corner of her eye. Something bright red.
She whirled around to face Annalise's door and saw that it had been marked. An enormous red X had been painted on the old wood. Calliope's heart stopped. Was that meant for her? Had they known she was here all along? Or was that a message for Annalise? Or for whoever had been sent to find her.
Regardless, one thing was still certain. She had to get out of here.
She strode away from the Sahira's house as quickly as she could without outright running. Some people were running. Villagers carrying belongings or holding each other's hands, tears running down their faces as they fled the city, heading for the gates which were already overcrowded and blockaded. Calliope kept her head down. If that red X had been meant to mark her location, she wasn't going to give herself away now.
She watched as Sahir in their silver robes tried in vain to lead people back to their houses with vacant promises that everything was fine, that the attack would be over soon. Among them were other conjurers in shining burnt orange armor that Calliope had never seen before. She searched her memory and thought, perhaps, that was the color of Idoria. But that didn't seem right. The Makana were here? Why would they be here?
She rounded a corner to the second gate and saw a line of orange-clad warriors standing in front of it, sending everyone who tried to approach it away. The gates were not an option. She needed another way out.
She was eying the lowest point of the city wall, pondering whether or not she could successfully climb over it without being spotted, when she ran headlong into something. Gasping, her shawl falling back, Calliope looked up to see a girl with skin even darker than her own. The sight of her, in the midst of this Delosian chaos, stunned Calliope so that she stood rooted to the spot.
"Sorry," the girl muttered and reached back for the hooded man behind her to pull him along.
Calliope's eyes narrowed in examination of the pair. The girl was in armor, actual armor. But it wasn't the green of Delos or the shining orange of the Idorian Makana she had noticed dispersed among the crowd either. It was black as night and finely made. She'd never seen armor so fine before and she had worked for the men who made it. Without thinking, she reached out and grabbed the woman by the arm before she could properly sidestep her and be on her way.
The girl tensed and glared at Calliope.
"What do you know?" Calliope asked.
The woman blinked at her, caught off guard.
"Excuse me?" She asked.
"Everyone is running to the gates," Calliope exclaimed. "Or being herded back into their homes by the silver cloaks. But you're headed for an alley. Why?"
The woman stared at her for a minute before glancing back at the man behind her. His face was obscured, hidden by his cloak which Calliope noted was also finely made of thick wool hardly even frayed. He gave one curt nod and a blonde curl popped out from beneath the fabric.
"Your best chance to live is to come with us," he said simply. His voice was deep but soothing like liquid velvet. Calliope watched them for a moment, undecided, but they weren't waiting for an answer. They whirled around and pushed through the people heading for the gates to turn down the alley that Calliope had mentioned. She hesitated for only a moment before following.
Halfway down the dark alley, the man in the cloak stopped. The woman placed a hand on the dagger at her hip and glanced hurriedly around them as he began to push aside what Calliope had thought was mere refuse from a long forgotten building project. Behind it, though, was a door. The man pushed it open and the three of them stepped into the dark tunnel on the other side.
They walked for what felt like an eternity, listening to the chaos above them in utter silence. From time to time, they would stop. When another bomb struck the ground above them and the tunnel shook, raining dirt and tiny stones loosened from the impact down upon them. Or when the dark-skinned girl in the lead would hold up a hand and listen to some threat it seemed only she could hear. Her companion never questioned her. Just stood back and waited patiently for her to give the all clear and move on.
Calliope followed quietly behind them, thankful for an excuse not to think about the monstrosities being carried about in the city above. Instead, she focused on her new companions, how strange they were, and how they could have possibly known about this secret passage out of the city.
When they finally emerged to the early light of dawn, it was upon a hill hundreds of yards from the city walls. High upon its crest, they could look down at the chaos in its totality. Calliope's gut twisted at the sight of it. What wasn't shrouded in smoke was overrun with bodies. Green and orange and an icy blue that Calliope had seen before. Karil.
They were camped just outside the city walls, close enough to grab anyone who managed to escape the city and pull them, kicking and screaming, into their camp. Her cloaked companion's jaw tensed at the sight of it. His robe had slipped slightly so that she was able to see the bottom half of his face. A structured jaw and high cheekbones indicated that the man behind the hood might be quite handsome indeed.
"We have to leave," the girl said, already turning and heading down the hill toward the forest.
"I'm Calliope, by the way," Calliope said and the girl froze, turning around in shock as if now clearly weren't the proper time for introductions. "I just thought we should know each other's names now that we're in this together."
"We are not in this together," the girl snapped, storming back up the hill in order to make her point clear. "We are going our way. You go yours."
"You have nowhere to go. It's clear you lived in the city. You don't have a home outside of it. I do. I can take you there. It's safe."
"You can't possibly—"
"Neva," the man's voice interrupted, a low warning. And the girl actually listened. That was curious. The man held out a hand. "I'm Quinn."
"Nice to meet you. Now, if you'll follow me, I can take us somewhere safe."
The girl called Neva gave her companion another look but Quinn was already headed down the hill, following after Calliope, so she had no choice but to follow.
Calliope headed into the forest, hoping she could remember the trail home. It was far. It would take days, maybe even a week, to reach it. But they could hunt in the forest and build a shelter there at night. She had studied the Yseult maps well enough to have a decent enough idea of where all of the rivers and water sources would be. It wasn't the best option but it would have to do. Because the Yseult dwelling, it seemed, was their only option.