“If he’s bothering you, just ignore him.” Serres stretched and yawned. “Just a few more hours to go. I’ll be glad to be off the road, let me tell you. I don’t like traveling with all the old folks.” He gestured to the two wagons in front of them, where the oldest of the group were riding in the back like Thessa, while most of the other children were walking alongside. “Last thing we need is one of them catching sick. I–”
They came over a hill, the other wagons momentarily leaving their vision over the crest, and then Serres yanked at the reins, swearing loudly. The sudden jerking of the wagon nearly dumped Thessa off the back of the cart. Thessa steadied herself and craned her neck to look for the problem, half expecting to see a tree across the road.
What she did see made her blood run cold. There, less than twenty paces in front of the lead wagon, was a handful of Ossan legionaries. Four men, three women, all wearing their black uniforms with gold trim, muskets held with bayonets fixed. The soldiers blocked the road.
There was no hailing, no conversation. The soldiers approached, two of them coming out front while the others hung back just a little ways.
“What’s going on?” Serres demanded.
The soldier in charge, a woman with a crimson-and-silver braided collar, ignored him. “This is good,” she told her closest companion. “Told you it would pay off.”
“Ma’am,” Serres said firmly, “I have papers showing Ossan relations. We’re simply trying to get to our family.”
The soldier didn’t even seem to notice she was being spoken to. “That one,” she said, pointing at Serres. “That one, that one, that one. Oh, definitely that one.” She pointed directly at Thessa. The other soldier came over and grabbed Thessa by the arm. She tried to struggle but found his grip like iron as he yanked her down from the wagon. She twisted, landing hard on one knee, looking up to see a forgeglass stud in one of his ears.
No point in fighting him at all.
The other five soldiers finally approached. They grabbed family members, yanking them out of wagons, pushing them to either side of the road, emptying each cart of people before guiding the horses to a clearing just to one side of the highway.
Serres’s objections grew louder and more violent, until one of the soldiers flipped around his musket and bashed the stock across Serres’s head. Thessa stifled a gasp as he was dragged over to Thessa’s side of the road and dumped beside her.
It was all so sudden that Thessa barely had time to react. She stared at the soldiers, dumbfounded, then across the road to where all the children and older members of the group had been herded. The boy, Leone, stared at his father with mouth agape, clutching his wooden toys. Thessa wrestled with her fear and confusion, realizing she should have made a plan for this eventuality, not knowing what she could even do. Should she escape? Abandon the family that had given her a ride? It wasn’t like she could actually help them.
Children cried, adults wailed, and with growing horror Thessa realized that all the able-bodied adults had been deposited over with her. She looked around for some sort of leadership among the group but they seemed even more shocked than she was. She knelt down beside Serres, splashing him with a little bit of water from his own canteen, pressing the hem of her tunic against the split in his brow until he came around.
The sorting finished. The soldier in charge looked bored, yawning toward a weeping child while one of her subordinates pointed across the street. “What do we do with them, Sergeant?”
“Run ’em off. We got no use for ’em.”
Serres sat up, casting a grateful look toward Thessa. “What are you going to do with us?” he demanded. “I have Ossan family, I…”
The sergeant drew her pistol with the casual confidence of someone who was always prepared to kill. Serres fell silent and a smile flickered across her face. “You’re trespassers,” she said with a shrug. “Spies, coming across the border to spread chaos and dissension.”
“We are no such thing!” Serres objected.
Another yawn from the sergeant. “Does it look like I give a shit? We’re confiscating your goods. The Ossan navy needs sailors. I need a country home.” One of the other soldiers laughed at this. She continued, “If you survive a few voyages, I’m sure they’ll let you find your family when the war is over.”
Thessa barely listened. She was watching carefully, looking for the chance to escape. Sprinting off into the trees might be her best chance. There were only seven soldiers and they had over twenty prisoners to corral. If even one tried to come after her, they would risk losing the rest of the family. Thessa had just planned out her escape route when a young man whom she had not met suddenly made a break for it, sprinting toward the very trees she’d been eyeballing.
Without batting an eye, the sergeant took a musket from one of her subordinates, sighted, and put a bullet between the young man’s shoulder blades.
The crack of the musket felt like a physical blow. Thessa stared at the fallen body, listening to the gasps around her. A middle-aged woman – probably the young man’s mother – tried to run toward him but was restrained by her family.
“Got no patience for your shit!” the sergeant proclaimed. “Friend of mine will be by in an hour and then you’ll all start your careers in the Ossan navy. Get used to being on your knees, because there’s a lot of decks that need scrubbing!”
To this point, Thessa had managed to keep some veneer of calm. Her glassworks had been attacked, she’d been forced to abandon her master – they’d killed her glassdamned bird – and now she was being sold like a dog? Her panic finally broke through. She couldn’t help the family, but maybe she could help herself. She could not fail Kastora. She leapt to her feet, facing the sergeant, squaring her shoulders.
“I’m not being sold to the navy,” she snapped.
“Nobody’s selling anyone,” the sergeant replied with a chuckle, as if amused by Thessa’s outburst. “Slavery is illegal in the Ossan Empire. You’re merely being … impressed into service for an indeterminate amount of time.”
“I won’t do it.”
Whatever humor the sergeant found in this situation seemed to fade away. “Reload your musket,” she ordered her subordinate.
Thessa sought desperately for something that could save her without revealing who she was. Kastora’s orders echoed through her mind: Trust no one. Get to Adriana Grappo. “I’m more valuable to you here in Ossa than I am on some ship.”
“Do tell,” the sergeant said flatly.
“I’m a siliceer.”
The sergeant’s eyes narrowed. Everyone was staring at Thessa now, from the soldiers to Serres to the rest of the kind people who’d allowed her to share their company for the last few hours. The sergeant stepped over and grabbed Thessa by the arms, pulling up her sleeves to examine the scars on them. She looked at Thessa’s tunic, then at her boots.
“Well glassdamn,” she said, “I guess you are. What rank?”
Thessa hesitated. She shouldn’t expose herself too much. “Senior apprentice.”
“Impressive.”
Thessa felt a wave of relief flood through her. “I can arrange a payment for my freedom. I promise, you’ll get more from me that way.”
The sergeant seemed to mull this over, a thoughtful frown on her face. “From who?”
Trust no one. But Thessa had to take a chance here, otherwise she wouldn’t deliver anything. “From Adriana Grappo at the Hyacinth Hotel. She’s a family friend.”
The sergeant stepped away, conferring with two of her subordinates while the others kept a strict watch on the refugees. Thessa’s heart pounded in her chest. She could feel her brief companions staring at her with a mix of fear, anger, and jealousy. She hated to abandon them, but forced herself to keep her thoughts on her mission. Maybe she’d gotten through this.