Ellna continued to ignore the boy, who eventually gave up, and got the bread from the ovens. She started towards home. Something made her glance over her shoulder. She realized that the boy was following her, and, worse, he had two guards with him. She quickened her pace a little and took a right turn where she should have taken a left. She knew a back way to their house—one that went through a crowded area, which was certain to lose these people.
She arrived to the small market, where dozens of young women like herself were wearing light-colored dresses. Older women, past twenty-four, wore darker dresses; it was Lilacan custom. Ellna looked similar to many of the young women. She hoped that she would blend in as she walked through part of the market before turning to go through an underground passage. It was right next to one of the prayer-areas, where Rhetians didn’t like to go. Ellna was a little spooked out by the statues—what if they came to life?—but she was more afraid of the guards.
No one seemed to be following her. Ellna breathed a sigh of relief and continued on home.
“What took you so long?” Ellna’s mother asked.
“Some guards were following me.”
“What!?”
“A boy noticed that I am Rhetian. I didn’t say anything, of course. He was trying to speak to me in Rhetian, but I pretended that I didn’t understand him. He found some guards and they followed me.”
“To here?” Amyra sounded very worried.
“No, I took the long way through the temple,” Ellna said. “I checked and I lost them at the market.”
Amyra still looked very worried.
That night, Amyra and Ellna’s mother stayed up very late, talking. Ellna pretended to be asleep in the bed she shared with her sister. “We need to move,” Amyra said, urgently. “They are sure to figure out who we are, Sianna.”
“Yes, but where do we move to? You think the countryside of Lilaca Island is too hard to hide. Both Taeaseo Island and Kry Island are unfit in this drought. The Little Islands, then? And we eat fish, yes?”
“Sianna, Sianna. Don’t be so pessimistic. There are all the islands to the north—our ancestors’ lands. We can go there for a bit. We will be less suspect, as we are Rhetians. We won’t stand out. They won’t have need to question us.”
“So we just pretend we have lived in a village all our life, yes? We go to Isvartoi Island and make everyone believe us?”
“No. We go to Lilia Island. We don’t have to make up a story. We can go to Mirin on Lilia Island. In her latest letter, she talks of the support from Arisilini. To anyone who oughtn’t know who we are, we can say we lived in Isvartoi but then moved to Lilia Island where there are better opportunities. There are a hundred with that story. Yahvsii Isvar is a big city.”
“I never lived in Yahvsii Isvar, or anywhere else on Isvartoi Island,” Ellna’s mother said, still sounding doubtful.
“Ahh, yes, I get you confused with your great-grandmother.” Amyra’s voice became darker, quieter, and more urgent. “Sianna, I want to die on my own soil, in my own clothes. I am far too old already. Besides Mirin and her children, you know of Gertrunania; she can help you when I am gone. We will go to her. They live on the southern mountain, Leli, and say it is quite safe. It is a territory, not Kristiana’s land like this is.” Kristiana, the woman who usurped Ellna’s great-grandmother, had died, but Amyra sometimes forgot things like that. It didn’t matter. Kristiana’s granddaughter Lenorata ruled much the same.
“I can only hope your advice is good, Amyra lya Cene,” Ellna’ mother deferred to the older woman.
Richenda 