Divided by Rae Brooks Page A

but…”
    Lavus cut him off before Calis could even form any sort of
coherent thought.  “Silence!  You are no better than he is if you insist on
defending him.  Defending the weak is precisely the thing that gets rulers
overthrown!  Your brother is a fool and a child.  He ought to have been born
among Dark District peasants—which is probably why he feels at home, there.”
    Tareth’s face had turned a deep scarlet, and he glared away
from his father.  He turned his back on the conversation, not wanting to hear
any more of it.  Calis didn’t think he wanted to either, but as his father was
glaring at him, he couldn’t very well run away.  “Do you understand what I am
telling you, child?” Lavus asked, disregarding Tareth’s turning away.
    “Y-yes, Father,” Calis answered warily.  All he wanted was
for this conversation to be over and to be as far from his father as he could
possibly get.  This ball be damned.  He didn’t want to be a part of this.  He
didn’t want to be near this man who so cruelly dealt with his own sons!  Calis
couldn’t keep up this charade anymore.
    Before Tareth had even gotten all the way down the stairs,
Calis nearly ran down them.  The only reason he didn’t was because he would
have alerted people to himself, and he needed to be unseen right now.  His eyes
immediately began looking for the only person in the room that he didn’t hate.
    A few moments later, he found that person.  Lee was perched
against the wall, with a glass of wine in his hand.  He wasn’t involved in any
conversations.  That was a good thing.  Calis made his way to his advisor with
a quickness that he probably should not have been exhibiting.  Lee seemed
surprised to see Calis.  “Calis,” Lee said quickly.  “You are flushed.”
    “I have to get out of here.  Meet me in the courtyard, or
stay—I don’t care.”  Calis spared one last glance over his shoulder.  He could
see Lady Avyon glancing up at the balcony, wondering, doubtlessly where Calis
had run off to.  That just meant that he had to get out of this room quickly.
    He did so.  He knew Lee well enough to know that his friend
and advisor would be waiting for him in the courtyard with all of the
information that he needed.  Lee didn’t need to be told when Calis needed his
assistance, and that was one of the reasons Calis liked him. 
    Once Calis escaped the grand hall, the castle was completely
deserted.  There were no windows along the corridors, so nothing but the flames
within the hallways lit his return to his room.  Not that there would have been
anything more than moonlight at this late shift.  His changing room was easy to
reach.  He flung his clothes to the floor and then kicked them into his closet. 
He changed into a brown tunic that he shouldn’t have and loose-fitting gray
pants. 
    Stepping into the closet, he found some work boots that he’d
convinced his servants that he needed for the travel to Dokak.  He shoved his
feet into them, and immediately felt more comfortable than he had in the tight
black ones.  Glancing across to the mirror in the room, he ran his hands
through his hair—ruining any pretense of neatness that had been bestowed upon
it by his stylist.
    Surely, he still didn’t look like an ordinary Dark District
resident, but he looked ordinary enough.  Pulling his brown cloak over his
shoulders, he opened the window to the changing room.  He shimmed out to the
other side and eased the window back down.  He certainly couldn’t exit through
the grand hall, and he was used to climbing out the window.
    He used the stones of the castle walls to ease himself down
to the ground, which was three stories below him.  Finally, once he deemed
himself close enough to the ground, he leapt from the wall.  Landing in a patch
of grass, he pulled himself up and stayed close to the wall as he made his way
to the courtyard.
    Like the rest of the things about Castle Tsrali—the
courtyard was