Second Guard by J. D. Vaughn

danger. If you know something about Jaden than can help them, you must tell me.”
    Chey stopped short. “Fine,” he said, slowly turning to face Tali. “But in return, you must promise to share Nel’s words with us.”

T he exportation of salt, mined from the labyrinthine tunnels below Tequende, provides the realm a steady source of trade and wealth. Some
    scholars consider salt the major factor in the realm’s salvation during the Years of Conquest, for when the greedy Far World conquistadors found no gold, silver, or jewels in the mines of
    Tequende, they quickly abandoned the difficult terrain to plunder richer mountain veins to the north and south. Salt, humble salt, spared the world the extinction of this tranquil respite for
    lost and war-weary souls.
    —M. DE S AAVEDRA ,
The Rise of Tequende: A History

S hall we talk up there?” Zarif asked, pointing to the roof of the Sun Temple. “It will give us privacy as well as a good view of the
docks. Maybe we’ll spot Nel.”
    Tali and Chey nodded in agreement. The circular Sun Temple dominated the Porto Sol skyline, its five gold-painted spokes flaring out from the central sanctum like the rays of Intiq reaching out
to his people. Inside, in the center of a tile-laden floor, rose a carved stone altar, where Sun Guilders would leave their offerings. Collected at day’s end by the Maidens of Intiq, the
money was then dispersed to those in the guild who were ill or unable to work. Tali slipped a coin into the smooth marble bowl and offered a quick prayer.
Intiq, keep my family safe.
    She motioned the boys to follow her up the staircase, which wended around the gold walls of the sanctum in a spiral. The stairs were steep and the trio did not dare speak until they had reached
the roof. Here worshippers were encouraged to contemplate the splendid views, a mere glimpse of what the Sun God himself saw as he crossed the sky each day. But Tali gazed at the busy city below,
scanning only for her sister.
    “Will you tell us Nel’s message now?” Chey finally asked.
    Tali repeated the words that had been playing through her mind, her hands and fingers moving in the sign language of her twin, as if to reinforce her memory.
    Second Guard. Tradeboat. Salt mines. Queen. Fire. Father. Silence.
    “It is an interesting combination,” Zarif said, shading his eyes as he perused the market below. “Your father trades in salt, yes?”
    “Of course, most river traders do. It is our gold, our currency.” Tali leaned a little farther over an iron railing, trying to get a better view.
    “Well, we shall need to keep our eyes open for any connections between those words,” Zarif said, as they walked down one of the structure’s spokes to get a different view of
the city.
    Despite her worries, Tali stopped for a moment to drink it in. The colorful, stacked homes looked so cheerful and bright, the people bustling between them happy and carefree, at least from this
vantage point. Are they as content as they look, Tali wondered, or do they carry hidden worries inside their bundles and bags? Her life had been so easy, she realized, so sheltered until then. For
a moment she longed to be back on the tradeboat with Nel and her father, shooting fruit with arrows and dreaming of the Second Guard. How romantic it had seemed back then, before she left. Before
the fire.
    “There’s something else I need to tell you,” Tali said, turning toward her friends. “Something that happened the night before I arrived at the Alcazar.”
    It took a while to describe that night’s events to her friends, the night a tradeboat in flames had disappeared into the river, and with it a family’s home and livelihood. Over the
past months she had pushed the haunting images out of her mind, but now they slipped back into her consciousness like a bad dream. The crying child. The hungry river. The frightened look exchanged
between two men.
    As she described the events to Chey and Zarif, she felt her