They carried so much the next day. Like that last night in the Casa, they were two lovers ready to elope. Except this time, Sal did not wear a lavish dress. Ren kept his suitcases with him throughout the journey. Sal carried less to none. They sat facing each other with Sal trying to catch some sleep inside the shaking carriage. She’d want to peek at the slightest sound yet run away from it too. This day was like that night, except this time, Sal knew she ought to say farewell.

    The carriage stopped a few paces from the Constable station in front of a panciteria. Five or so constables sat on wooden stools just in front of a busy street. They wolfed down food like how they jostled and at the head of the laughter was Ro. He stood at the end of the table serving everyone. They all laughed but Sal couldn’t tell if the other constables were laughing with him or at him. One by one, the constables trickled and left Ro alone in the panciteria. The laughter died.

    Ren angled to open the carriage door. “I’d take care of things. You go and bade your farewell.”

    Ro stood alone in front of the counter after the server dashed away when he tried to converse. He laughed alone. It is only now that Sal noticed the limp on his walk when Ro tried to carry baskets of food in one arm. He didn’t move his left arm which was tied in a bandage to his torso.

    Sal knew that she would come out to see him but she would just stand there like a helpless ant while he limped. Her gut tells her his injuries were from the night they went back to the Casa. What would she say if he asks where she’s been? It’s just a quick goodbye. Two words. No, Ro would ask her. His injuries are her fault. 

     Sal closed the curtain. “ No, I’m good.” 

     “ I see.” Ren replied with a sort of relief in his voice.

     

    AS the carriage moved, Sal steered in her seat and counted the distance of the carriage from the panciteria. In her head, scenarios of her going down to bade Ro goodbye played in her head. Ten awry endings each time. She dared not to ask where they were going or how Ren knew where Ro and Lea were. She held imaginary conversations with Lea. She’d imagine how she would find her, how she'd speak or how Lea would respond.

     Outside the window was a long stretch of narrow brick building with a black plume of smoke hovering overheard the structure. It was a train station, it seems. On her right was a squeeze of buildings and if you would squint hard enough, you would see a small glint of what might appear to be the river on the farthest edge of it. People crowded in front of the train station, leaving all the narrow alleys deserted.

    Out of the alleys came the familiar whirr of wheels turning from a wagon. Behind the wagon was a woman. When the wagon then lost its wheel, the woman stooped to the ground to pick coal that had fallen out of the sacks. The woman stooped to the ground to pick all the black stones. Her face was covered in soot but her long braid was immediately distinguishable.

     Sal stared like the quiet observer she always was.

Ren stood in front of the open carriage door. “It seems like she’s been working on the rails for weeks now. ‘Nay Rosa spoke of her often three weeks ago. So, this is where she is.”

    Sal found it in herself more the stronger to speak and approach her. What would Ren say? She waited, Perhaps, he would smile. He would say go ahead. 

     Sal found herself outside the carriage. She looked at her feet and the distance between her and Lea. She walked ever so slowly towards her, making her bare foot plop steps on the damp earth. Sal was a deer in headlights when Lea finally turned. She turned to their direction then went back to her wagon and dashed away. Nary a word or a look of recognition given.

    She must have been unhappy with her. Sal heaved and bit back the expectation that Lea would’ve said something at least. As Lea’s long gone, Sal bowed in a formal farewell. She turned to the direction of the panciteria and bowed.

    She tied a handkerchief to a lamppost for the next time Lea would pass by. A lady needed to keep her face pretty as it is her treasure. Sal should look out after Lea . After all, she’s still the elder and Lea is younger than her.

***

As the carriage ran, the train station grew smaller and the dock became smaller then slowly hid from view. Sal grabbed the curtain. Outside, a stone, ornate decorated arc stood bigger until the carriage reached the bridge before the arc.

    “This carriage departs to the train station, right?”

    Ren took too long to answer.

    “What is this place?” 

     At another second of silence, Sal tapped at the carriage window and craned her neck to find the train station. “Where are we?” The next words came pouring out like vomit. “ The train station is far from here. This. New district? Are we- Tanawa? I mean - No. We’re nearly out of the capital, are we not. We’re not. We are not going there right?”

    “ Before we depart from the capital, we will be paying visit to the Gran Gapoz but first-”

     “Aaaah!” Sal flung herself to the corner of the carriage. She curled up and hid her face. 

      He brushed his hand on her knees. “ You need to visit Sgr. Cuorre.”

      Sal lifted her head to see him. That look on his face, he will push through this. Nothing will change his mind. Was this the same face who told her that she’s free?

      “Alright?” Ren asked.

      Sal pursed her lips like a child in tantrums. 

      Ren cupped his hands on Sal’s eyes, grabbing her head entirely. He blindfolded her with his bare hands. The slight shock settled in as there was only calm darkness. She was still. Until that darkness morphed into that night. Sal shook her head and pulled away from his hands to see light.

     Sal fell back in her chair.

    Ren stood over her unmoving. Seconds passed and time was a statue. He then knelt down “See? You can break free. You have the fight in you. And as such, you needed to see Sgr. Cuorre. You need to see for yourself that you are free. A bird caged all her life will not fly free on an open door.” He caressed her hand. “Sal, trust me.” 

       He says these words a lot then. Sal remembers hearing them first when Ren was the prince who stumbled upon the tower. He barely pleaded like that.

    Sal reached for him to stare at his brown eyes.

     Ren’s voice went in a slight whisper, reassuring. “I’ll talk to the Signor. See for yourself and make your judgment.”

    “Alright,” Sal assured him.

     The heaviness left Ren’s face. Surely, this should all be alright.

***

 Ren did not stop assuring Sal that it will be alright. He must have known she had a dozen questions and for that he must have a dozen more answers. Why did they not pass through the gate of Gran Gapoz? Why does Sal have to wear a dull, stinky shirt? They were thieves on an adventure, that is the only explanation. As they walked around the prison’s walls opening to the woods and the river, they entered a hidden narrow stairway down to the stone prisons, Ren held her hand and talked in whispers.

    “ We can go about the place if we are to dress as servants visiting to deliver food to the prisoners.” Ren told her. “ The place has torchlights on the walls, like classic prisons. You won’t stumble. And when we see the Signor-'' Ren wrapped the panuelo snugly on her shoulder. “ The Signor Cuorre is in prison. He is in a room behind bars. It will be alright.”

    Sal wrapped the large panuelo over her head and down to her shoulders. As they descended, sunlight disappeared and the orange light of the torches flickered on the stone walls. Sal tightened her grip on Ren’s hand as he walked before her on the Carcel. Their footsteps seemed to echo. A bit of moist sweat settled on Sal’s arms the longer they were inside. It was too quiet. Despite the long cuffed sleeves on Sal’s dress and her long hair shielding her face, the strange air in the Carcel seemed to poke at her. 

    Sal tugged on Ren’s shirt. He stopped. 

   Ren had told her what she would see inside the Carcel. He’d told her what Gran Gapoz looked like. Most of all, he’d told her what a prison cell might look like. How a room with bars would look like with a person behind it. She stopped. Might it have been the air that was too suffocating or her feet betraying her heart.

   “Are you alright? Was the air down here getting too uncomfortable?” Ren asked. He’d said that there would be less air the further and deeper they go in the Carcel, they’re only walking on the topmost layers of the place. 

   Sal lied, “I’m alright.” It was not the air. She freezed on the spot. She could see the hallways lit with the torches in front of her and the prison rooms slowly coming into view.

   “We’re nearly there. Just a little more.” Ren said.

   They walked further, passing through the rooms. There were people there. They sighed. Something rustled. They talked. Sal dared not look. 

   In one of these cells will be the Signor Cuorre. As the murmurs grew louder, people whispered quiet pleadings all around her. Sal stopped. She backed away little by little. 

   Ren held her by the shoulder. “ He will not lay a finger on you. I will talk to him and-”

   Sal kept on her spot.

   “ He’s detained. He’s not yet fully dealt with because the trial is yet to start. But as soon as we get over this step, you will not think of him anymore. We’d be far away from Mutiara, or Calare. Far far away from here. “ 

   He’s always right. Ren has never been wrong. She must trust him.

   “ I can’t look. You talk to him.”

   “Of course.” 

   And with that said, they walked the few steps towards the cell where the Signor was. Ren faced the Signor as promised. Sal hid behind a wall a few meters away where she saw Ren and Ren only.

   Ren called for the Signor twice or thrice. “Signor, it is only me, Duren.”

  Only then was there the sound of wood clacking against stone.

 “It is only you.” Nothing changed in the Signor’s voice the last Sal remembers.

   More empty, routine pleasantries were exchanged. It came out restrained and timid like how she would whisper a song to herself at night. It was unlike how the Mercantile greeted the Signor back in the Casa.

   “If you have nothing significant to say, you can leave.” the Signor said.

   “ If you don’t mind, Signor. I would like to make the most of this chat seeing as how there are no guards within the vicinity at this moment.” Ren eased. “ What happened?”

   Sal tried to empty her mind. But what could he have meant?

   “ All around the streets they talked of how the high Signor Cuorre is a manslayer and all sorts of insults. I would believe too but logic tells me I should not heed hearsay and see the truth for myself.” Ren’s questioning came out politely still. “ Signor, tell us. What else do we not know?” Sal could almost hear herself. She could hear the aggressiveness in those words that were the exact questions she would’ve wanted yet too scared to ask.

   “It is none of your concern.” Dull, impassive, as always.

   “ What are you not telling us?”

   A sharp clack on the floor echoed. “That question is reserved for the constables and officials in this court authorized to make those inquiries. It is not you I answer for, young lad.”

   “I’m not asking these things for my benefit.” He paused. “Your daughter needs to know.”

   Sal tucked her head closer in the panuelo. Sal shot Ren a look. Yet, the man remained looking at the prison bars as if she was not there.

   “ You cannot see her right now but your daughter is with me now.” Ren continued.

   She felt eyes on her. Two characters on the stage were fighting and she was the helpless audience member stuck on the stage in the middle. If her legs could take her away, she could. Yet she could not deny that she liked what Ren said, and that she’d want to hear it again.

   “ I arranged your marriage with her but I did not expect you would be so attached.”

   “ And for that, I’m thankful. Mayhap, it may be the one thing she may grant you gratitude. You were a respected Mercantile, and though people may have doubted you, I did not before. I was mistaken. But please, if only for your daughter,she should not live in your guilt and cruelty’s shadow.”

   Sal leaned her head back mulling on the word cruelty. 

   “ Go.” The Signor’s voice echoed, coming in all directions all at once. “ Leave and take her. Anywhere. Somewhere. Get out and don’t disturb me, again.”

   Sal made slow, small steps in the darkness, not daring to speak so as not to give away her presence. And when the sound became a crack in the silence, she stood still and stretched her arm. Something. Someone would grab onto it. Ren did. 

   “ Let’s go,” Sal said. No more words spoken. No sound came again except their footsteps and a cane tapping on the floor.

   A dozen more steps later, the clacks subsided. There was more air to breathe that she let all the fatigue in her legs take hold on her for a minute. She wobbled over just when they’re close to the exit of the prison.

   Ren held her up. “ Are you alright?”

   She was only tired, wasn't she?” I’m fine.”

   Ren dusted the stairway steps and sat Sal on them. Ren stood guard at the hallway they were in. “ That must have been difficult for you. It is disquieting to see you like this but,” he paused. A look Sal cannot fathom in his face. “ You needed to see him for yourself. Just when I thought prison would soften him a bit that he would speak gentler this time in your presence.”

   “Oh. “ Sal muttered to herself. She let her head rest in the stone wall, contemplating. “The Signor was a man of rules and law.” She said, more to herself maybe. She drew images in the air. “ There was a story about a prince who slayed a dragon. The prince raised his voice,” She glanced at Ren who always knew to give full attention when she spoke like this. ” And that was enough to make the dragon tremble.”

   “Did you think the Signor trembled?”

   Sal could not imagine the Signor being weak for his cane was more of a sword than a sign of him crumbling. She didn’t know what to say. But Ren needs an answer right now. “Strange it may be, I liked to hear you talk to him earlier. It was…exhilarating.”

   Ren snickered.

   So it seems Sal made him laugh at the Signor.

   ”You must be the princess who the prince saved.” 

   Sal nodded in response. She looked at the torchlights and saw the eyes of a dragon, but this dragon kept his mouth closed. The dragon would not profess with his mouth that he is a dragon. If he was not the dragon, how could she be the princess?

   The darkness began to weigh more on Sal. “The Signor wants us gone.”

   “ That’s great!” Ren remarked.

   Sal frowned because he could not see her. He sounded carefree, and she was not.

   Ren climbed up the steps and put a hand on Sal’s shoulder. “ Stay here. I’ll check if the coast is clear. Call me if you need help.”

   The relief at the prospect of getting out of this stone prison eludes her. How about the Casa? How angry would the Signor be? He told them to go, why would he? It’s what they both wanted, right?

  Sal found her feet getting weightless as she froze when two hands grabbed her by the shoulder from behind. It was a stranger’s voice who spoke as if she knew her. This stranger pulled her and dragged her on to the hallway like a limp kite. She kept quiet. No one should see her. No one should see her.

   She almost fell to her feet. Almost deaf to this stranger’s naggings, she kept her eyes fixed on the gray stone floor. The stranger grabbed her hand and placed a small pouch on them. The stranger’s footsteps grew softer by the second.

   When there was no other sound, Sal looked up to see herself in the middle of crossroads on the hallways. At the sight, Sal bolted across the hallway like a madman. She looked foolish. What did it matter? She was running because her chest felt heavy. 

   Ah, she lied. Although she wanted to hear Ren raising his voice to the Signor again, she was not freed. She did not feel free. Her cage still calls out to her. She paused and walked small steps until she crouched on the ground and felt the cold stones. The Signor was a proud dragon but until she saw his fangs could she never be at ease for he never professed himself a dragon. She’d find ambiguity to be a perpetual curse.

   Sal listened for the clack of a cane. She took small steps in that direction and when the Signor’s cell was at sight, she hid in an empty nook near the cell where it might be safe. Just a few minutes, she told herself. Just a few minutes and she can be out of here.

   “ You have all the money in the world? Why not put it to use?”

   Sal pulled back and fell on her bottom at the sound. She closed her eyes then deliberated that no one could see her. She held herself still.

   “ My accounts are also under suspicion. Unwise decision, if you must.”

   The Signor’s voice never changed yet his voice was duller. It came out polite like how he talked with the Mercantile, it was a tone she found untrue and uncharacteristic of him. 

   “ Or you could ask your family for help. The Cuorres in the North? Some in the Capital.”

   “ They have forgotten me. Or the ones that don’t would make sure that I stayed remembered, rehashing the past.” 

   “Well, you have at least the right to a public defender-”

   “ They want to see my fall. Useless. It will only be a farce.” 

   “ Isn’t your life important, or at least your family’s?”

   Sal clutched her head, placing her hands on her ears. It only muffled the sound, but the words were still clear. 

   “They’re well-taken care of.” 

   “ But-”

   “I’m over forty years old. I’ve lived long enough. Perhaps, too long.”

   She pressed her hands to her ears harder. Curling up on herself, all the words he’d said repeated in her mind. Was he really thinking of that possibility? Her nails dug hard on her hair. She looked up, crimson fire lighting stone walls, rendering everything orange with only a faint shadow from her right to tell her of the presence of the other man.

   “You’ll gonna admit to the charges?”

   No one spoke for a while. It struck her, Sal does not know what the Signor would say. Denying or confessing. What difference does it make? He was already rendered a sinner to her eyes. Not from the moment she learned he was arrested, but from the night she was rendered a prisoner. It was only now that she was allowed not to feel guilty of longing to be out. 

   “ They want to see me in prison. “

   There was no anger. No hint of fury. It was whispered, weary, like how he always was but she failed to notice. As soon as the other man left, Sal stood up, her legs numbed from the position she was in. She dragged her legs. There was the sound of the cane, going slower and softer, then it stopped. A creak. She closed her eyes. Answers? It was right in front of her.

   She edged closer and the orange light of the torches grew stronger as she pulled her feet against the rough stone floor. The big space, the hallway, was a big gaping mouth. Sal swallowed. Small rooms. No, they were no rooms, small holes carved up in a wall lined by bars. It was the entire picture of the place that haunted her in her dreams, locked up for the first time.

   And a man was there sitting on a low bench. Unruly, matted hair lined his head. The tinge of light inside the place deepened the lines across his face. Eyes almost hollow from the shadows. He sat and stood like a stick falling off, only anchored by his own hand to keep himself from falling. The man melted into the gray, miserable walls of the prison. 

   “Who is there?” The man shot a look at Sal’s direction.

   Sal was frozen on her spot. The man’s gaze seemed to tear at her. Surprise? Anger? Resentment? She was never able to decipher the meaning behind the Signor’s look. She had stopped trying to, until she’d stopped looking at him entirely. He was only a strong man, the head of the family. He was nothing else. He was nothing like this person.

   The man came closer, his steps slow. And as their faces were fully visible through the orange light of the torches, Sal knew she needed to hide her face. Hide herself. Yet, the man’s dragging steps, his weary expression. Sal shook her head, and a pool whirled in her stomach at the sight of the man’s exhausted face. For a moment, she saw herself.

   Sal put her hand on her face, covering her sight from this man who had the shell of the Signor. Yet, no matter how she ran or covered her eyes, or replaced the sight with the blackness of the caves, the tired face of the Signor etched itself onto her memory. And the longer she sees it, the deeper the trembling in her stomach churns.

***

  She ran to where her legs took her, she stumbled across the stairs as the darkness only showed her that face. As she got out of the prison and climbed up the surface, she found herself running under the sun beside a seemingly endless river. She ran as far as her legs could take her.

   A hand grabbed Sal by the waist, another at the mouth. She slammed her eyes shut not wishing to see who this man was as she squirmed the little she could but her strength was for naught. Like a ragdoll, she found herself hanging upside down hoisted on the man’s shoulder. Her thoughts emptied at the pressure descending on her head.

   The cloudiness of thought did not dissipate much even as she was pushed down a cushiony surface. It was a familiar carriage she was in. Light is only obstructed by a man’s figure.

   He clasped a hand to Sal’s mouth. His uniform was painfully familiar and Sal can’t help but shake her head. This was not Ro. She ran her eyes around her scanning the exits in the carriage and the drawn curtains.

   The man spoke, “Stay here. Don’t do something stupid. Again.”His cadence and the accent in his voice rang familiar so is the dull scowl in his face. This was a voice that Ren could have spoken to.

   He stared at her more than enough. “ Don’t make this any harder for the both of us. Behave.” It was strange how he stared at her eyes longer than any other would. When they do, Sal remembers her eyes are shades farther than their brown eyes.

   Hours passed in the carriage with the noises outside blending together in a monotonous voice. She shut her eyes, like always. What for? The dragon has no fangs. Were they taken out or had they never been there? The noise grew louder as the same gaunt face plastered on a dark cell stared back at her.

   At this, Sal swept the curtain off for some light. It was not enough, so she opened the carriage window and scrambled out of it nearly tumbling down on the ground.

   She escaped into the narrow bayside of the river. Dull yellow stone buildings ran past her right as the fishy smell of the water and the smell of wet wood floated in the air. Her foot went sore from running on stones baked under the hot sun and her head light from the heat beating down on her head.

   Out in the distance, dots became men, the men became the black dolls from the Casa. Water splashing, the coarse voices of people hollering, the loud mutterings of the crowd crashed into one. The people melded into colors. And on the bridge, Ren might have stood there.

   The figure threw his coat off his back and ran. If he was Ren, if she’d call loud enough, he’ll pick her voice in the crowd and find her. “ Ren-” She stopped.

   A heavy feeling came over her as the sky blurred, Her feet froze. Even so, a face felt oh so familiar to her.

   Her thoughts are betraying her, running from her like that after competing for attention. Sal shook her head and let her legs lose their weight. Her chest sunk as she let the wind and water embrace her.