I remained stuck behind the wall like a sculpture. My heart thudded slowly against my ribs as I tried to catch the soldiers' voices. The little boy was holding onto me with his tiny warm body against mine in the cool shadow of our hiding place.
"Did you find the child?" Or the woman that the emperor told us to find?" one of them said, his voice marked through the empty alleyway.
I gasped. They were looking for us particularly.
"No, I didn't see any woman, but I remember I saw the child in the middle of this place. But as I was about to go hold on to him, the child vanished like someone ran off with him, but I couldn't see," another soldier replied, frustration obvious in his voice.
The voice of the first soldier became hushed with the tinge of terror. "Now what are we going to do? What are we going to answer the tyrant? You know if something he said but couldn't fulfill, he will cut off our head like a chicken right there."
I instinctively tightened my hold on him as the chill glide through my body along with that casual talk of decapitation.
"Yes, yes, I know, but others are searching too. Where will they go in this empire? This is under the emperor anyway," said the nonchalant second soldier, making my stomach knot with dread.
The next moment, a sound of rushing feet approached.
"Hey, hey, have you heard the news?" came a different voice as if in haste and in excitement or not—hardly could I tell.
"What?" chorused the other soldiers.
"The emperor is coming here alone," the newcomer said.
For a second there was silence and then one of them talked. "Himself?"
"Yes, yes," confirmed the messenger.
"What on Earth did this lady do to the emperor that he is searching for her like a crazy man? I'm sure if he finds them alive, then they will be dead," one of the soldiers comments, and the lastly in his voice shivered down my spine.
I hurriedly covered the child's ears, not wanting him to hear such ominous predictions about our fate. All kinds of questions formed in my mind, but they seemed to lead nowhere.
"Emperor? Who is the emperor? Oh, what have I ever done to him that he should go searching for me like this?" I whispered to myself.
He turned around and looked up at me then, his innocent eyes rogue to the kind of danger we had to face all round us. "Mom! Are you tired?" he asked with concern in that small voice.
That word "Mom" hurt me as an actual blow. This child thought of me as his mother-or maybe I was after all this in this world I didn't understand. The reflection that broke in that shattered mirror was flashing in my memory, unarguably reminding me of the incredible recognition we shared in our features.
"No, baby," I automatically said, stroking his hair. But doubt gnawed in my mind. I never even knew the name of this boy, but he looked at me with so much trust and recognition.
"Baby, could you tell me your name?" I awkwardly enquired, hoping he would not notice how strange that sounded - a mother asking her child's name.
He cocked his head slightly and opened his eyes wider, as if confused before accepting it whimsically as a child. He said, "My name is Elian," and the name rolled off tongue like some musical quality and belonged in this world.
"Elian," I softly repeated to test the name. It felt right somehow. "That's a beautiful name."
"You always said it was after the stars," Elian matter-of-factly replied, as if in a reminder to me of something I should have remembered.
He must have seen that my face appeared to be somewhat muddled because he wrinkled his little but perfect brow and extended his tiny hand to touch my cheek. "Are you sure you're okay, Mom? You look different."
"Fine," I convinced him, everything but true. "Just... trying to figure out how to keep us safe."
The march of shuffling feet reached its crescendo, instilling in me the reminder of just how precarious our situation was-couldn't hide in this alley forever.
"Elian, listen to me," I said whisper-voiced and crouched down to his eye level. "We need to find somewhere safe to go. Somewhere the soldiers won't look for us. Do you know anywhere like that?"
His face lit instantly. "We can go to Mira's house! She always helps us hide when the bad men come." "Mira?" I said, catching hold of that lifeline in the air. "Who is she? Where does she live?"
"That's your friend, silly," said Elian giggling as if he thought it a joke. "She lives nearby the river, in that house with the red door. You said she's the only one you trust."
My only lead: a friend I didn't remember, in a world I didn't know. Can you show me the way there?" I asked, desperately trying to keep the pleading tone out of my voice.
Elian nodded. "I know the secret ways. Father showed me before he..." His voice trailed, and a shadow passed over his young face.
Father? Another piece of this puzzle I couldn't place. But now wasn't the time for questions.
"We shall go, then," I exclaimed, as I lifted him into my arms again. "But we must be dead quiet, like mice. You can do that, can't you?"
He nodded solemnly, putting a finger over his lips in demonstration.
As we slipped deeper into the labyrinth of narrow streets, away from the soldiers' voices, one of the thousands of burning questions in my mind blazed more fiercely than all others: I mean, what could I possibly have done to earn the personal enmity of an emperor who, by all accounts, was feared even by his own men?
And, what's more, how would I keep this child—my child, according to him—safe from a tyrant who commanded an entire empire?
Suddenly, the weight of Elian in my arms felt like the most precious burden I have ever carried, and I knew in sudden clarity that I would do anything to protect him-even if I didn't yet understand why.