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He slipped his knife back into the sheath at his belt, then turned to me, one eyebrow a fraction higher than the other.A little murder never killed anyone. Does it bother you?
‘You know it doesn’t.’ I pulled the weight of my bag tighter on my shoulders, already grateful I hadn't given in to the temptation to bring a book. ‘I’m just thinking, if you ever want them to think slightly better of you …’
His fingers tightened so subtly I doubted even Lyn would have noticed.I didn’t survive three hundred years of torturing people to death by caring what others thought of me. They’ll handle their own dislike just fine. I don’t need to do it for them.
‘But—’
He shrugged, interrupting me.Did Agenor ever tell you why he wanted to come?
I glanced at my father, who was striding forward with the determined force of a battle ram, jaw clenched so tight it may have physically hurt. Whatever he’d hoped to find in the city he’d fled in a hurry centuries ago and never seen again, it didn’t appear he’d found it between the bodies and the overgrown houses.
‘He didn’t,’ I said under my breath. ‘Why?’
He seems– Creon considered his words for a moment, fingers hanging motionlessly between signs –shocked.
I couldn’t help a grimace. ‘Some people would consider a city full of corpses quite shocking.’
He’s seen worse and felt less over it, Creon signed wryly.And he should have known exactly how bad it would be. There’s no reason for him to feel surprised at the state of this place.
Surprised? I stole another glance at Agenor, whose face was too stony to read without the help of demon magic. But his wings lay tight as stretched canvas against his back – far more tension than he’d ever show the world if he could help it.
‘I have no idea,’ I admitted with a twinge of nervousness. ‘I could ask him later. He won’t tell me when you’re still around.’
Creon nodded slowly and resumed toying with his knife.
We walked in silence, endless boulevard after endless square, until finally the streets grew empty and the outer walls of the city loomed up before us. They were built from the same red brick as most of the houses, and even while they were crumbling under the force of sun and wind and the stubborn vines crawling over them, it was easy to imagine their former glory – a towering thirty feet of massive stone, the gate flanked by sculpted creatures I thought might be dragons.
Still Agenor didn’t speak, and when I looked to my right, Creon didn’t meet my gaze. I turned my eyes back to the world before me, catching my first glimpse of the landscape that waited beyond the desolation of the city. A tangled green wilderness, the occasional collapsed shed and farm, and beyond those …
The mountains.
My feet caught on an uneven cobblestone as I realised what I was seeing.
Creon was just quick enough, grabbing my upper arm to keep me standing. I barely noticed. The jagged, blue-greyish shapes on the horizon appeared to stare back at me, taunting me with the distance that separated us.
Thedistance.
I’d never seen so much land in one place. It had to be days and days and days of walking, nothing but solid earth between us and those sharp-edged peaks, not even the shallowest bay to break up the endless expanse of the continent. I gaped at that unfathomable horizon, thoughts spinning to match the view with the maps I knew – with the hard and cold facts of geography. This was merely a sliver of the landmass on which we were standing. The road to the sea in the east had to be five times as long, at least –five times –and much more land stretched out into the south and west …
Four lousy gods might be wandering somewhere on that massive surface I couldn’t even wrap my head around, and I’d decided I wanted to find them.
In ten days.
Zera help me. Why had anyone ever agreed with this madness?
But I received no ‘we told you so,’ no ‘time to turn back, then?’ as the rest of the group passed me by. Tared looked sourly amused, Lyn concerned. Beyla sighed, a sound of long, deep yearning, and I wondered how long it would be before she’d convince Anaxia to leave for another mission across all these miles of untraveled earth.
‘It used to be about three hours of walking to reach the edge of the woods,’ Agenor said, words tense as if he could barely bring himself to utter them. I wondered if he’d even noticed my near-fall or Creon laying hands on me. ‘I assume the paths will be in a worse state than they used to be, so it may take longer now. If you aim for— Wait, let me show you …’
We followed him through the gate like ducklings swimming after their mother. More weed-covered fields waited for us beyond the wall. Tangles of nettles and thorns smothered every house or shed still standing, and …
‘Orin’s fucking eye,’ Edored sputtered next to me, freezing mid-step. ‘What isthat?’
Before us, a patch of scorched black soil disrupted the stubborn greenery, stretching half a mile in each direction.
The black earth sloped down at the centre, forming a shape that resembled the crater of a sleeping volcano. But gods help me, there were no volcanoes on the continent, were there? Had it been a wildfire, shaping this pit? A particularly disgruntled dragon? A battle during the War of the Gods?
‘It’s stronger here,’ Naxi informed us, her melodious voice unfazed. ‘The plague magic.’
