“Please do not feel the need to elaborate,” muttered Nox.
Thraigg blew them a kiss before turning his attention back to Elyria. “At any rate, Ollie already had me convinced when he was bragging about having sleuthed out the best cider in the city, as ye demanded.”
“I hardlydemandedit,” Elyria grumbled.
The beads in Thraigg’s beard jingled as he tilted his head. “Weren’t it ye I heard griping to Young Shep just yesterday?” He pitched his voice up several octaves, accent all but disappearing. “ ‘What I wouldn’t give for a fucking cider, I swear. All they serve in this stars-forsaken castle is fizzy wine and tea.’ ”
“That is a shockingly good impression of our fair Revenant,” said Nox, fangs flashing.
Kit snorted into her water goblet.
“It most certainly wasnot.” Elyria restrained herself from allowing the magic pulsing under her skin to creep across the table and smack them both upside the head. “Whoever else would like to let off some steam, meet Ollie and me”—her eyes narrowed on the dwarf—“and Thraigg at the front gate at sundown.”
“Would that I could, Ellie,” said Kit, “but Barcroffsaysthat the ‘rest of our party’ is finally due to arrive this evening. I’d rather be here to see exactly who it is we’ve been waiting on this whole time.”
It was Elyria’s turn to snort. “Barcroff? And you believe him?”
“Not typically,” admitted Kit, “but my mother’s latest missive confirms the timing. Even though she still insists she doesn’t knowwhomy uncle sent.”
Nox’s red-black eyes drifted from Kit to Elyria and back again. “Something I still don’t quite understand. Do your mother and the king not talk to each other?” The question was free of judgment, as though the nocterrian was genuinely curious.
Kit sighed. “I’ve never understood the political games my family plays. Either she truly doesn’t know because my uncle won’t tell her, or shedoesknow but won’t tell me. Either way, whoever it is has some serious explaining to do when they arrive.”
Elyria huffed in agreement. “Fair point. What about you then, Tenebris? Join us for a drink tonight?”
“Alas, something tells me the commonfolk may not take too kindly to a nocterrian dropping in for drinks. I think I’ll stay with Kit as part of the welcome wagon.”
“And what a welcome that will be. I almost hate to miss it,” Elyria said, turning toward the dining room doors with a lightness in her step that she hadn’t felt in weeks. “Almost.”
Elyria tuggedthe edge of her hood farther down her face, trying not to scowl. The heavy green wool scratched at her temples, the weight of it pressing her tightly braided coronet flat against the crown of her head. Still, it provided a level of anonymity that Elyria relished as she walked through Kingshelm, pincered in by Ollie on one side and Thraigg on the other.
The streets bustled despite the autumn chill that had descended, as though it was only with the setting sun that the city truly came alive. Gone was the oppressive formality of the palace, the sidelong glances from courtiers. Aside from the occasional errant gaze that lingered on Thraigg’s silhouette—a solid foot and a half shorter than the two fae but a good deal broader—the trio seemed to pass by the citizens of Kingshelm utterly unnoticed, and, for that, Elyria was grateful.
So, for the first time since arriving in the human city, Elyria let herself really take it in.
The sprawl of the capital was a strange blend of bleakness and beauty. It wasn’t beautiful in the same way as Aerithia or Coralith, of course. It was rougher, starker—the buildings tightly packed, the surfaces soot-smudged, the cobblestones worn. In the distance, the elegant towers and gilded surfaces of the palace still shone, but this place, where the commonfolk lived, held a different kind of allure.
There was color—ivy weaving up walls, brightly painted shutters. Children sat on stoops, laughing. Shopkeepers yelled, their final call for customers as they readied to close up their stalls for the night. Soft music sang through the air, and Elyria turned her head to see a musician playing their fiddle at the end of the street. She dropped a few coppers in the velvet-lined case at their feet as she passed.
She would never admit it, especially not to a certain knightly victor, but perhaps she had judged this place too quickly. Too harshly. It wasn’t all misery. There was joy here. There was life. And as Elyria watched achild dart through a puddle with an unencumbered shriek of joy, something strange settled in her chest.
“It’s so easy to forget,” she said under her breath.
Ollie looked at her, brow creased. “Forget what?”
“That they’re just...people. That not every human is a cultist or a zealot or a bigot. They’re just people trying to live their lives.”
He nodded. “Most of them don’t even hate us, not really.”
She arched a brow. “Not sure I’d go that far.”
“I’m being serious. They might not know exactly what to think, but...they’ve been told stories and fed fear. That’s not the same as hatred.”
“Still don’t mean they’ll offer ye a seat at their table, though,” Thraigg chimed in.
Elyria shrugged. She didn’t need a seat at their table. She wanted to build an entirely new one.
“How much farther are we talking here, boyo?” Thraigg grumbled, breaking Elyria from her reverie.
