We arrived at the caravanserai just as the sun was sinking behind the low mountains and the tree line was casting a shadow over the road. I felt a prickle in the back of my neck and looked toward the mountains but saw nothing.
“Stable the horses, make sure they have a good ironsmith,” I said, nodding to a Salt soldier. Salt soldiers often didn’t know how to keep River horses, whose iron legs would seize up with too much riding.
I lifted Yaseema from her horse, ensuring that I was brisk and efficient and didn’t linger on her waist, though I had thought about the night before at the river entirely too much.
Then I went to arrange the rooms.
“Three rooms, please.” The Salt soldiers would sleep in the stables, or the great hall, but I wasn’t about to expose Yaseema to that, and to the potential threat of rebels.
I could feel the town’s hatred toward us as we rode in, and hatred and anger often overpowered fear—that was what made me wary.
“We only have two, sir.” The innkeeper said the words softly and looked as though he were about to throw up. “I’d give you mine, sir, only my wife and I have already given ours up for another patron.”
He lowered his voice. “The Viceroy and his human consort could share a room perhaps, sir.”
I raised my eyebrows at that, and I must have glowered at him, as he began sputtering other options.
I glanced behind me, seeing Reza and Yaseema enter the caravanserai. I didn’t want Reza to have a reason to curse this peri into oblivion, so I made a decision. “The human and the Viceroy will have their own rooms. I will sleep in the main hall.”
“Oh, but sir, the hall is not for great visitors such as yourself, you don’t understand—”
I raised a hand again, as the peri had nearly turned white in his panic.
“Please show us to our rooms.”
“Yes, sir.”
He hurried up the stairs, a dark tail swishing behind him. Reza entered his room and immediately shut the door, and I left Yaseema to her room. She shot me a questioning glance.
Did I think she was safe in a room beside Reza?
As long as she was useful to him, as long as he saw her as having worth according to him, she would be fine.
I, on the other hand, prepared myself for a very long night in the main hall with all manner of unsavory people who wanted my death.
Chapter 32
I adorned myself in Tashuna gold,
Like I was the most precious gift,
But when my true love came to claim my hand,
It was too laden to lift.
—Songs of Astola,collected and compiled by Mahira Nazir
Yaseema
If he thought I was just going to stay in my room quietly while I’d been shepherded around and he’d just told me this was a town where all the fae relics were made, he didn’t know me at all.
I slipped out as soon as Kiyan was gone, creeping back down the stairs and out of the front door of the caravanserai.
It was dusk, and the town was very different from what I’d seen at the palace and the city. Every building, every streetlight, even the cobblestone streets were accented with gold. Occasionally I’d bend down to the bricks of gold in the cobblestone streets and read ancient fae that had been inscribed there.
They were all words of protection, safety, and love.
When I turned the corner, I ended up in the bazaar that Kiyan mentioned.
