Page 81 of Three Dark Kings and the Gilded Serpent

A moment later, Miriam proceeds through the door, at which a hum of sound greets me. Voices, footfalls, a city alive with people.

In the next moment, Miriam loudly announces, “We’re going to the night market. We do not need an escort.”

I soon see to whom she spoke.

Five guards are placed along the wall, all of them dressed in leather pants, straps crisscrossing their chests. A different insignia is emblazoned on each of their chest plates. Presumably the crests of the five Houses Miriam mentioned.

They don’t try to stop us and I don’t risk staring at them, keeping my head down as we pass by.

I remain in the center of the group, three women deep on every side of me as Miriam leads the way along a smaller path onto what appears to be a main street, from which other paths extend.

The street is packed with fae, but our progress is silent, other than the patter of our booted feet, because as soon as the other fae see us, they clear the path and turn their backs.

Shunned suddenly feels like an understatement.

Miriam sails through the parting crowds, sweeping us along with her before she turns off the main path, then slips to the right along a less busy street, and then again to the right, this time onto a pathway that looks far less well used.

Nobody looks at us. If anything, they’re at pains to act as if we don’t exist.

A new experience for me, although I suppose it somewhat resembles the way Stellen’s people would rush to avoid any contact with him. Except that was out of fear.

The scorn beating at us across the air from all those sour expressions followed by turned backs is palpable.

Soon, we step into shadows and approach a boarded-up tunnel.

Charis gestures to the gaps between the slats, some of which appear to have been tampered with.

Moments later, we regroup on the other side of the boards.

From here, I glimpse a sliver of sky. Dusky and dark blue. Night must be close to falling. It’s hard to tell, given that the tunnel’s end is half caved in.

The freshness of the rubble indicates it happened recently.

We set off at a brisk pace while the Mothers stay close around me, but their quickening heartbeats betray their growing anxiety.

As we approach the rubble blocking the exit, Miriam holds up her hand as if to say stop.

She clambers over the top of the rubble and disappears down the other side.

Softly, her call comes. “No guards.”

I’m not sure what she would have done if there had been guards stationed here.

Charis takes hold of my arm and urges me forward.

My heart is suddenly beating hard in my chest, not because I think Miriam’s wrong, but because of what I can hear in the distance.

Explosions.

I want to ask Charis if she can hear them too, but I don’t want to break the silence between the Mothers.

“Come carefully,” Miriam calls as we clamber over the rubble and onto the dunes.

Endless amber sand spreads in all directions, the dune behind me momentarily blocking my view north.

My boots sink into the shifting ground, a familiar sensation since I grew up on the beaches of the western coast, although the absence of a roaring ocean unbalances me.

I teeter on the spot, trying to reconcile the unfamiliarly hot evening breezes of this wasteland with the nostalgic fluctuation of sand beneath my feet.