AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“At least it doesn’t smell as awful as Ascal,” Dom grumbled as he cleared the gate, one hand resting on his sword. Valtik followed close behind.
The square inside the gate was oddly quiet, but then it was still daylight. Corayne assumed that most of Adira’s residents would be sleeping off the night before, and the ones who weren’t were well past noticing a few more riders on the streets.
Sorasa nudged her horse east, past a headless statue, its hands raised in supplication. Someone had draped their laundry from its fingers.
“I didn’t know there could be so many places to drink,” Andry whispered to Corayne, leaning close as they passed a stretch of taverns, each one more cramped than the last. Unlike Dom and Sorasa, he was still unarmed. The best he had was the kettle, still thunking softly in his saddlebags.
“Want to peel off?” she replied. The square became a spiderweb of streets, quieter than the gate. An old man weakly advertised games of chance from a balcony while a woman squawked at him to stop talking. “I doubt Sorasa would mind.”
He laughed, meeting her stare. Up close, his eyes were dark stones flecked with amber.
“I think Dom and Sorasa would rather tie us up and drag us than let us explore,” he said, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder. The Elder rode close behind, his glare leveled on Corayne’s back.I might as well be tied up already.“Not that I want to.”
“Oh, come on, Squire Trelland.” Corayne smiled and leaned further, one hand gripping the pommel of her saddle for balance. She cut a glance at the street. It felt like a vein, thrumming with life she couldn’t see. Two men stumbled out of a dice house, trying to fight and missing every blow. They reminded her so much of theTempestborncrew her heart ached. “Aren’t you curious?”
Andry watched the pair. “I’ve seen drunks before, thank you.”
A pair of knights a bit tipsy on the Queen’s vintage are not drunks,Corayne thought.
“There’s more to do here than drink,” she replied.
Andry nodded. “And I hope we get it over with quickly.”
“Maybe not too quickly,” Corayne shot back. He glanced at her, an eyebrow raised in question. She bit her lip, chewing the moment. “It’s nice to see you worry about something that isn’t the end of the world,” she finally said, almost too softly for mortal ears.
Beneath his hood, Andry smiled, his face brightening.
“Likewise, Corayne.”
“The laws of Adira are simple.” Sorasa’s voice was as gentle as a whipcrack, snapping over them both. She turned in the saddle, directing her horse with only her knees and the grip of her leather- sheathed thighs. “There are none,” she concluded, matter-of-fact.
Corayne got the sense her warning was mostly for Dom, who barely understood a proper mortal city, let alone one run and ruled by outlaws. And for Andry, who gaped at their surroundings.
“Kill a man in the street if you like, but know you can be killed just as easily. Cut a purse and be prepared for a cut in return. There are no guards, no city watch. Only the wardens on the bridges, walls, and gates. And their objective isn’t to protect you; it’s to protect Adira.” Sorasa waved her fingers, gesturing back the way they’d come. Like she said, there were no more wardens to be seen, a stark contrast to every other city Corayne had passed through. “Nothing and no one else. Anything can be taken, from every direction. Keep your eyes up. Don’t lose sight of me.” Then she reached, tugging on the bridle of Corayne’s horse, so that the mare huffed and drew in close. Sorasa met Corayne’s eyes with a stare to bore through steel. “Don’t wander off.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Corayne answered like a child accused.I can’t exactly explore with the Spindleblade between my shoulders, balancing the salvation of the Ward with its impending doom.
“Good,” Sorasa cut back. “And before you start in on your questions, we’re headed to the Priest’s Hand.”
Andry blanched. “There are priests here?”
Sorasa grinned. “Not the kind you’re used to, Squire.”
The Priest’s Hand was a church, or had been sometime in the last two centuries. Now it was a marketplace, the pews long since removed to make room for stalls. Smoke wafted overhead, trapped by the domed roof of a former shrine to Tiber, the god of trade and craftsmen. His face was painted on the walls, wearing his usual crown of coins. Corayne knew him well.
There was little order to the place. The smell of muddy soup wafted from a cook stand, while a Tyri sailor with gold teeth displayed a cage of beady-eyed ravens. A man sold animal bones next to twin sisters praying over glittering lengths of jewels and beads. There were cloth merchants, fishmongers, fruit vendors, and stalls with no obvious purpose but to sell bits of junk. Stolen goods, Corayne knew, eyeing the displays as they passed. She saw her charts again, weaving the lines of trade through the Long Sea. She smirked at the telltale oily sheen of Treckish steel at a workman’s table, though Trec kept a tight fist on their mines and craftsmen. She wanted to linger, but Sorasa drew them through the church as if they were all tied together. Only Valtik halted. Naturally, she went to a spread of ribs, spines, and femurs, pawing through them with a slack grin. She even tested a few, tossing them between her hands and over the ground like a gambler playing at dice.
Perhaps that was the idea.So far, my fate seems like a bad turn of luck.
Dom kept close at her back. For once, he wasn’t so out of place. While the streets were quiet, the Priest’s Hand was busy, and many Adirans were as large as Domacridhan. Bruisers, bandits, pit fighters, sailors with sun-damaged cheeks. Lean thieves and beautiful courtesans from all over the Ward wove among them. A man with diamond-pale, glowing skin even winked at Dom, blowing him a kiss with a beckoning hand.
Corayne stopped searching stalls and began searching faces, hoping to spot whoever Sorasa intended to recruit to their quest. She nearly halted before an Ibalet man, his look similar to Sorasa’s, with a belt of daggers and eyes like a falcon. But Sorasa passed him by without a second glance. Soon the long walk through the church was finished, and they stood before the abandoned altar. Instead of a droning priest reciting godly scripture, a pair of dogs lounged around it, panting with slobbering smiles.
“Are they here? Have we missed them?” Corayne said, looking back down the church. A few eyes trailed them, watching carefully. The two most obvious were a pair of men in long gray robes, their boots new leather. They had the look of a religious order, even if there was no religion under this roof. “We’re being followed,” Corayne said flatly.
“I’mbeing followed,” Sorasa replied with a sigh. She even waved a hand in their direction. “They’re nothing. The Twilight Brothers are a joke.”
Andry’s jaw dropped. He looked from Sorasa to the robed men, not bothering to drop his voice. “The Twilight Brothers? They’re killers, assassins—”
