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When she had come here, she’d had no time to process what she was doing. She just knew her father had said it was the only way to fix what was broken. The only way to survive the Red Masks usurping the Society. She hadn’t expected a broken Domara, cursed by its own divided allegiances. She hadn’t expected to end up here with Constantine. She hadn’t expected her parentage.
Nothing could have prepared her for it. And between that and the lack of magic, she felt as if her mind were eating itself. There wasn’t enough room for her to process the possibility of her birth.
“Felicity,” Constantine said, his voice lowering and a protective hand coming to her shoulder. “Are you all right? You’re shaking.”
She wasn’t going to cry. Anytime someone asked if you were okay, the waterworks were triggered. But she couldn’t do that. Not here. Not in front of him. Yet she couldn’t stop shaking.
“What is it?” He worked gentle, comforting circles on her back. “Talk to me.”
She met his gaze and saw only concern there. It was hard to reconcile this man with the one who was planning to sell her for sex.
She pulled back out of his grasp. “I don’t know.” Her voice was defensive, even to her own ears. But she couldn’t care. It wasn’t like she could trust him with her woes. “I don’t know your customs. I didn’t know I was supposed to bow.”
“It’s all right,” he told her, still placating. “I didn’t want him to look at you too long. You don’t want to be taken in by a man like that.”
“That much I know.” She wrapped her arms around herself.
His back stiffened at the insinuation that he was anything like a Doma. But he couldn’t deny it either.
“I see,” he said, the bite returning to his voice. “Well, you seem better now.” He snapped his fingers at his soldiers. “Let’s go.”
She glanced over her shoulder once at the litter in the distance. She wondered if she should just follow it, would she find her mother? No. That wasn’t an option. It had never been an option. Vulsan wanted her dead. It would just be suicide.
So, she trudged after Constantine and his men. Theo winked at her and blew a kiss to try to cheer her up. She shook her head at him, falling into line behind Constantine to cross the incredible bridge.
Yesterday, they’d docked on the western bank of the Liber and crossed the cobblestone streets of Carithian on horseback. She’d only gotten glimpses of the bridges that defined Carithian’s beautiful waterway. Now on foot, heading toward the eastern banks and the coliseum beyond, she could marvel at the craftsmanship. Stones interlocked into wide arches a thousand feet above the waterline. Matching arches were on display every few feet with the rest of the city sprawled out around them. Every step was a mosaic of white archways, designed into the footpath as if a fountain were raining water down the lane.
“They’ve been here thousands of years,” Constantine said when he caught her expression. “They built Carithian around the bridges. Everything else was in ruin, but the bridges still stood.”
“Who built them?”
Constantine shrugged his massive shoulders. “No one knows. Whoever came before the Doma in Domara. But they are the only bridges that still withstand the flood season. One of the only other remaining legacies of that empire are the aqueducts that bring clean water from the countryside into the city. They keep Carithian the center of the world.”
Kerrigan considered that. Even something as powerful as the Doma had once never existed, and their predecessors had built something they still couldn’t even fathom. Even with magic.
That brought a smile to her face. Domara and Alandria were not so different in that regard. Her home, Draco Mountain, had been carved out for residences long before Fae ever stepped foot on the island. It was comforting in its own way to know that time always persevered above all else.
The east side of the river was night and day from the west. She had noticed it from the boat, but it was clear that the eastern banks of the river had more people in a smaller amount of space. There were whorehouses on every other corner with exposed women hanging out of the doors and leering at Constantine’s men. Wine was on everyone’s tongues, and the quarters got progressively dingier the closer they got to the coliseum.
The west banks were for the wealthy. And Constantine, even in his depleted state, still had a home with the wealthy. The people he hated and who hated him still allowed him the privilege of his rank.
“Stay close,” Constantine warned, putting her toward the river and away from the crowd.
“I can handle myself in the slums,” Kerrigan told him.
She’d spent a lot of her time in the Dregs of Kinkadia. She’d learned to fight in the Wastes at Dozan Rook’s famed Dragon Ring. Her heart ached. He’d been her first everything, and now, she didn’t even know if he’d survived. She chose to believe he had. He was a cockroach. A little insurrection wouldn’t stop him.
