AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Colbolt snorted and padded the snowy ground beneath his hooves.
“What’s a bigger word than stunning, then?” Gullie answered Colbolt as if she had understood him. Maybe she did?
“I don’t think we should be wasting time looking for words to describe this place,” said Valerian, his tone stern, and cold. “We’re here. We should get to work.”
“It’s the middle of the night,” I said, “And we’ve been riding all afternoon. I need sleep.”
“She’s right,” Gullie added. “We won’t be of much use if we’re all exhausted.”
Valerian took a deep breath in through the nose and exhaled. “Alright,” he said, “We’ll get to my safehouse and go from there… assuming we are allowed into the city.”
“Allowed in?” I asked, frowning. “Won’t they just let us in?”
“Some people remember you, remember us. Whether they do or they don’t, the city’s guard probably have orders to watch out for us.”
“Are we going to sneak in, then?”
“Something like that. Your grandmothers packed robes for us to wear. Put yours on and let me do the talking when we get to the gate.”
“You’regoing to talk to the guards?”
“You are more recognizable than I am.”
“I’m pretty sure they’ll be expecting two people riding in on a Maukibou. The robes probably won’t do us much good.”
Valerian tapped the pommel of his sword. “That’s why we have a Plan B.”
“I don’t like Plan B,” said Gullie.
Colbolt snorted again, but it was too late to try to find another way into the city. We didn’t have a choice but to go through the main gate, and hope the guards didn’t attack us on sight. It was a big bet, with really bad odds, but I had to trust that Valerian would be able to see us through… difficult as that was for someone like me.
The ride down from the top of the hill felt painfully slow. Knowing that we were headed right into the heart of danger made things worse. Still, I pulled my hood up, held myself close to Valerian, and waited with Gullie tucked in behind my hair.
“You should try to relax,” she whispered.
“Relax?” I asked, “How can I relax?”
“Because we’ve got this.”
“You aren’t scared?”
“Terrified, but I have to admit… sitting here, holding onto your hair, kind of reminds me of the old days with your mum. Riding into adventure together, me sitting on her shoulder, taking on Wenlow, crazy spirits, trials.”
“Your thirst for adventure is never going to cease to amaze me.”
“Good. I am amazing. And I’ve got your back… you know that, right?”
“I do… I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
“I’ve been hurt before. It’s not that bad. Wounds heal.”
“Yeah, but this… have you ever faced anything like this before?”
“Guards? Sure. Tons of them.”
“No, I meant Malys and what she’s doing.”
“Oh… no. Nothing like that. The Veridian was a powerful storm that brought up all kinds of nastiness, but it didn’t write us out of history.”
