He turned a corner and found himself at the back of a sizable crowd. They were in the middle of a large square that included a park and a marble fountain and large, manicured trees. The square was big enough to hold what looked like nearly a hundred people, all, by their dress, of the High or Most High Blood. The women were in long, flowing dresses of every cut, color, and size. Some of them were fashionable, while others came close. The men were all in long robes, decorated with the colors of their house or perhaps the colors of the Prince to which they were sworn.
And in the center of the park, next to the marble fountain, was a make-shift wooden stage, on which a slave auction was taking place.
The Prince was surprised, but not shocked. Slaves were a normal occurrence in the Empire. Those who committed grievous crimes or were found guilty of treason were often sold into life-long bondage. As his brother Rikard had explained to him, criminals were turned from a burden to a blessing in the slave system of Lucia. They were given moral discipline, taught the Blessings of the Empress, and made into law-abiding members of society.
But as he watched, a teenage girl was brought up onto the platform. She was naked and shivering from fear and cold.
This is… a criminal?
A man whom the Prince assumed was the auctioneer listed off various details about her—weight, age, height—and two men in leather armor strapped the girl’s wrists and ankles into manacles. Once she was bound, the men went to the back of the stage and pulled on a pair of ropes. The chains connected to the girl’s manacles were pulled tighter, and the girl was lifted off the ground and held spreadeagle in the air, her bare skin glistening in the light of the oil lamps that ringed the square.
“A member of the Commons guilty of thievery, Marisa is in need of a strong master to teach her proper conduct,” the auctioneer said.
The Prince, horrified, saw two men of the High Blood at the back of the crowd laugh and mime something crude. The two ladies with them giggled shrilly, and the auctioneer paused for a moment as the giggles echoed throughout the crowd.
The girl on the platform was silent, but the Prince could see tears streaming from her eyes, and she had slumped as much as possible in her restraints. Every part of her was on display, and the Prince felt as though he were violating her simply by looking at her.
His mind flashed back to the memories of the rapist he had killed as a child, and he was suddenly violently sick. He lurched behind one of the buildings and emptied his stomach onto the cobblestone floor of an alleyway, memories crashing through his head, memories he thought he had buried long ago. The auctioneer spoke again, and this time there was outright laughter, though the Prince couldn’t make out the words. The bidding began, the auctioneer calling out numbers in a mechanical, clipped voice.
He forced himself to turn away, and as he looked up, he noticed two things simultaneously. The first was a gleam of gold that winked at him from across the street: a golden compass above the door of one of the mansion houses. The second was the figure of the Exile girl standing in the shadows of the next building over.
Spikes of terror struck the Prince through his chest and gut, and thoughts of the slave auction were obliterated. She couldn’t see him. She couldn’t. He was so close—he wouldn’t be taken back now. He had to get to the Empress—he had to get to the Seeker—
He pushed against the side of the alleyway, hiding in the shadows, as the girl, even more stone-faced than usual, crossed the street. She flitted fromshadow to shadow and moved past the door with the compass on her way around the slave auction.
How was she here?
Suddenly he remembered the sound of crashing metal as he’d descended the wall and he knew then that she had followed him and incapacitated the guard. Somehow, she had caught up and followed him. In desperation, he told himself again that once he reached the Seeker he would be safe. That was one place she would never be able to follow him.
She rounded the far edge of the square, looking in all directions, and as soon as her gaze was turned the other way, he ran for the compass and the door beneath it.
His feet and legs moved jerkily, as if unsure what world they were in and whether or not they could still run. But run they did, and the girl never turned and saw him cross the street. He was at the door. Another golden compass was etched into the doorknob. The Prince reached for it, turned it, pushed the door in, and was through. The whole thing had taken barely seconds, but his heart was pounding as if he’d run a mile, and the image of the girl—both girls—kept flashing through his head.
He was now inside the foyer of a large and opulent townhome. Before him were lavish engravings and a painting by the master artist Simaltan, dead nearly a century and highly acclaimed. A man in a blue velvet vest and black pants entered the foyer from a room farther in and saw him standing there. He took in the Prince’s clothing, the heavy way in which he was breathing, and seemed to make a decision.
“What is it you seek?” he asked slowly, obviously thinking that the only reason anyone would be in his house looking like the Prince—dirty, rank from weeks of travel, and clearly panicked—was if he were on the Path.
“I seek the one who seeks the Light,” the Prince gasped.
The man’s wary look turned to one of relief, and he spoke the rest of ritual with more assurance, pulling his hand out from behind his back. The Prince was fairly certain that there was a dagger back there.
“How do you mean to seek him?”
“By following the Path myself.”
“How do you hope to see the one who Seeks if you do not see the Path?”
“I seek the Path so that my eyes may be opened to the Light.”
The man nodded and motioned for the Prince to follow him. He turned into the main room, and the Prince walked quickly after him. The rest of the house was just as rich as the Prince would have expected from one of the High Blood, though not as opulent as if he were one of the Most High.
They passed through a series of rooms, each grander than the last, until they finally came to a grand ballroom that opened onto a garden. The man motioned to the wide glass doors at the end of the room, and turned away, dismissing him.
The Prince crossed the room and made it through the large glass doors without incident. On the other side of the doors on a dais in the middle of a wide, sloping yard was a golden coin.
Four.
Beyond the dais, the Prince saw another seven-pointed compass, engraved as part of a sundial. This compass had a working arrow on it, one that was currently pointed through a hedge at the end of the garden. The Prince passed quickly through the opening, and then through the wooden door beyond it.
