“He’s shit is what,” Nadir grunted. “We’ve a problem.”
“More than your finding yourself in the Princess’s bed last night?” Draven blurted.
Nadir nearly tripped over his feet, and Draven looked back at his friend in confusion.
Nadir never tripped.
“Ah…fuck— She’s going to kill me isn’t she?” Nadir asked, a genuine fear in his eyes at the mention of Aydra.
“Yeah,” Draven said as they started walking again. “Should have seen her at breakfast. You’re lucky she didn’t come to find you then.”
“Shit—“
“The Princess handled it well,” Draven smirked crookedly at Nadir, remembering Nyssa snapping at her sister. “But if you really were trying to conceal it, you wouldn’t have marked the girl up as you did.”
Nadir scratched the back of his neck, avoiding Draven’s gaze. “It’s hard not to forget everything when you’re around her,” he admitted.
Draven’s eyes narrowed, and he almost laughed. “You’ll be adding Magnice to your trading route then? Telling Tuegor you’re taking over?”
“Architects, can you imagine the rest of my people’s faces if I told them I’d be traveling five days’ journey away all the time while there are strangers camped out the other side of the reef?”
Draven stopped walking. “What?”
“Oh. Right. That’s what I was going to tell you. We’ve a problem,” Nadir said.
Draven looked up the hall to where a few Belwarks were gathered, and then he gave Nadir a nod.
“Market,” Nadir repeated. “I need to make a few deals anyway.”
A glaring sun beat on them, drying up the rain that had passed over earlier in the day. The market smelled even brighter after, as though the rain had accented every stench and perfume of the flowers and gravel. Nadir stopped at nearly every vendor to inspect goods, looking for anything he thought his men had missed on their own travels to Magnice.
“What’s this about the strangers?” Draven asked when Nadir had bought a few crystals from someone.
“Ah… Soli found it, actually,” Nadir replied as he looked over some leather purses. “On one of her swims. I took a boat out the next day. There’s a camp at the Mouth. I couldn’t get very close. Didn’t want them to spot me and follow back.”
“How large?” Draven asked.
Nadir picked up a geode and held it up to the sun. “Not exactly small—Fuck all, this is shit.” He tossed the rock back on the table and looked at the vendor. “These are fake,” he accused.
The vendor opened his mouth to protest, but Nadir wasn’t finished. He grabbed up the Dreamer’s sign that read ‘authentic’, and he shredded it into tiny pieces, letting the confetti blow onto the fake rocks.
“Anyone buying these, you’re being swindled,” Nadir said loudly. “It’s painted shit.” He turned back to Draven, stepping away from the now frazzled vendor.
“Few tents set up at least. More and more ships are arriving every day.” There was a pain in his voice, and he shook his head at the ground. “I don’t have the men to ambush, mate,” he admitted. “If I go in now, it won’t matter. Another ship will be on the horizon. There’s not enough there that it would hurt supply lines.”
Draven nodded, agreeing with Nadir’s statement. “I wondered how long it would take for it to come to this,” he muttered.
“Come to what?”
“To start waiting it out.”
Nadir’s brows flinch upwards in agreement. “I was thinking on the way here… Once they become more dependent on that settlement, bring in more people, more livestock, supplies… We attack when it hurts them,” Nadir suggested. “By then, maybe we’ll have some legions from the Villages on our side.”
“You’re never going to get help from this place,” Draven said. “Prince and Princess will never leave unless they’ve a reason to. Aydra…” He paused, sighing heavily. “If she leaves, war will follow her.”
Pain stretched over Nadir’s face, and he ran his hand on his neck. “Peace?” he questioned.
“More information,” Draven said. “The more we know about them, the better understanding we will have to know if there even is such a thing as peace from them.” He twisted the ring on his finger, looking up the street as Nadir stopped at another vendor.
