“The key?”
“It’s with my things, in the caravan. But it is yours. Your fate is there, in the main market of the Crossroads, on the way to your throne, just as you left it, Princess Ci’Dan.” The woman’s head lobbed back and forth, her jaw slack.
“Princess Solaris.”
“You are she come again.” She was delirious in her disease. “It is yours. The place. The main market. Given for you.”
“How do I find the key?”
“Too late, too late. It’s hidden with the rest. Back of the tome, the records I kept. Too late…” Grendla repeated the words again and again, white spittle dripping down her chin and onto her lap.
“Did you ever see any visions about me?” Vi dared to ask. “You were a future seer in the Crossroads, right? Did you—”
“Too late… too late…”
Vi straightened, looking down at the woman. Maybe a day more, and she would be in the pit with the rest of them. But she’d secured enough information for now—a headway.
Now, to find the remnants of the caravan, and some kind of record book.
Chapter Seven
They weresilent walking back from the clinic. It wasn’t until they were halfway back to his home that Darrus finally removed his mask.
“Did you get what you needed?” he asked, not looking at her.
“I did… I know I’ve already asked too much of you.” He snorted at that, but Vi ignored it. “Do you know where the Western Caravans were set up?”
“Other side of the amphitheater,” he answered. “But there’s not much left there, now. They were ransacked, you know?”
She didn’t. “I still have to look. There may be some of her things there—family heirlooms.”
“Do you need me to come with you?” His body language and tone made clear he didn’t want to.
“No,” Vi said softly. “You’ve done enough for me for one night.” She pulled off her mask, handing it back to him. “Thank you, though. You don’t know how much you’ve helped.”
“Helped by showing you death?” He stared into the goggles of the mask, as if asking it the question more than her.
“Yes,” she answered firmly. “My kin aside… I needed to see the White Death with my own two eyes. Solaris needs a ruler who has seen it, who knows it and doesn’t hide behind castle walls.” She’d make every effort to stress as much to Romulin.
“It does indeed.” Darrus looked over her shoulder in the direction of the amphitheater. “Go safely, princess.”
“You too.” With that, they headed their separate ways. She was halfway to the remnants of the caravan when she realized that was likely the last time she’d ever see Darrus. Vi turned in place, even though there was no possible way to catch him still. He was long gone.
She pushed onward.
The remnants of the winter solstice were still visible in the city and it filled her with an uncomfortable sense of dread. There were clearings that had been made for dancing surrounded by the empty stands Vi had sat on with her friends in the final moments before the outbreak. Whole sections of abandoned markets looked like remnants of a battlefield that no one had the energy to clean.
Vi couldn’t blame them. The stink of death was heavy in the city. Now that she had seen the White Death with her own eyes, she could see its mark everywhere. In some cases, literal marks: white exes painted on doors.
Her eyes were bleary, heavy, but Vi forced herself to stay alert. The last time she’d been wandering at night, an assassin was lurking. The elfin’ra could come at any time.
“Where would you be?” she murmured as she rounded behind the amphitheater.
There was an open stretch of land that had some makeshift stables—empty. The grass was condensed, showing where wagons and carts had stood for days, but the carts themselves were gone. The remnants of a caravan were all there… except for the caravan itself.
“Mother,” Vi cursed softly, walking through the empty field. Her eyes caught a pale streak of orange. Kneeling down, she pressed her fingers into the fine powder that was slowly seeping into the earth. Raising her hand to her face, she inhaled. “Spices…”
They had been here, certainly. But where were their things? Darrus had said they’d been ransacked, but she’d expected there’d still be remnants—like sun-bleached bones picked clean by birds.
