I shove the massive shelf aside with a groan of straining muscle and scraping stone. Behind it is a black, gaping hole. The original, buried sewer tunnels of Eelry, built long before Privis bought his title.
The smell hits us—a putrid wave of cold, damp earth, old sewage, and the faint, sour reek of the city's underbelly.
She recoils. "Gods..."
"They'll have the estate gates locked," I growl, pulling her toward the blackness. "This gets us under the wall and into the city slums. It's our only chance."
I drop into the darkness first, landing with a heavy splash in the ankle-deep filth below. I turn and catch her as she drops, lifting her down as if she weighs nothing.
Above us, I hear the guards smash into the kitchen. "They're in the tunnels! Seal the exits!"
I don't look back. I just pull her into the suffocating dark, and run.
6
AURORA
The rusted iron grateshrieks.
The sound is a metal scream in the crushing, subterranean dark, so loud I’m sure Krell and his mercenaries must have heard it. My heart tries to leap out of my chest, but Othic—The Tusk—doesn't seem to care. He puts his massive, scarred shoulder to the grate andshoves.
It bursts open with a spray of rust and foul, cold water, dumping us out of the sewer and into a different kind of darkness.
I gag, stumbling out onto slick, muddy cobblestones, my hands flying to my mouth. The smell hits me like a physical blow. It’s not the cloying, sweet perfume of Privis’s estate or the acrid tang of blood. This is the real Eelry. It’s the smell of a thousand unwashed bodies crammed together, of rotting fish from the nearby port, ofrodanmeat frying in rancid oil, and beneath it all, the sour, briny stench of the black canals that pass for streets.
I lived above this. For three years, I scrubbed Privis's marble floors, and this... this was just beneath my feet.
"This way," Othic grunts. His voice is low, but it cuts through the din of the Lowtown.
I leap to my feet, clinging to the back of his leather tunic. The alley is a narrow crack between two towering, rickety tenements that lean against each other, blocking out the sky. A thin, sickly yellow light spills from a few windows, illuminating a world of filth. Azagferelf, his face thin and gaunt, sees us emerge from the sewer and flattens himself against a wall, his eyes wide.
Othic is the only solid thing in this world of shadows and rot. He is a walking mountain of impossibility, and I am tied to his wrist by an invisible thread. He pulls me into the main thoroughfare, a street that's more of a churning river of mud, and my terror finds a new, deeper level.
This isn't just a slum. It’s a nation of the forgotten. The street is a churning river of bodies—human laborers, palezagferelves with hollow cheeks, and even a few hulking, off-duty Minotaur mercenaries outside a grog-shop. They all have the same dead, hopeless eyes.
But the moment they see Othic, that deadness vanishes. It’s replaced by pure, undiluted terror.
A human woman pulling a cart loaded with scraps sees his massive, gray-green form, sees the bloody axe on his back, and she yanks her child into a doorway, shielding him with her body. Thezagferelf from the alley has already vanished. The entire streetpartsfor us, a wave of fear rippling away from his heavy, confident steps.
My stomach churns. I look up at the massive, scarred warrior I am clinging to.This is "The Tusk."
I realize with a cold, sickening lurch: he's not just Privis's monster. He'sEelry'smonster. This is his territory. These people see him and they don't see a protector. They see the butcher who just returned from the Dareksword estate. Theysee the creature who keeps their real master, Privis, safe and powerful.
He is the boogeyman, and I am walking in his shadow.
A new spike of fear hits me, sharp and confusing. Is he really saving me? Or has he just... stolen me? Am I just hisnewprize, taken from his master's hoard?
He doesn't seem to notice my hesitation. His head is on a constant, slow swivel, his amber eyes scanning rooftops, alleyways, his entire body a coiled spring. He ignores the panicked stares and pulls me deeper into the maze. "Keep your head down," he rumbles. "Don't look at anyone."
The alarm horn from Privis's estate is a faint, baying cry in the distance, almost lost beneath the closer sounds of shouting and a tinny, out-of-tunejinrayahaplaying from a tavern. Othic shoves me suddenly, hard, into the black shadow of a collapsed wall, pressing his own body in front of me as a shield.
"Stay," he hisses.
I press my back against the cold, slimy brick, my breath held tight in my chest. The alley smells of piss and stale wine. From a grimy, torch-lit window just above our heads, I hear voices—drunk, slurredzagferelves.
"Heard the news from Noble Hill?" one voice, thick withzhisk, slurs. "Lord Privis's high-born wife took a 'slip.' Right in the bathhouse."
"Slipped?" A second voice snorts, followed by a wet cackle. "Hah! Slipped on a bar of 'my-husband-is-a-murdering-worm' soap, more like. It's abouttime. He's been wanting to get his hands on that little human 'Doll' of his for months."
