“You’ll get over it.Getting over yourself, however…”
“Hey.”
She shrugged.
“I wouldn’t be so sure Mauldrene’s not living,” Alobaz said, even though it made little sense.Castles didn’t do any such thing.Inanimate objects were by their very naturenotliving.
Regardless, neither Ed, Zi, Lev, Moncho, nor Night disagreed.
The sky was lightening with the promise of dawn, tingeing the sky around Mauldrene the faintest dusky rose.Before long, the sky would burst with color—reds, pinks, oranges, sometimes violets.But around Mauldrene herself, atop the island, nothing would change.
Lightning crackled loudly across the chasm, illuminating swaths through the fog in strokes of red-tinged violet.
“Uh … excuse me?”said one of the whores from behind them.
At their sudden attention, she brushed her hair back off her shoulders and smacked her garishly painted lips together, though it was more from nerves than being coy.
“You don’t, um, mean for us, ah, to crossDeath’s Dooming Abyss, do you?”Her voice trembled a touch.
The young girl clutched her arm, and shivered when the hooker put such emphasis on the local name for the chasm.
Alobaz sighed for what felt like the thousandth time that night.“It’s the only way to the castle.”
The woman’s eyes widened, as did the girl’s at her side.As did the eyes of many others, including Jaeda, whose persona relied on projecting constant confidence, even when she was spreading her legs—or her Majora vein—for coin.
“You intend to take us to the…” The hooker gulped audibly, before stammering out the rest: “…t-theAbysmal Fortress?”
Alobaz frowned.
“It’s called Castle Hawxfure now,” Ed said.
Something his father had insisted upon despite his protests.
Alobaz didn’t need a castle named in his honor.Didn’t want it.He especially didn’t want this one.
Alobaz took a step in front of his friends and crossed his arms.“We live at the castle.As my…” Charges, wards, feeders, sex workers … what should he call them?“As my … responsibility,” he settled on, “you’ll live where I live.”
Ed stepped to his side.“You’ll be safe with us.We’ll all protect you.”
The hooker’s gaze trailed Ed’s thick neck, muscled arms and thighs, the weapons she wore strapped to her person everywhere, and shrank back half a step.
Alobaz felt rather than saw the bright smile fall from Ed’s face.
He scowled.“There’s no reason to be afraid of us.”
“Especially not of Ed,” Moncho said.
None of Alobaz’s newresponsibilities—his scowl deepened—responded.Didn’t take so much as a tentative step toward the bridge Mauldrene had never found them worthy of.
“You know who we are?”Alobaz asked.
Many of them nodded.Jaeda said, “We heard o’ you long before you got to Galmeen.Most of us grew up hearin’ stories about you from our grannies and great-grannies.”
“And great-great-grannies,” another added, when Alobaz didn’t need the reminder that they were fragile humans with lifespans much shorter than theirs.
“So then you know we won’t hurt you,” Alobaz said.
None of them jumped to agree.
