Maybe this wasn’t just a book.
I should’ve realized this sooner, but I had been too caught up in trying to survive. Dying must’ve given me some clarity. Wherever I had ended up, this world wasn’t limited by the pages of the books I knew. This place was something else, something much bigger. Something alive and very dangerous.
I swallowed, hid my money under the cloak, pulled the hood over my head, and forced myself to turn away from the river toward the city.
The rain had eased but the streets were still deserted. Night had pounced, drowning Kair Toren, the outlines of tall buildings charcoal sketches against a deeper gloom. Darkness pooled in the mouths of alleys and stretched onto the roads. Here and there a few windows were lit from within, taunting me with warmth.
I had to get off the streets.
Kair Toren had several licensed inns but to stay in one of those, I wouldn’t just need money, I would need identification papers or the crest of a prominent family. Licensed inns were required to keep records of their guests and they screened their patrons. I wouldn’t even get through the door in my corpse cloak and bare feet.
There were unlicensed, illegal inns. I knew of a couple, but I would have to find them in the dark, and walking into those and flashing my ill-gotten gains would get my throat slit again. The people who ran those places had no problem killing their patrons for a few coins and dumping them into the nearest river. Been there, done that, no thanks.
My toes started their transformation into icicles again. The adrenaline rush was wearing off. A gnawing ache spread through my body. I was sore everywhere.
I had to find shelter, clean up, and get a change of clothes. Food. I needed food. My stomach actually hurt, as if the hunger had become an open wound.
There was one place where I could get all those things. They wouldn’t care about my cloak, they wouldn’t ask any questions, and they wouldn’t murder me as long as I paid my way. It would be expensive as hell, but I had no choice. Yes, that could work.
I looked up, trying to get my bearings. I was on Ogden Bridge, and the Mage Tower was in front of me and to my left, which meant north was to my left as well. Kair Toren was a huge city, and I’d have to get almost all the way to the Bull Gate. At least an hour of fast walking, maybe longer. The rain had finally stopped, which meant the human predators would soon emerge. I had to hurry.
I turned, crossed the bridge, and started down the cobblestone street, hugging myself against the cold.
The city crawled by, the dark alleys and side streets yawning at me as I passed. I kept moving, listening for every noise, alert to every flicker on the edge of my vision.
My feet ached. My shoulder burned where the stelka had clawed me. My stomach hurt, begging for food. The wet cloak refused to dry. I was freezing. A sob broke free, and I bit down on it. Survive first, cry later. I just had to make it to my destination and not get jumped along the way.
There had to be shorter routes, but I only knew how to get there from the Bull Gate, because one of the characters took that path in the books.
It felt like I had been walking forever. I couldn’t even think anymore. I just focused on putting one foot in front of the other.
The street narrowed, its houses three or four stories high and built without any spaces between them. Lanterns lit the way, attached to the buildings every thirty yards. I was almost to the outer wall. The roads here were meant to channel the flood of invaders into a narrow kill space if the gates were breached. The city paid to have them well lit in case the city watch had to chase a criminal trying to enter or exit.
The street ended, as if cut off with a knife, and the Bull Gate rose ahead, the empty space in front of it lit by torches and braziers, their light playing on the massive bronze doors shut tight. High above, the city guards prowled the wall.
I stopped. I needed to take the third street from the gate on my left. There should have been a house with a blue door on the corner . . .
The huge city gates opened with a loudclang.
It was after sunset. Only someone in a very high position could force the guards to let them in.
Three riders entered the city, followed by a cart. All three rode Andikan warhorses, big, quick-footed, and mean, with grullo coats that looked like gray smoke. The leading rider’s horse had a bald face—a white marking that covered the entire front of his head. It looked like he had killed another horse and wore its skull as a helmet.
Everard. The Sleepless Duke, riding Villain, his war stallion. Crap.
They called him the Sleepless Duke because he ruled over a vast stretch of territory on the northern border and that territory was continuously raided by the aggressive nations from the northwest and the Crimson Empire from the east. The Selva Dukedom was always at war. Ramond vi Everard had no time to sleep. He had picked up a sword at the age of three and never put it down, just like his father and mother before him. He was a violent isolationist, who responded to threats with overwhelming force and shocking brutality.
And he was not supposed to be here. Something monumental must’ve happened because Everard wasn’t allowed in the city without a royal invitation. Sauven Savaric, the current king of Rellas, feared him so much, it was almost a phobia. This wasn’t in the book either. Why? This seemed like a pretty major development.
If he was sneaking into the city, he wouldn’t want witnesses. Of all the people to run into . . .
There was no place to hide. I flattened myself against the nearest house and looked down.
The riders bore down the street, their dark cloaks swallowing the light as if they had cut out pieces of midnight sky and wrapped them around their bodies.
Don’t notice me. Don’t see me.
Villain reached me. The size of this horse was truly shocking. I raised my head a fraction of an inch. The stallion glared at me with a bright blue eye, and I caught a glimpse of the rider, broad shoulders stretching his cloak, his hood hiding everything except for his clean-shaven square jaw.
