That only gives me a few days before Larus leaves to talk to him about everything that has happened. But it won’t be tonight by the looks of it. Felix is already talking about all the places they need to drink to catch up. Adria and I are being invited, but for once we seem to be on the same page about something.
“We’re heading back to the castle to rest,” she says. “The qualifying events are in just a couple of days.”
“Ah yes, the Festival of Sport. Absolute waste of time if you ask me. What’s the point of fighting without the blood?”
“The girls are both excellent fighters. Sylvie is doing archery as well,” says Larus with pride. I love to hear him show me off.
Felix looks me up and downagain, his eyes lingering on my chest.Absolutely shameless. “You know what? You might have changed my mind about the festival. I’ll see you soon, ladies.”
I don’t think that was Larus’s intention, but it’s done now. “Hopefully nottoosoon,” I mutter, and Felix laughs like it’s the best thing he’s ever heard as we walk away from him.
I follow Adria back to the palace, but on the way, I hear the familiar sounds of the market. “You go on ahead,” I tell her. “I wanted to get a lighter pair of trousers for the tournament. It’s too damn hot here.” And, if I happen to find someone else there, all the better.
She tosses me a couple of coins. “Get me some, too.”
I’m relieved that she doesn’t have anything to say about me going to the market again after the debacle the first night. Maybe she’s starting to trust that I can handle what I’m here to do.
Or she’s just glad not to have to spend the evening with me alone. Probably the latter.
Chapter Fourteen
It occurs to me once I make it into the market that tracking Soren down might not be easy.
There are even more people here today than the first time I came, and I only know the places he showed me. I don’t even know his last name.
If he even has one.
I’m not sure why I’m so desperate to see him again. The thought that he might truly be Ronan unsettles me. If it’s true, I can’t even begin to imagine what I would say to him.
I realize what I’m really hoping is that heisn’tRonan at all. That I can find some comfort in him, in someone whose life isn’t woven into the web of lies and schemes that surrounds me.
“Have you seen a man with a scarred face recently? Or a woman with red hair and pierced ears?” I try asking each vendor I visited with Soren, but no one has seen them.
Or at least no one will admit to having done so. I’m certain some of these people must know or remember Soren. Maybe they’re refusing to help me because I’m Nithyrian.
I stop by a clothing vendor and pick up the trousers I told Adria I was here for and a couple of light dresses as well. They’re nowhere near as nice as what the rest of the court wears, butthey’re in the Selaran style, which should help me blend in better the next time I return here.
I’m thinking of what else I could do to find him again when I realize I’m being followed.
The past few days have left me increasingly paranoid, always wondering if someone is lurking just out of sight behind me. I recall the lessons my mother taught me when I was a child about how to discreetly check for a tail using reflections. I scan the market with careful intent, peering into the many gleaming surfaces around me. I check a silver service, then a glass case holding jeweled necklaces, then a looking glass with an ornate rim, and finally a vase made from polished brass, before I see him.
It's a boy, and though it’s difficult to make out his features in the distorted yellow reflection, I think it may be Nico. Did Soren ask him to follow me if I came back here?
I decide to keep browsing to see if he follows. I head from the vase seller to a stall with a metal cart, a water-born selling an ice-cooled cream dessert. The metal is frosted at the bottom, but at the top, I see the boy again in the reflection. Definitely Nico. I’m glad he’s recovered from my stabbing. I consider confronting him, but I decide to let him get some practice in. He’s darkening the shadows around us a bit too much to look realistic, but it’s not a bad effort for someone so young.
He vanishes eventually, and I debate how long to wait here, wondering if he even has a way of communicating with Soren, or if they only check in periodically. Would Soren come even if he had a way to tell him I was here?
The answer is no. I wait until the market closes, but he never arrives.
Then the next day, and then the day after that, I do the exact same thing. Larus has roped Adria into discussions with Felix,but he’s kind enough to keep me out of it, and I have nothing better to do.
And I like the market. I like the movement and the noise and the way I melt into the crowd there, unseen and unremarkable.
“I thought it was you,” says Soren, seeing me.
It’s nearly nightfall by the time he arrives. Soren stands before the bench in the central plaza where I’ve been sitting, looking almost exactly as he did when we first crossed paths in that shadowy alley. He’s wearing the same brown tunic and trousers, the same patch on his eye.
I’m determined to discover whether Soren truly is the person I suspect him to be, the person I don’t dare name, but before I confront him, I allow myself to have a moment to just enjoy his company.
