Chapter Seven
There’s only so long after you arrive at a new place that you can pretend to be lost in order to get away with being in places you’re not supposed to be.
We figure we have about a week before turning up in private quarters begins to look suspicious, and with the king outside of the palace, it’s even less likely that anyone will wonder what I’m doing so far from our assigned chambers.
On the way from the throne room, I tried to memorize the route back to it. I retrace those same steps now, glancing out the windows as I go to get my bearings.
It’s impossible to map out the palace in my mind. I’m not sure I could do so even with ink and paper, although that would be an entirely foolish task to undertake anyway. All I really need to do is find my way to the king’s quarters and then into the servants’ passages that lead there.
I make it back to the throne room before I encounter anyone. There are two guards positioned at the door we’d come from; I don’t remember them being there after we’d left, so maybe Ronan has returned.
I don’t want to see him again. I’m still trying to process what happened earlier. I can’t help but feel a bit betrayed by Adria’s omissions. I’m wishing Cyrus hadn’t shown us to our chambers first so that I could have called on Larus to ask him if he knew about Adria’s plan.
And I have no idea what to make of my other feelings, or of the glimpse of pain I saw on Ronan’s face.
I would give anything to know what he was thinking.
Was it simply regret for asking the question, or did it run deeper than that?
Was it the memory of his father? Or could he possibly have been regretting his actions against us?
Not fucking likely.
I try not to think about Ronan on the other side of the door, possibly feeling my every feeling once more. I try not to think about how, for all we knew, he could feel everything anyone felt in the palace at any time. Or maybe even beyond its walls.
If that were true, it must be overwhelming. I wonder how he can tell the feelings of others from his own. If he’s ever been confused by them. If he’s ever felt as confused as I do right now.
The guards watch me approach. I decide to take a page out of Adria’s book: I act.
“I’m sorry, but I couldn’t find one of the palace servants. I’m trying to find my way to the bathing chambers.”
I can’t decide whether to try to look simple-minded or alluring. I bat my eyelashes at them a little, hoping it comes across as one or the other.
I probably look insane.
It works, though. One of the guards gives me a very complicated list of directions that I ignore after the first couple of turns send me onward past the throne room entrance the way I was hoping to go.
I imagine Ronan’s private chambers must be on this side of the palace. It’s near the throne room and away from the guests, and it seems that the bathing chambers aren’t far away. Those are down the stairs, so I go up instead.
I pass a lovely balcony overlooking a courtyard filled with exotic plants, a grand ballroom, and a dozen closed doors that must be private chambers.
I consider opening one, but the other guests have been arriving, and I’m worried I’ll meet someone on the other side.
There are other stairways up, but I continue to the end of the hallway until I reach a spiraling staircase that leads into a tower.
It seems a likely place, although I have little excuse for ascending a tower when we did no such thing to reach our own chambers. I hardly want to go in the front door anyway; instead, I search the hallway for a servants’ entrance.
I’m standing on my tiptoes, peering behind a tapestry, when something catches my eye out the window.
This part of the palace has windows that face the sea, but when I turned the last corner, I must have turned back towards the city, because it’s city as far as the eye can see beyond.
And there, at the end of a street, is a wide-open plaza, filled to the brim with canopies.
The market.
It has to be the same market Typhon described. I try to make out any of the wares, but I can only see flashes of light on metal and crowds of people as small as ants from this distance.
I look back down the hallway. I’m supposed to find a way into Ronan’s chambers, but I’m not certain he isn’t in them. Maybe he hasn’t left for dinner yet.
I’m not even certain I’m in the right place.
This could be where Larus is staying, for all I know.
If I get caught in the servants’ hallways, I won’t have any excuse for being there.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to walk around and observe, trying to catch the servants entering and exiting so that I can know how to avoid them before risking it?
I have my shadows, sure, but there’s not much I can do if they bump right into me in the dark.
I’ve found a possible lead. I performed the way Adria wanted me to in the throne room. Ronan isn’t even going to be in the palace tonight. Why shouldn’t I go to the market for just a little while?
I have a little coin in my pocket. I don’t want to buy much, though. To be honest, I just want to see it. There’s a whole world out there I’ve never been allowed to see, and part of it is waiting just down the street.
I head for the stairs and go down them, not up.
I find ground level easily enough, but I don’t want the guards to see me going out one of the main doors, so I keep looking for other options.
I’m on the way to the bathing chambers again, so I follow the path the guard gave me for a bit until I see a nondescript door that seems to be on an exterior wall.
It's a perfectly reasonable door for me to try, so I try it. Locked.
Not a problem. The hallway is empty, but I deepen the shadow around me just in case. Then I retrieve a small metal rake from my pocket and a pin from my hair, and in just a few seconds, the lock is open.
Thanks, Mom, for teaching me that one.
The door opens into a darkened corridor, which is something of a surprise, but I can smell a hint of salt on the damp air, so I walk inside, locking the door behind me.
Some brooms and cobwebby crates line the narrow walls, leaving only enough room for one person to walk at a time. Thankfully, I don’t meet anyone as I travel the passage, and soon I reach another door, this one locked from the inside.
I turn the lock and open the door out into the light of day.
I’m in an alleyway, and judging by the buildings that line it, I’m outside of the palace walls.
I’ve found an unguarded way out of the palace. Adria will be so pleased with that, I doubt she’ll even mind that I visited the market.
Not that I intend to tell her.
The raised voices and the sound of carts rolling on stone give away the market’s location even though I can’t see it from here, so I make my way through the alleys in its direction.
These aren’t the streets of Faros that King Ronan wants us to see.
They aren’t paved with gold or polished to perfection like the palace.
They’re real, lived-in streets, a little dirty and worn but well-trodden in a way I can’t help but find charming.
Thousands of people have lived out their lives in these streets over the centuries. Millions, maybe.
They’re Selaran, but I don’t think of the common Selarans as our enemy. They’ll be our people too, once Adria takes the palace.
At the thought, I glance back in its direction. Part of me hopes Ronan can’t feel what I’m feeling.
Part of me hopes that he can.
I turn a blind corner, and something moves behind me.
I can feel the heat from their body on my back—they’re small like me, possibly a woman—and I can smell something sweet on their breath as they pull me to them, placing a knife at my throat.
Again?
Our encounter on the road yesterday flashes back into my mind. Of how I’d failed. Of how I got away with my life by lucky chance, not anything of my own doing.
This time is different. I will not be a victim. I will learn from my mistakes.
I plunge the alley into darkness and pull my dagger from my belt, driving it right into my attacker’s gut before they can even flinch.