Chapter 47
Rìan tore the silks from the ceiling in a blur of motion before seizing my arm and dragging me closer.
“What—”
“Shut up,” he snapped.
He started draping the silks around me, winding them over my shoulders and around my body again and again.
He pulled one over my head like a hood and his hand grazed my neck as he shoved my hair beneath it.
There was no softness to the motion, only stiff-jawed focus, his face so shuttered that I didn’t dare speak again.
Something in his expression warned me not to.
I caught the scent of burning and my hair felt coarse against my nape. The ends had been singed.
He stepped back to inspect his work before tugging part of the veil across the lower half of my face.
He was making me look like one of Elyndra’s whores.
He snatched up another length of silk and scrubbed the soot from his face before crossing to the door. He pressed an ear against the wood, listening. After a moment, he eased it open just enough to peer into the corridor, then jerked his head for me to follow.
We darted into a dim hallway beyond. At this hour, the night's entertainments were long over, leaving the pleasure house quiet and nearly deserted. Somewhere deeper within the building, water ran and dishes clattered as servants cleaned away the remnants of the night and prepared for the day ahead.
We slipped past the kitchens, through a doorway, and into an alley.
Immediately, a wave of humid air engulfed me, dense and heavy with moisture. Every breath felt damp in my lungs. Moisture gathered against my skin, and within moments the silks wrapped around me began to cling to my body.
The walls rose close on either side of us, unlike any stone I'd ever seen. Their rough surfaces were streaked with ivory, soft pink, and deep rust, pitted with countless tiny holes and ridges. Shells lay embedded within the rock itself—some no larger than my fingernail, others the size of my palm.
The light was strange, too. An otherworldly blue-green glow rippled across the ground beneath my feet, dancing over the colorful walls.
I glanced upward—and stopped short.
Far above the city, an immense silvery expanse undulated in constant motion.
"Is that..."
“Yes,” Rìan clipped, dragging me forward. “Now keep moving.”
We were underwater.
The alley opened onto a broad street, and suddenly the city stretched out before us.
Coral towers rose in every direction, some soaring dozens of storeys overhead, others linked by sweeping bridges and graceful archways.
Great formations of ivory, pink, crimson, and white twisted through the city, while shells larger than wagons had been woven into the architecture itself, forming balconies, curved roofs, and shaded alcoves.
Marine plants grew everywhere. Long trails of emerald and violet vegetation spilled from windows and balconies, climbed the walls, and draped from the archways overhead. The fronds swayed constantly, drifting back and forth in a slow, hypnotic rhythm.
I jumped as a school of silver fish darted between two market stalls and swept across the street ahead of us, dozens of flashing bodies moving in perfect unison.
I tracked them until they reached the edge of the city, where a faint distortion curved through the air, almost invisible against the vast blue expanse beyond it.
They slipped through the barrier without slowing and vanished into the open ocean beyond.
Whatever magic made all of this possible, I was looking at it.
"Eidra." Rìan's irate voice cut through my fascination with the city.
I blinked and realized he'd already put several paces between us.
"Oh."
I hurried after him through the street. We passed two women carrying baskets, and they fell silent at once, their conversation dying as they watched us go by.
A merchant paused over the wares he was arranging.
Ahead, a male outside a nearby shop glared openly at us before leaning toward his companion to whisper something beneath his breath.
"Why are they staring at us?" I murmured, adjusting the veil covering my mouth. We were drawing far too much attention.
A muscle feathered in his temple as his gaze swept the street, briefly skimming the faces turned our way.
He swore beneath his breath. "It used to be common," he murmured, almost to himself.
"Illyrans. Pelagans. People moving freely between the Courts.
Nobody ever looked twice." He glanced at another group watching us from across the street and lengthened his stride. "Clearly that's changed."
"I don't understand—” Then I did.
Rich bronze. Deep brown. Warm umber.
Not a single pale face.
Everyone in Pelaga had dark skin.
My veil concealed most of my face, but there was no disguising Rìan. He was so fair he almost seemed to glow.
A male across the street barked something at us, gesturing angrily in our direction as heads turned all around him. Rìan didn’t so much as glance his way.
"This is not good." His hand flexed once at his side, hovering near the blades strapped to his belt.
For the first time since I'd met him, Rìan looked uncertain—and dismayed. As though he was only now beginning to grasp how much things had changed while he'd been imprisoned within the Veil.
A strange pang of pity stirred within me. He'd finally returned to the world he'd spent centuries longing for, only to find it was now a stranger to him.
A woman caught a young boy by the shoulders, murmured something urgent, and motioned him down the street. He bolted at once, disappearing from sight. I watched him go, suddenly uneasy.
We turned the next corner and came to a sudden halt.
The boy stood halfway down the road with a group of city guards clad in scaled armour, curved spears in hand and vicious-looking blades at their hips.
He spoke animatedly, gesturing wildly as they listened.
The moment he spotted us, he thrust out an arm and pointed straight at us.
The guards turned as one.
"Rìan—"
"Run."
He grabbed my hand.
Shouts rang out behind us. People scattered from our path as we tore down the street and into the nearest alley.
The narrow passage wound between reef walls, too high to climb and too sheer to scale.
The thunder of armoured boots echoed behind us as the guards gave chase.
My chest burned from the smoke inhalation, every breath a fresh stab of fire.
We rounded another corner only to find a second group of guards blocking the passage ahead.
Everything happened at once.
Rìan shoved me behind him, but the guards were on us almost instantly, hemming us in from both directions.
Hands seized me. Something slammed into my temple hard enough to send stars exploding across my vision.
Before I could recover, a fist drove into my stomach, knocking the air from my lungs as I crashed into the sand.
An amused chuckle sounded above me. The guard who'd struck me.
A heavy weight landed on top of me an instant later, a knee driving between my shoulder blades and pinning me down.
The sand ground against the side of my face, grit slipping beneath my veil and into my mouth.
I coughed and choked, but every attempt to draw breath only dragged in more.
Something warm trickled slowly down the side of my face.
Steel flashed as Rìan drew his sword from the scabbard strapped across his back.
The first soldier went down with a cry as the flat of Rìan's blade cracked across the side of his head.
Rìan pivoted smoothly, driving an elbow into another guard's face hard enough to send him reeling before sweeping the legs out from beneath a third.
A fourth crashed into the reef wall as Rìan drove him aside, never breaking stride.
One after another, the guards fell back beneath his assault as he carved a path toward me.
I heard an angry command in a language I didn't understand. A hand tore the veil from my face, then fingers tangled brutally in my hair. Pain exploded across my scalp as my head was wrenched backward, followed by the cold sting of a blade pressed against my throat.
Rìan froze instantly, his sword still raised, both hands locked around the hilt. His chest heaved as he stared at the male holding me.
I'd never seen such naked fury on anyone's face. He looked one heartbeat away from tearing every person in Pelaga apart with his bare hands.
One male strode forward from the cluster of guards. He was enormous, dwarfing the others, his skin as dark as polished ebony and his head completely shaven. Silver gleamed from his brows, nose, lips, and pointed ears.
He barked an order in his native tongue, leveling the tip of his short sword at Rìan.
Rìan didn't move.
The order came again, harsher this time.
The guard holding me wrenched my head back farther. I hissed as steel bit into my skin.
Rìan's jaw clenched.
Slowly, he lowered his sword. Without taking his eyes off me, he kicked it across the sand toward the waiting guards. One of them snatched it up immediately.
The commander jabbed a finger toward Rìan and spoke again. Rìan's eyes narrowed, but slowly he raised his hands.
Two guards stepped forward at once, relieving him of every weapon he carried. One removed the knives from his belt one by one while the other searched him thoroughly. He crouched and, to my surprise, drew a dagger from inside Rìan's boot before tossing it carelessly into the sand.
The first guard paused. Turning a blade over in his hand, he shouted something to the commander.
One of Rìan's iron knives.
The commander strode over at once and snatched it from his grasp. He examined it for a long moment before addressing the others.
A ripple of laughter spread through the gathered guards.
The commander smiled, revealing several missing teeth. There was nothing kind in his expression.
He stepped back and beckoned with an impatient wave of his hand. The remaining weapons were brought to him and laid out at his feet like trophies.