Chapter 6 #2
I nearly screamed; the motion was not normal. It was orchestrated like a puppet master was pulling the strings. I peered down at my shoe and winced, pulling it off and shaking it out. “Got it,” I exclaimed.
‘Oh heavens,’ Valkaryn breathed.
The men’s heads snapped back forward, and they walked down another alley.
‘What is it?’
‘I don’t want to say yet. I need more info. When the city opens up fully, go into some stores and interact with more people.’
I whispered the instructions to Godric, who nodded. “I could eat.” He tapped his fake belly.
I sent Kaelric a quick mental check-in that I was safe and inside. He made me promise to check in every ten minutes.
We did about a ten-minute walk through the city, all of which Godric seemed to know by heart, twisting down alleyways and between buildings like he was walking home.
People began to come out of their homes in human form, opening up shops, walking their children to the schoolhouses, but there was something amiss with everyone.
Though they weren’t soulless like the two guards, they were…
paranoid? Scared? I couldn’t put my finger on how they acted weird.
We turned a corner to find a man with a toothbrush aimlessly scrubbing a dirt-packed wall, the tips of his fingers bleeding. There was a sign on his back for all who passed. Insurgent, it read.
Godric and I shared a look and kept walking. Was that a punishment here? Scrubbing a wall until your fingers bled?
‘Hmm, interesting,’ Val said.
‘What? Tell me what you see already.’
‘It’s like looking at the thin strands of a spiderweb. Every person you pass has one connected to them. It would be on you and Godric, too, had I not been shielding you since we entered this city.’
My eyes widened. What?
‘So you can block it?’
That meant I could get into the castle, and even if confronted with the king, I could take him on and get Maelis back.
‘That’s what I’m unsure about. The second we stepped foot here, the spell tried to attach to you and Godric. The guards have thick rope-like cords connected to their arms and legs, as if King Harrow himself is making them walk like puppets on a string.’
It was horrifying that Harrow was capable of that.
‘But the random passerby has just a very thin spiderweb-like cord going to their head. I think Mind Render has great power, and can to some degree control everyone inside these city gates, but can only fully control a chosen few.’
‘And you think if I were to come up against him, he could control me like the puppet guards?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Well, why don’t we go back and find the guards, and you can try cutting the cords off and freeing them?’
She was silent for a moment as Godric slowed in front of a weathered tavern.
‘I think that would tell Mind Render we are here, and in turn alert King Harrow. Like cutting off one of the tentacles of an octopus. They would know.’
That was horrifying. ‘Are you saying they are all connected?’
‘I think so.’
Godric moved to open the door to the tavern when a small boy about Finn’s age jumped out in front of me with his hands out. He had crusted boogers under his nose, dirty around his fingers, and was very skinny.
“Spare a copper, my lady?” he asked.
My heart fissured. Reaching into my pocket, I grabbed the handful of coins I’d stolen from the statue and gave him every single one.
His eyes widened, and his mouth went slack.
Godric swooped low, covering the boys' hands to hide what I’d given him.
“Don’t tell anyone where you got that. Run along,” he told the boy. The boy swallowed and ran off.
Godric gave me a bit of a stern look. “I said stay low profile,” he told me.
I shrugged. I wasn’t about to let some kid starve because I was worried about my own safety.
‘The boy didn’t have the spell on him,’ Val told me quickly.
He didn’t? I wondered if all kids were unable to be spelled or just him.
Godric opened the door again, and we stepped inside.
It was a bustling place with every table filled. People were quietly eating their breakfast, talking about their day ahead.
“Greetings, we are full inside, but out back we still have seats,” the barmaid said with a lack of natural enthusiasm.
“Out back is fine,” Godric said, and kept his head down as we walked through the tavern.
I knew that once he had been a powerful man here about ten years ago.
Being recognized now would definitely jeopardize this mission.
But no one seemed to spare more than a passing glance.
When we got outside, it was a lovely little courtyard with a thatched sunshade overhead.
The tables all centered around a large brick-walled well that reminded me of the Dregs.
It even had the little bucket on a string that you could crank to draw up water.
The woman sat us at the table by the well and told us the food would be out shortly. The daily special was lamb stew with honeyed cornbread.
“I can go without eating if we don’t have the coin,” I whispered to Godric.
He shook his head, raising one eyebrow as if to quiet me, and I forgot about all the wolfish ears around me.
“Nonsense. My favorite niece will never go hungry in my presence.”
Even though he was speaking about our cover identities, I knew he really meant that. I wouldn’t ever go hungry in his presence.
‘I just thought of something…’ Val said beside me.
‘What?’
‘An entire city of thousands of wolfkin, and have you seen a single wolf?’
Chills ran down my spine as I processed her words. I frowned, and Godric seemed to take notice, cocking his head to the side.
‘That’s not normal,’ I said.
After living with the wolfkin for months, I knew that they preferred to eat in their human form, and of course, when building or doing anything that required hands, but they craved their wolf form fifty percent of the time, mostly for hunting, running, scenting, and covering long distances quickly.
In a city this big, we should have seen one.
Especially children; they loved their wolf forms more than the adults.
I flattened my right palm and then walked across it with the two fingers of my left, mimicking a wolf to Godric. “None around here,” I said casually.
His eyes widened a little, as if he, too, was just realizing. Then a look of dawning realization graced his face, and his features hardened.
He made the hand motion of the toothbrush scrubbing the man was doing outside, and my mouth popped open.
Insurgent. Was it against the rules to shift into your wolf form here?
That would be brutal for a wolfkin. Godric and I waited patiently for the food to come, only speaking about the weather and other mild things so as not to raise suspicion from people listening nearby.
The stew was good, a little saltier than I liked, but filling, and I was always grateful for a full belly.
After placing some coins on the table and setting down his water glass, Godric stood. “I’m going to use the toilet. I’ll be right back.”
I nodded, peering around and people watching.
Not a moment after Godric left, something shifted in the air. The people in the tavern began to become restless, peering left and right, as if nervously.
‘Something is happening,’ Val told me.
I could see that, but I had no idea what. Everyone dropped what they were doing then and stood abruptly.
‘Mimic them!’ Val snapped, and I did, standing so fast my chair skittered back.
‘Mind Render is controlling them. The little spiderwebs around their heads are getting thicker,’ Val told me.
“Hey, so everything is fine, but tell Godric not to come out of the bathroom right now,’ I quickly sent to Kaelric, as I peered around and tried to mimic the dead expressions of those around me.
‘What? Why?’
‘Do it, Kaelric!’ I snapped.
‘Okay, I told him. He said he’s standing by if you shout for help. What’s going on?’
Valkaryn vibrated at my hip with a burst of fear then, and it leaked into my very soul.
‘He’s coming. He knows I’m here, and he’s coming,’ Val said.
My eyes widened, but then I relaxed them, trying to look unbothered like the others standing around me, head slightly cocked, breathing slow.
‘The king? Mind Render?’ I asked her.
‘Both. Listen to me very carefully and do not argue,’ Val said.
‘Brynn, what the Hades is going on!’ Kaelric roared.
‘One second, darling,’ I told him, bracing myself for Val’s instructions.
‘I want you to ever so slowly move over to the well and drop me down it, sheath and all.’
I gasped, and the eyes of someone next to me flicked my way.
‘No way. Are you crazy?’
‘Brynn Brighton, you will do this in the next ten seconds or prepare to meet your death. I will do all I can to fight, but I cannot promise that your body will survive it.’
Holy crap! What a thing to say to someone.
Without overthinking, I slowly angled my body to the right, moving my feet ever so slowly until my right hip was pressed against the wall of the well and Valkaryn dangled over it.
‘Are you sure this has to be done?’
‘He’s here,’ she said, and I heard a scream from the front of the building, inside the tavern.
That was all I needed. In one swift movement, I unlatched the buckle that kept Val connected to my hip and let go.
Creator help me, I dropped her into the well.