Chapter Eight
Chapter
eight
We walk in silence, following a downward-sloping trail of slate paths, and eventually reach a sharp set of steps hewn directly into the bedrock. It, like the rest of the royal grounds, is entirely deserted.
“Where is everyone?” I blurt, unable to contain my curiosity.
Soren glances over at me, brows aloft. “Whatever do you mean?”
“Butlers, porters, scullery maids…”
“Ah.” He shrugs. “The villa does not require much in the way of maintenance. There are groundskeepers to tend to the gardens and cleaning staff to corral the occasional dust bunny. Otherwise, I see no need to keep a fleet of servants at my beck and call.”
“Not even a cook?” I press. A king would keep a kitchen staff at the very least…
“I enjoy cooking.”
“You cook.” I cannot hide my skepticism.
The towering, battle-hardened warrior…the bloodthirsty killer-king, feared by all in the Midlands…
cooking? I try to picture his hands—hands I have watched snatch the life from men with an ease that speaks of long practice—dusted with flour, maneuvering a rolling pin across a countertop, steering a whisk.
It is not an image I can reconcile with reality.
Rather like trying to envision a shark climbing a tree.
“You’d be surprised by the hobbies you find time to pick up when saddled with the curse of immortality,” Soren says lightly.
“Give it fifty years. A hundred. You’ll be far more eager to hard-boil your own eggs than have them hand-delivered to you by someone you have watched wither beneath the weight of age during their years of service.
Just as you watched their predecessor—and their predecessor, and their predecessor—lose the battle against time.
” His pause earns a wry edge. “Somewhat spoils the taste of one’s breakfast. You’ll see. ”
I fight a shiver. “I should hope not.”
“In any case, I do cook. I’m even rather good at it. Maybe I’ll give you a demonstration at some point.”
“You could’ve given me a demonstration today if you’d made breakfast,” I grumble. “Thus eliminating this little quest to town.”
“And miss an opportunity to annoy you?” His lips twitch. “Never.”
My sigh is martyred.
We reach the bottom of the stairs and continue onto a forked path that winds through a grove of lemon trees.
Their scent is both crisp and mellow, a suffusive cloud of citrus.
At the end of the grove, nestled on the cliff side, sits another villa.
Like Soren’s in style, though smaller and less stately.
“Arwen lives there when she’s not out on campaign,” he informs me, noticing the direction of my gaze. “She’s the best general in Ll?r, as well as the best strategist. She’s been leading my armies in battle for longer than you’ve been alive.”
Not quite the picture I’d had in my head of Ll?r’s crown princess.
“We’d have been invaded ten times over without her aptitude for strategy and surprise attacks,” he continues. “Don’t tell her I said that. If her ego gets any larger, I fear I’ll need to expand her villa to accommodate it.”
I suppress a laugh. “I look forward to meeting her.”
“I’m not certain you should. Arwen can be a bit…”
My brows lift.
“…abrasive,” he finishes finally.
“A dominant trait in your bloodline, it would seem.”
He looses a huff of amusement. “You have not seen my abrasive side yet, little wind weaver. Consider yourself lucky.”
I bite back a retort.
As we slowly descend toward the city proper, I come to realize the royal grounds are stacked like layers of a tiered cake, each housing different groves and gardens, springs and waterfalls.
Each home to mysterious inhabitants of which there is no earthly sign.
I struggle to take it all in while keeping pace with Soren’s long strides, curbing my impulse to bombard him with questions.
He does not offer much in the way of conversation, though occasionally as we pass by different dwellings, he will murmur a name associated with whoever lives there.
Tethys.
Melité.
Vaughn.
I try to keep them straight in my head, but in truth it is beginning to spin from both information and overexertion.
I’ve lost count of the endless stairs and pathways.
My thighs are aflame, my breaths reduced to choppy pants by the time we reach the final set of steps that brings us down to the edge of the grand canal that wraps the base of the royal grounds.
A beautiful bridge, crafted of an unfamiliar metal—pale and refulgent, much like the inside of a seashell polished to a shine by a thousand ocean caresses—curves before us.
Soren pauses briefly at its foot. “Ready?”
“For what?”
He grins, a flash of white there and gone. Then, he crosses the canal into the heart of his city.
After the utter desertion of the royal grounds, Hylios is a veritable melee of life.
The throngs of civilians are so thick, it is difficult to forge a path forward.
I make myself Soren’s shadow, keeping close to him as he moves unhurriedly past innumerable outdoor cafés that line the canals, where people are crowded around tables eating breakfast, drinking coffee, smoking tybae leaf from braziers fitted with pipe hoses.
I drag in a lungful of the familiar smoky scent and my eyes water as it burns a path down my throat.
I have never felt more drab in my colorless uniform than I do as I survey the citizens of Ll?r, in their flamboyant silks and elaborate embroideries.
A pigeon in a menagerie of beautiful peacocks.
It is more than mere clothing. Until I walked among them, until I heard their carefree conversations and easy laughter, I did not realize how foreign such things have become.
These past months, the cobbled streets of Caeldera were silent as a crypt. Misery oozed from the pavestones.
Yet here is Hylios. Untouched. Unscarred. A lively port brimming with vitality.
A constant stream of boat traffic flows beneath countless curved bridges. In every direction, couples stroll with arms interlocked, families pick powdered sugar pastries from shopwindows, elders hunch on benches, feeding scraps of bread to rainbow-hued finches.
I am so parched for normalcy I want desperately to drink it in; to suck it down in great gulps as if to fill myself up before life once again becomes about bandages and tinctures and inflammation and death. This craving within is followed swiftly by a paralyzing guilt.
How selfish am I to dream of sitting at a bistro table with a cup of something warm clutched in my hands, when those I’ve left behind are barely scraping by? How dare I even contemplate a wasted afternoon of people-watching when, back in Dyved, joy is such a scarce commodity?
“Are you all right?”
My eyes flash up to Soren’s. He’s paused beneath a large lemon tree, standing in the shadows with his back to the bustling sidewalk.
He is so tall, I find myself mostly shielded from the prying eyes that press upon us as people amble past, no doubt curious about the pale blond stranger who shadows their king’s every step.
“I’m fine,” I whisper.
“You’re not.”
My retort dies on my lips when I register the awareness in his eyes.
The godsdamned bond!
Infernal hells. Of course. I should have realized.
He can feel my emotions cresting and crashing like sea upon sand, a relentless riptide of grief and guilt.
Instantly, I throw up more mental blockades, building an invisible fortress around my mind so he cannot read the feelings that spill down the tenuous thread that connects his maegic to mine.
I thicken the air shields that surround the center of my power until they are denser than stone.
Impermeable. All the while, I glare defiantly into Soren’s face.
Try to invade my private thoughts now, I challenge silently. I dare you.
He does not. Emotions swirl in the depths of his deep blue eyes as he stares down at me, but I cannot read them with any more success than I can his empty expression. Before I can even attempt it, he glances away.
“The floating market is just around the corner,” he says, as though the last few moments have not happened. “Fair warning, it can be…chaotic.”
I say nothing as I fall back into step beside him.
My tongue feels thick and useless inside my mouth.
Every now and then, I sense his gaze on me as we cross a nearby bridge and turn the corner to a wider waterway than any we have yet come across, where several main canals intersect.
I stop in my tracks, staring at the myriad boats crisscrossing before us.
There are so many, the surface is barely visible.
Every city has a central marketplace of some kind.
A hub of trade, where citizens can barter for goods in exchange for precious coin.
But I have never seen one like this. Its name is apt, for it is indeed a floating market.
In lieu of carts or stalls, dozens of barges are moored in the middle, plus more tied to heavy cleats along the canal-side.
Flatboats ferry willing shoppers between them, steered by sternmen with long oars wearing striped blue shirts.
Vendors shout out their wares in booming voices, urging passing craft to stop at their barges. There seems no end to their inventory. I struggle to pick out individual calls in the clamor.
“Apples by the bushel!”
“Fresh figs, get your figs here!”
“Eggs by the dozen!”
“This morning’s mussels, still breathing!”
“Salted cod, straight from the North Sea!”
“Daggerpoint lager by the barrel!”
“Titan gin, direct from Prydain!”