Chapter 68
A Collar of Gold
"If a merchant offers you a crate of drake-bone arrows at forty silver marks. You know the Strand price is sixty. What do you do?"
"I buy it, of course."
"Wrong."
"How the hell is that wrong? Twenty marks under market—"
"You find out why it's selling twenty marks under market value.
" She held up one finger. "A man selling below the Strand price is either desperate, stupid, or hiding something in that crate.
If he is desperate, you offer thirty under and take everything else he has.
If he is stupid, you offer twenty and educate him on his own foolishness.
And if he is hiding something…" She looked at me. "You simply walk away."
"And what if he's just being a nice guy?"
"What a ridiculous thing to say… There are no nice guys in business, not let morality cloud your vision for success."
Cedric's memories had given me the broad strokes of Valdris, the shape of the city, the names of the factions, and the general layout of the steps. But Cedric hadn’t been the highest-ranking Dragoon, and he had spent most of his time outside the walls hunting wyrms. His knowledge of the city's inner workings was about as deep as a puddle.
Emilia's memories were much worse. She'd passed through Valdris once, spending her days here drinking in a tavern, and left severely hungover.
Wyona was filling in every gap they'd left behind. The more she taught me, the more I came to understand that Valdris wasn't a just city. It was a machine. Coin moved in, goods moved out, and every hand the coin passed through took their own cut.
I needed that machine. I needed to know how its gears turned so I could stick my fingers in without losing them.
"Next question," Wyona said. "You arrive at the Strand with goods to sell but no established merchant contacts. How do you—"
"Well, you would look for a third-party agent…" I said. "Someone who specializes in brokering deals for a percentage."
She allowed the faintest smirk to appear at the corner of her lips. "Acceptable," she said.
That was high praise, coming from her.
◆◆◆
On the far side of the fjord, built up the mountain's slope in stacked layers of timber and stone, I could see the rise of the city Valdris. Which stopped me in my tracks.
Cedric's memories had shown me fragmented pieces. Scattered images of the harbor at dawn, the smell of salt and the roar of a fighting-pit crowd. But the memory was just a watered-down painting, seen through someone else's eyes. This was the real thing, and it hit me differently.
The city climbed high, tier upon tier of buildings stacked against the mountainside, each level walled off from the one below by stone fortifications that doubled as foundations for the next step.
At the bottom, pressed against the waterline, was a sprawling harbor filled with longship masts, warehouse roofs, and market tents packed so tightly they merged into a single brown-and-grey mass.
Above it, the lower steps rose in orderly blocks of timber longhouses and stone towers, smoke pouring from chimneys.
The buildings grew larger and larger as they went up the mountain, and at the top, barely visible through the cloud cover, the high holds sat.
Emilia's memories surfaced, unbidden. A tavern in the Strand, the floor sticky with spilled drink, a bounty-post by the gate with six wanted-bills she'd counted on her way in. The fear that one of them was hers. The relief when none of them were.
Zo came up beside me, letting out a long and low whistle. "Shit, that's… a big ass city. How many Dragoons do you think are in there?"
"A couple hundred at least." I watched a pair of longships crawl across the fjord below, their oars cutting lines in the water.
The caravan caught up to us. What was left of it, anyway.
Wyona's wagon, which she had borrowed as a replacement, was a plain wood wagon and sat in the middle of the procession.
The road descended toward the valley floor, and I felt the air warm as we got closer to the Strand gate, a stone arch at least thirty feet tall and wide enough for three wagons to fit side by side.
It had iron-wrought doors that stood open; men and women in full suits of armor—some in Stormgard blue, some in the grey wool of hired swords—sat in a wooden booth to one side, keeping note of all the new people entering their city.
Friedrich presented a small carved horn-token to one of the men at the booth.
The captain examined it, handed it back, and then waved the Dragoon through.
The first two wagons followed behind without inspection.
One of the guards climbed up and into the third wagon, pulling back the canvas, and began poking through crates with his short spear.
A clerk appeared out of nowhere, scratching something into his ledger and collecting a toll from Jacko.
The guard found nothing interesting and waved them on.
I walked through the gate beside Zo, behind the fourth wagon. A young guard stepped in front of me, blocking my path; he was maybe nineteen, with a patchy beard.
"What’s your name and what business do you have in Valdris?"
"I’m Fish," I said. "She's Zo. We are hired guards for the caravan… we are with the caravan and will be following them into the Strand."
The guard looked at Zo's axe, then at my empty hands. "Guard? Where is your weapons?"
"I’m… more the brains of the group."
He blinked. Looked at his partner, who was an older woman with a pudgy face who'd been watching us from the booth. She gave the boy a nod.
"Two coppers each," the young guard said.
I paid the kid from one of the coin pouches that I’d stolen on the road.
"Stay out of trouble," he said, and stepped aside, allowing us to pass.
And just like that, we were in.
The road opened into a wide market thoroughfare packed with merchant carts, sailors reeking of seawater and cheap drink, and fur traders from the north. We followed the caravan through the market toward a yard where arriving merchants could park their wagons and begin unloading their goods.
Wyona's wagon pulled into the yard, and the whole damn atmosphere changed.
She stepped out wearing clothes I hadn't seen before—when she'd gotten them, I had no idea—a high-collared green coat with gold stitching.
Her green hair was pinned up and back, exposing the line of her slender neck.
She looked like she'd stepped out of a painting.
She was met by two men in the colors of the Golden Rose.
These men were soft and dressed in clean coats.
When they approached Wyona, they bowed deeply to show her respect.
"My lady," the first one said. "We received word of the caravan's losses. The house sends its—"
"Arrange my quarters in the upper steps. I will require a full accounting of the salvaged goods by tomorrow morning, a meeting with Agent Halstead before sundown, and…" She turned to find me in the crowd.
"…lodging for my two retainers, adjacent to my quarters. See to it."
The agents followed her eyes to where I was standing—dirty, road-worn, and unremarkable—and then to Zo beside me, with her axe, her scars, and her cyan hair.
"My lady," the man said, "the upper steps require a Golden Rose mark for non-members. The process typically takes—"
"Did I stutter?"
The man shut his mouth. He wrote something in his ledger, tore out a page, and held it out to me. I took it. A slip of heavy paper with the Golden Rose seal pressed into the corner in gold wax.
"Don't lose that," the man said, already turning back to Wyona.
Zo looked at the slip from over my shoulder.
"Retainers, she called us her damn retainers…" Zo said.
"She’s gotten us into areas we wouldn’t have been able to get into on our own."
"She put a fucking collar on us."
"A collar with a Golden Rose on it," I said.
I folded the slip and tucked it inside my shirt, against my skin, where I let the worms wrap themselves around it, keeping it safe.
The Golden Rose agent hadn't finished tucking his ledger under his arm when a bright flash of gold bloomed a few feet from where Wyona was standing.
The dazzle of gold began to shift, taking the shape of a tall man.
Golden locks of hair shimmered before shifting to match Wyona's green.
He was dressed in black robes that were lined with golden filigree.
The Golden Rose agents—both of them—dropped to their knees, each pressing their forehead to the rough stone floor of the yard.
The man walked toward Wyona with unhurried grace. He was absurdly handsome, with gold eyes that resembled golden coins. His green hair was long and messy, with strips of hair braided with golden cords that clinked together as he walked.
Wyona stood where she'd been standing when she'd ordered the agents to arrange the rooms, her chin lifted to meet the man's eyes. But something about her had changed. The imperial air she normally had was now dimmed, and she looked like a small child before this man.
"Hello fa— father…" she said, her voice cracking.
The man—her father—smiled down at her. It was large, wide, and full of love.
"My beautiful daughter." His voice carried across the yard with little to no effort; it was rich, easy, and full of warmth. "You left home without notifying me of where you were heading… I was worried sick about you!"
"There was no need to worry, Father… I had the situation entirely—"
He chopped her on the top of the head with the side of his hand. It was gentle and almost playful. His hand came down in a clean, swift motion, the edge of his palm connecting with the crown of Wyona's head; her eyes rolled back, and she fell forward.
Her father caught her before she hit the ground. He lifted her over his shoulder where she hung, unconscious, her green hair spilling down his back.
The golden flash came again as heat washed over my face and the change in pressure made my ears pop as sparks of gold fireworks fell from the spot he and Wyona had been.