Chapter 1
“Watch out!”
The shout cut across the market square just as I stuffed my spare blanket into my satchel. I looked up in time to see an overloaded cart tip onto two wheels, wobble like it might recover, then spill its crates across the cracked paving stones in a cascade of wood and curses.
I straightened from my crouch and watched the merchant rush forward, his scowl twisting into a mix of fury and helplessness. Anger at the driver for loading the wagon poorly, but powerless as his goods shattered against frozen stone.
Street rats and merchants descended on the spill in equal measure. Some helped. Some helped themselves. I watched with mild interest to see who pretended otherwise.
Two members of the Town Watch stood nearby, their gazes drifting lazily over the chaos. I scowled at them without meaning to. They wouldn’t intervene unless there was coin in it for them.
Silence was always for sale. Justice never was.
“He’ll be lucky if he sees any of that again.”
I glanced at the old merchant whose wagon I’d ridden in on. “He may be surprised.” I stood and shouldered my pack. “Three silver.”
He looked me over slowly, the suggestive linger of his gaze far too familiar. I’d endured it for days while guiding his half-empty wagon through back trails and narrow passes. His horse wheezed behind me the entire way.
I rubbed my nose with the back of my hand, then let my fingers settle deliberately at my hip. My sword wasn’t impressive, but it didn’t need to be. “You forget how to count to three?”
With a huff, he flicked two silver coins in my direction. When he tucked his pouch back beneath his filthy tunic, he grinned, revealing a mouthful of brown teeth. “You didn’t earn the third.”
I swallowed my temper. Drawing attention here was a bad idea, and the Watch had already noticed us. I’d spent too many nights in their barracks over imagined offenses to invite another.
Not one of them could cook a decent pot of soup.
“The bargain was three silver for safe travel to Eirhollow,” I said evenly, “and arrival before dawn and market starts.” I gestured toward the bell tower clock. “We arrived before the sun broke, and the market hasn’t opened. As agreed. My part’s done, I delivered.”
“The contract was for safe, warm travel.” He exaggerated a look around him. “Market’s started.”
“Pigshit.” I stepped closer, lowering my voice. “You were safe. You stayed hidden under those furs the entire way. You didn’t take one foot off that wagon bed… not even to piss.”
The image of his scrawny ass hanging over the wagon edge in the bright white morning was one I’d rather forget.
“I wasn’t warm.”
I blinked. “It’s Crystallese. The land of winter. No one is warm.”
“You could have kept me warm.” He picked his nose, inspected it, then flicked it away. When he looked back at me, that look was there again. “Still time to earn that coin, lass.”
There were too many people around to stab him through the eyes, tempting as it was. “There’s not enough silver in that purse for that, you old lecherous thief.” I stooped for my walking staff and patted the horse’s hindquarters. “I hope you sell nothing.”
His cackle followed me as he climbed down to set up his wares.
A young boy sprinted past me, chasing a three-legged dog, and I leaped aside on instinct, my staff jutting back as I twisted to avoid them both.
Crack.
The sound of the wooden spoke snapping was deeply satisfying.
The merchant’s howl of outrage made me turn back with a smirk. “Oh no,” I called out as I walked away. “I did warn you that wheel might not survive the journey back.”
I walked past the Town Watch with a spring in my step. They said nothing. They’d seen me move aside to avoid a child. That was all they’d care to remember.
I headed for the Old Inne with the two silver coins nestled in my pocket. I’d hide them properly once I was inside, after I’d had something hot in my stomach. Preferably porridge. Preferably a lot of it.
Breaking the old man’s wagon wheel hadn’t replaced the missing coin.
I’d earned that silver. But while the Watch had passed without comment today, they wouldn’t stay idle if the merchant accused me outright of sabotage.
Not when I was lowborn, and it was convenient for them to earn a few coins in their purse to apprehend me on a flimsy excuse.
I pushed open the inn door, and heat rolled over me like a blessing.
The smell of oats and milk followed it, thick and comforting.
I took the corner seat farthest from the hearth, the one most people avoided because it stayed cold longer.
I preferred it that way. It gave me time to warm slowly.
It also gave me a clear view of the market square through the front windows and of the south gate beyond.
“You’ll be wanting two bowls?”
I lifted my head and met Sayla’s steely gaze. “Aye.”
Her harrumph was immediate and heartfelt. I smiled faintly as she turned away.
Two bowls meant full bowls. Extra milk. She complained loudly every time, but she always did it. We never discussed her verbal resistance, or my silent expectation that I’d get it.
Balance mattered.
The bowls landed heavily on the table a moment later. I slid a copper penny across in payment and was already reaching for my spoon when a steaming mug of cocoa thudded down beside them.
I looked up, surprised.
Sayla was staring out the window, past me. “He shortchange you?”
“Aye.”
She nodded once. “Sly old crook.”
For a moment, our eyes met. “You give him anything other than a safe trail?”
I lifted the battered spoon and shrugged. “Would’ve had full payment if I had.”
“Don’t be too sure,” she muttered. Her hand rested on my shoulder — just long enough to ground me — before she pulled away. “The cocoa’s on the house.”
The shift between us was subtle, but I felt it. I glanced down at the mug, then back at her retreating form. “Why?”
She turned, that glare sharp as ever. “You not want it?”
I pulled the mug closer. “I want it.”
“Then shut up and drink it.”
That was that.
I ate slowly, letting the heat seep back into my bones while I watched the gate for newcomers. Merchants. Guards. Anyone unfamiliar. Anyone who lingered too long. Sayla moved through the inn with practiced irritation, casting sharp looks at any man whose gaze lingered on me.
She pretended it was an annoyance.
I pretended not to notice.
Balance.
Outside, the cold pressed in against the windows. Inside, the equilibrium held. I finished my meal, and outside, the snow began to fall more heavily.
Movement at the gate caught my attention. The snow and ice of my country had dulled the golden gleam of their armor, but there was no mistaking that the soldiers of Darysia, the lands of summer, had just come through the gates.
I wasn’t the only one to notice either. A hush fell over the inn, and even Sayla stopped her to-ing and fro-ing on the floorboards.
The ten soldiers moved farther into the small-town guard. I didn’t need to see the look on the face of the Watchman. He’d either be pissing his pants or screaming for his superior officer.
It was the latter. He turned and yelled so loudly that I could hear his faint call for help from where I sat.
“You in trouble?” Sayla asked me at my shoulder, making me jump as I hadn’t heard her cross the floor.
“Not this time,” I murmured, but I drained my cocoa. I slipped a silver into her hand, my eyes widening in surprise when she pressed it back into my palm.
“There’s been talk of change,” she whispered quickly, low enough that only I could hear. “You don’t need to pay for my silence with the Watch this time, Amarya. You keep that and take the north gate. I don’t know what they want, but a girl like you won’t go unnoticed.”
I gave my bottom lip a quick lick as I looked back at the gate. I didn’t ask what a “girl like me” meant. Young, female, alone, and a trailfinder. Those who could find a safe route through the frozen terrain of my homeland.
“Aye,” I murmured.
She squeezed my hand slightly. “Quickly, now, this is the only place the likes of them will come into.”
I reached into my pocket and pulled out a copper. “For the warning,” I murmured. I gathered my quarterstaff and satchel, and, with a nod, I left the inn through the back door, like I had a dozen times before.
I noticed as I left, a few of her customers had already slipped out the back. Sayla’s husband stood on sentry at the door and moved aside wordlessly as I approached. I gave him a wink as I passed. He knew I wouldn’t be as foolish as some people to try to duck out without paying.
The cold threatened to steal what little warmth I’d gained in the inn, and I wrapped my cloak around me tighter.
My traveling cloak, my only item of luxury, had a fur lining inside the hood, and I gratefully pulled it lower as I headed to the north gate.
I’d been hoping to spend the night with a roof over my head, even if it was in Sayla’s stables, but no such luck.
Resigned to another night with the sky as my only cover, I saw some of my earlier dinner fellows heading back the way they’d come.
Cautiously, I approached the north gate. My eyes widened as I saw the Town Watch and some of the Darysian soldiers already there.
“Shit.” I clucked my tongue as I considered my options. Back to the inn, where it was warm, or keep out of sight until the tin men left?
I called them tin men because even in the middle of Crystallese, they wore their armor, and the sound of their chattering teeth always seemed to echo.
Fools.
The fastest way to freeze to death up here was to cover your body in metal.
I was stuck. I thought about what Sayla had meant when she said “a girl like me.” Even if I didn’t say I was a trailfinder, an unmarried woman in the town “just passing through” might be hauled into one of their tents on the mistaken assumption she was a whore. Or wanted to be.