Saya nodded. “Thank you.”
“Thanks,” Kesari echoed, her eyes darting up from the ground to meet his.
Mitul started to reach forward like he was going to put a hand on Amar’s shoulder, then seemed to think better of it and lowered his arm. “I appreciate the apology. If you ever want to talk, I hope you’ll let me know.”
Amar almost dismissed the idea out of hand but stopped himself from speaking. Instead, he nodded. Perhaps eventually, it would be nice to talk to Mitul about who he’d been before all this.
“We should get going,” Saya said.
“What about the supplies we needed?” Amar asked
“Do you really think we wasted the entire morning sitting around here waiting for you?” she replied.
“We bought enough supplies to take us to Sharmok,” Mitul explained. “That will be our last stop before the desert. We’ll need to restock once we’re there.”
Saya gave Amar a penetrating look. “It would be nice if you could avoid throwing all your money away on drink next time.”
A familiar surge of anger rose within him, but it ebbed away just as quickly. Between waking up in a dirty alley and the splitting headache still throbbing in his skull, he didn’t want to touch another mug of sohra for a very long while.
16
Aleida
Aleida walked the last stretch of road to Valmandi under a brilliant sunset sky that quickly melted into gray twilight. By the time she reached the city gates, the torches had been lit, and the guards barred her entrance with unfriendly scowls.
“And where do you think you’re going?” one asked, sidestepping to place herself in Aleida’s path.
“I need to get into the city,” she replied. “I’m looking for someone.”
“Do you have your travel papers?”
“What?”
The guard gave a longsuffering sigh. “If you don’t have travel papers, you don’t have permission to enter the city.”
Aleida frowned. The man who’d gone through the gates ahead of her hadn’t had to present any travel papers. “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”
“No refugees allowed in the city after sunset. Come back tomorrow.”
Now she understood. A familiar heat burned through her. She wanted to scream at the injustice, but she fought the urge, not wanting to give the guards any more reason to dislike her or reinforce their preconceived notions about her.
No shame. Not for them, not for anyone.
She raised her chin and took a breath. “I’m a traveler, not a refugee. I promise I won’t make any trouble, but it’s really important—”
“Didn’t you hear me?” The guard took another step into Aleida’s personal space. She spoke slowly and deliberately, as if Aleida were too stupid to understand. “I said no Visans allowed in the city after sunset without travel papers. No exceptions.”
That wasn’t what she’d said, exactly, but to most Kavorans, being Visan was the same thing as being a refugee, and they didn’t have much tolerance for either. Aleida clenched her jaw. There wouldn’t even be any Visan refugees if the Kavoran empress hadn’t decided to invade and claim their lands seven years ago. But pointing this out to the guard wasn’t likely to make much difference.
“Please,” she protested again. “If you’ll just—”
The guard shoved her shoulders hard enough to make her stumble backwards. “I’m not going to explain myself again. Get out of here. Or perhaps you’d rather be arrested?”
Altma crackled in Aleida’s fingertips, but the needle-point press of Valkyra’s claws at her collarbone gave her pause. “It’s not worth it,” the Spirit Tarja hissed in her ear. “Let’s go.”
Aleida let her altma slide back into dormancy and forced herself to turn around. A few Kavoran travelers snickered and whispered amongst themselves as she walked back down the road the way she’d come. She pressed her lips into a thin line and did her best to ignore them.
The refugee camp she’d passed earlier was already in sight, and with no better ideas in mind, that was where she headed. “What a ridiculous rule,” she muttered to Valkyra, still seething. “No other Kavoran cities have a curfew for Visans.”
In fact, most refugee camps had dissolved entirely in the years since the invasion as more Visans migrated into the cities to find jobs and housing. Not so in Valmandi, where they were intentionally kept outside the walls and the refugee camp seemed full to bursting.
She cast a dark glance back at the gate and the guards. “What’s the point of shutting us out when most of the people living in that camp work inside the city anyway?”
“The rulers of this province are stubborn,” Valkyra replied, a hint of derision in her voice. “They always have been, constantly straining against the imperial court in an effort to maintain their own power. They didn’t agree with the invasion of Vis and refused to contribute troops to that effort, so in their minds, the Visan refugees aren’t their problem to deal with.”
“Not their problem?” Aleida scoffed. “There’s a huge camp right on their doorstep.”
“And there it will remain, at least until the laws change and Visans are allowed to move inside or build permanent residences here on the outskirts. There are good jobs in the city, and plenty of merchants and nobles willing to hire Visan laborers. But I fear King Bhajan is too proud to ever admit his own foolishness.”
Aleida rolled her eyes. This was just another setback she couldn’t waste time on. She had to find a way into the city, and quickly.
She followed the crooked fence line around the border of the refugee camp until she found an entrance. The two men standing guard there let her pass with friendly nods. Their worn blades and ill-fitting attire seemed especially pitiful compared to the new guns and fresh uniforms of the Valmandi city guards. They might be able to protect the camp against an animal attack or a single, careless thief, but beyond that, their effectiveness was limited.
Cookfires were already blazing to life inside the camp, and Aleida stopped in the light of the nearest one to rummage through her pack. She pulled out her leather case and flipped through the pages inside until she found the drawings she was looking for. In addition to her portrait of Amar, she also had less detailed sketches of his companions, which emphasized their attire and most noticeable features. She put the rest of the pages back, slid the case inside her pack, and pressed on with the drawings clutched in one hand. “Let’s see if anyone here has seen our friends.”
“That’s a good idea,” Valkyra replied.
She started with the nearest tents, approaching anyone she saw and showing them the sketches with the same question on her lips. “Have you seen these people?” Some looked mildly annoyed at her interruption of their tasks, but they all took the time to study the drawings and consider her question. Most knew what it was like to search for someone who was lost, even if their motives differed from hers in this particular case. But one after another, they all denied having seen Amar or his companions.
She continued through the camp, weaving her way between tents and shacks as an odd mixture of emotions churned within her. It had been a long time since she’d been among so many of her own people, and having them all around her now was familiar and soothing. Snippets of conversation in her native language and the scent of foods she’d grown up eating put her at ease in a way she hadn’t realized she’d longed for. But these were not the proud, stone structures of Libera, and the grief and adversity etched into the faces of the people who lived here served as a harsh reminder of all they’d lost. There would be no going back to the days of their former glory. Not anytime soon. Probably not ever.
Eventually, she found a woman who recognized the people in her drawings. She and her son had had an encounter with them the day before, and she was even able to tell Aleida where they’d been headed—to an inn called the Saffron Fox. A few more inquiries about travel papers and ways to get inside the city after dark earned her a crude diagram showing hidden entry points somet
imes used by smugglers.
Aleida thanked the woman and wove her way back through tents and around campfires, reviewing what she’d learned with Valkyra along the way. “I think our best option will be the breach in the wall, assuming it’s still there. It’s closest to the Saffron Fox and it will be the easiest to get to.”
“Sneaking into the city like that is going to be dangerous.”
Aleida bristled at the warning in her voice. “You don’t approve?”
“I’m not sure rushing into this is such a good idea.”
They exited the camp the same way they had come in, and she shot the Spirit Tarja a sidelong glance. She didn’t have a mother anymore, but sometimes Valkyra acted enough like one to infuriate her. “What else are we supposed to do?”
“We don’t even know if they’re still here. They were yesterday, but they could have left already. It might be better to keep moving.”
“And what if they haven’t left yet? This could be the perfect opportunity to capture Amar. We can’t walk away from that—not without knowing for sure.”
“If you get caught, it’s going to set us back even further. Is that a risk you’re willing to take?”
It was a fair point, and one worth considering carefully, especially since she didn’t want to waste any more time. None of her options were ideal, but at least if she followed up on this lead as soon as possible, she’d have the facts she needed to make a more informed decision. Maybe, if luck was on her side, she’d even walk away with the prize she was after.
“No risk, no reward,” she said. “I’m going.”
Valkyra didn’t respond right away, and in her peripherals, Aleida could see the tense frustration in her draconic eyes. When she did speak, it was in a low voice heavy with objection. “Then I suppose I have no choice but to follow and try to keep you out of trouble.”
They couldn’t find the breach in the wall marked on their diagram, not until Valkyra pointed out a patch of discolored stone that was less overgrown with moss and vines. The opening must have been patched up, but thankfully, the next location they tried was still an option. On the eastern side of the wall, a series of narrow climbing footholds had been carved into the rock. Aleida could barely make them out in the pale moonlight, faint shadows darkening the recessed hollows.
Valkyra flew down from the top of the wall to rest on Aleida’s shoulder. “I still don’t like this.”
“Is there a path all the way to the top, or not?”
“There is, but it’s not a very good one. You could fall to your death in about a dozen different places if you don’t do this exactly right. I really think we should wait until morning.”
Aleida ignored her and stepped up to the wall, placing her hand in the first hold. Her fingers curled around the narrow ledge, which barely reached her second knuckles. The toes of her opposite foot fit into a space about knee-high.
This wouldn’t be so bad. It was almost like scaling the cliffs back home in Libera. She and Tyrus used to jump into the foaming ocean waves below, whooping from the thrill of it all the way down.
Except now, there was no water below to break her fall.
She channeled altma into her hands and feet to improve the strength of her grip. Then she began to ascend.
Even with the assistance of her magic, the climb was more difficult than she’d expected. These were not the rough, craggy walls of a seaside cliff. This stone was smooth and straight, and the handholds chipped into its surface became narrower and farther apart the higher she climbed. Soon, she could barely see them in the dark. Valkyra hovered around her, pointing out where the next ledge was and directing her on how to position her feet. Whatever misgivings the Spirit Tarja still had about this plan, she mercifully kept them to herself.
Sweat beaded on Aleida’s forehead, and her hands began to feel clammy. She was about to risk wiping them on her shirt when the narrow ledge under her right foot gave way. She held back a cry as she shifted her weight and scrabbled for new purchase against the stone.
Valkyra put her own back underneath Aleida’s dangling foot. Her wings beat in mighty gusts as she guided the foot to a new recess, this one much higher than the first. Aleida strained to reach it and at last managed to hoist herself up, gasping. Her muscles burned, but she tried to ignore the ache and kept climbing, focusing all her attention on the wall and on putting one limb in front of the other.
There was only her and the stone. Tyrus was depending on her. She could do this. For him, she could do anything.
After several more minutes, Aleida’s fingers found a ledge that was wider than all the others. She looked up and saw only the night sky yawning wide and unobstructed above her. She’d reached the top of the wall at last. She pushed herself up the last stretch and hoisted her body over the parapet, then dropped down onto the wooden walkway below.
All she wanted was to lay here a moment and rest, but that wasn’t an option. There was a fire a fair distance off, which highlighted the silhouette of a passing guard. She forced her shaking limbs to move and pressed her back against the parapet. Where to next? It didn’t matter as long as she could get off the wall and away from here before a patrol spotted her.
“Over here,” Valkyra whispered, and Aleida turned to find her standing at the edge of the walkway several paces behind her. “There’s a building below. You should be able to drop to the roof.”
Aleida darted to Valkyra’s position and looked down. Most of the building was sheltered under the walkway, but there was a small wooden overhang she should be able to reach. Carefully, she dropped to her stomach and scooted feet first over the edge of the walkway. She lowered herself down until she was hanging by her fingers, which still ached from the climb.
“That’s good, dear,” Valkyra said. “Let go.”
Aleida let her fingers slide off the walkway. The drop lasted a split second longer than she’d expected. She landed with an unceremonious grunt, then stumbled and rolled off the edge of the overhang to thud against the ground below. The air left her lungs in a sudden whoosh.
She lay there, gasping and dazed, until Valkyra landed on her chest and peered down into her eyes. “Are you hurt?”
Aleida wheezed out a breathless laugh and shook her head.
“Then let’s go before someone comes to investigate all the noise you made.”
She got up and raised the hood of her cloak to hide her fair skin and mousy hair. Above, the sounds of hurried footsteps were already drawing closer as guards approached. Valkyra nestled into the folds of Aleida’s cloak at her shoulder, and together, they slipped into the shadows of the city, leaving the wall behind them.
It wasn’t yet midnight, and there was still some activity in the streets. Aleida kept her head down and avoided looking anyone in the eye. A few of the buildings nearby still had lanterns lit outside their doors, and she stopped underneath one to examine her diagram.
The woman from the camp had marked where the Saffron Fox should be in reference to the palace grounds and Princess Priyani’s temple. Aleida compared it to where she’d climbed over the wall and set off in what must be the right direction. When no one was around, she tore the paper to shreds and used sparks of altma to burn the pieces, letting the ashes drift behind her.
She walked for what felt like a long time, keeping a watchful eye out for patrolling city guards and avoiding their paths as much as possible. She was beginning to wonder if she was going the right way when she spotted a flash of color in the glow of three braziers that stood near a large Kavoran temple.
The fire illuminated a magnificent painting on one of the walls, and Aleida sucked in an awed gasp as she drew nearer. This was the work of Kamaal Ruman, one of the greatest artists in all of Erythyr. Once, when Aleida was very young, he’d traveled to Libera to do some studies of their architecture and the seaside cliffs that characterized that region. He had even gifted some of his work to the city in gratitude for their hospitality, and one painting had hung in the cathedral where Aleida and he
r family attended worship services.
She used to beg her parents to take her to see it. She would stare at it for as long as they would allow, studying every brushstroke and every pigment, wondering if her own skills would ever come close to matching his. She still wondered that sometimes, when she wasn’t worrying about more important things—which was all the time, these days. Right now, she would have loved nothing more than to have the luxury of admiring the mural for hours, studying every subtle line and hue, learning as much as she could from the work of this master.
But those were the wishes of the carefree girl she’d been before. She had no time for such indulgences now.
She redirected her eyes to the streets ahead and continued on her way.
There were several larger buildings in this part of the city, and many had signs hanging over the doors or in the windows. Some had pictures to indicate what sort of establishment they might be, but Aleida couldn’t read the others. “Do you see the place we’re looking for?” she said to Valkyra.
“Not yet, but I think we must be in the right area. There are a lot of inns and taverns here.”
They kept going, eventually coming to a wide street with several buildings still lit from the inside. The tallest had wooden sign over the door which depicted a fox, its tail carved in bold Kavoran lettering. The sounds of music and laughter drifted from the door, which was cracked open to let in the cool night air.
“This is it,” Aleida said.
“What now?” Valkyra asked. “You won’t be able to sneak in there without being seen.”
She was right. There was far too much activity inside, and it didn’t look like things were going to die down anytime soon. “You could fly in through one of the windows,” she suggested. “Have a quick look around, see if they’re still here.”
“A dragon flying around loose in an inn? That’s bound to draw unwanted attention.”
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