“Where are they?” Chloe asked.
Gideon gave her a look as if to say, “Really?”
They found Tag in a tavern across the way, a shady place called the Overflowing Cauldron. As usual, he was out cold, snoring under a table with a measure of ale spilling out of a mug that rested haphazardly in his hands. His beard was matted with foam and drink.
They managed to wake him, and when he saw Chloe, he laughed out loud and hugged her tight, dampening her shoulder with his beard. “I knew they’d get you out!”
“How many people were aware of this plan?” Chloe asked. “I thought you guys operated in secrecy? Was telling a loud-mouthed dwarf a smart idea?”
LeavenHawk smiled. “He may be loud-mouthed, but he’s as loyal to you as I’ve seen any pooch with his master.”
Tag looked as though he couldn’t work out whether that was a compliment or an insult, but he chose to take it as the former. “Thanks!” He raised his mug and sank the dregs.
“And if you’re here, then where’s Ben?” Chloe asked.
Gideon’s eyes moved to the ceiling, where Chloe now heard bedposts knocking against the wall.
“Seriously?” Chloe asked, her lip curled. “That’s got to count for some sort of fetish, right? Does he need help?”
“I’m sure he wouldn’t mind your additional company,” Tag said, choking as he laughed.
Both Gideon and Chloe said, “Ew!” before Chloe could reword what she’d said.
“I meant psychological help.”
Tag shrugged. “Probably some of that too.”
Chapter Fifty-Six
Tag, Ben, and Gideon led the way while Chloe, LeavenHawk, and Jesepiah followed, covered from top to toe by the invisibility cloak.
The alleys were narrow, and people in rags sat against the walls, coughing into their fists. Chloe felt sorry for them—the outcasts who couldn’t find places in Nauriel’s society.
Gideon peered around the corner, keeping himself low. When he was satisfied that the coast was clear, he waved the others onward and they joined the throng of foot traffic heading down the street.
Considering the time of night, Chloe was surprised by how busy the city was until LeavenHawk explained that the city held both types of people, namely, the nocturnal and the diurnal. Chloe trained her eyes and could see strange creatures out and about. Some had elongated ears and enlarged eyes, humanoids equipped for nighttime.
They gave her the creeps.
“Quick, this way,” Gideon hissed, moving over to a small outcrop and keeping his head down as several gold-clad guards paraded through the street. He tripped, stumbling slightly over a small rock. Chloe had to hold back a laugh.
After the guards passed, they continued to navigate the streets, ducking every time the guards made their rounds, managing to cling to the edge of the throng. Even Tag kept his voice down, employing as stealthy an approach as he could muster—which, for a dwarf, was saying a lot.
Passing more and more people, they squeezed down alleys, ran up stairs, and worked their way higher up the city’s levels. As they emerged from between two houses, Chloe’s heart stopped. They were back where she had been two weeks ago, near the foot of the stairs leading to the Auction Hall. The last time she had been here, she was dressed to the nines, accompanied by Neville and waiting for her chance to strike.
Until Tohken had caught her and ripped it all away.
Gideon waved them on again, but Chloe stood firm. LeavenHawk and Jesepiah complained as a portion of the cloak rode up and revealed their legs.
“What are you doing?” Jesepiah growled.
A small girl across the street saw their ankles for a moment, but she just continued playing with a small toy on the steps of her house.
“I’ve got unfinished business,” Chloe mumbled. “I apologize in advance, but this is going to happen.”
LeavenHawk’s eyes widened when she saw the intent on Chloe’s face. “Chloe, no!”
Chloe didn’t even think about it. She ripped away the material, keeping herself covered and leaving Jesepiah and LeavenHawk in the open behind her.
The two cried out in alarm as heads turned in confusion, spotting the newcomers to the street. Gideon, Tag, and Ben spun, their eyes widening when they saw the other two.
“Chloe’s gone rogue,” Tag said, then a cooling sensation covered them and Chloe appeared beside them all, having cloaked them.
She winked. “Rogue is the best way to go.”
“Oh, yeah!” Ben said, “This is where we get the party started!”
Chloe grinned as she guided them into the Auction Hall. “Follow me.”
She led them up the sweeping staircase toward the sounds of an ongoing auction, sparing one last look behind. Jesepiah and the elf were already gone.
They found their way to the back of the hall, Chloe getting a strange sense of déj vu as she watched the caller at the front of the hall announce the items for sale and launch into the bidding.
“Where are we?” Ben asked.
“Lights, camera, and action,” Chloe whispered, pointing toward Tohken on his mini-throne at the right side of the room.
“That’s Tohken?” Tag grumbled.
A woman nearby half-turned her head toward them, turning back when she saw no one there.
“Not for long. Let’s see how much he likes a shot of ice,” Chloe said, lifting the material enough to get a clear shot at Tohken. The ice shard shot from her hands, flying over the heads of the gathered crowd toward Tohken.
Ben, Tag, and Gideon’s eyes widened.
Someone screamed.
It was enough.
Tohken ducked his head and the shard missed him by inches. He looked for the source of the attack and just saw the gleaming greens and golds of Chloe’s new greaves as they disappeared under the invisibility cloak.
“Get her!” he roared, standing and pointing their way, unaware that Chloe and the others had already moved, hidden by the cloak of invisibility.
Heads turned in a ripple, no one quite sure where to look.
Tohken jumped down from his seat as the crowd began to stand, fear striking their hearts. They cried out, shouted, and began to run for the exits, everyone fearful of the invisible attacker who had fired at their esteemed sponsor.
Chloe moved as fast as she could while still keeping the others cloaked. She followed Tohken as he ran toward the door at the side of the room, bashing into people as he went.
When he made it to the door, he took one last glance before slamming the door shut behind him. Chloe cast another spell, using Telekinesis to manipulate the lock and grant her entry. The metal turned, the door unlocking itself.
“Where the hell did you learn all this?” Ben asked. He was flabbergasted, but he had a smile on his face. He enjoyed having been brought along for the ride.
“You learn things in prison.” Chloe grinned.
Tag chuckled. “Where do I sign up?”
Chloe didn’t answer, her focus returning to Tohken.
The room beyond the auction hall was quiet. Tohken was presumably already tucked away in his room of trinkets. Chloe remembered the way well, recalling the journey she had been taken on when Tohken had used the ruse of wanting nothing more than to sleep with her.
Chloe passed through several more doorways, eventually reaching the room filled with Tohken’s collection. The others gasped and mumbled as she led them past his trinkets and treasures. “That’s an impressive collection,” Gideon said, admiring the armor and the weaponry from eras long past.
“Impressive, yes. Deserved? No.” Chloe grunted and kept walking on until she found his bedroom door—the room armed with his alarm system. Already she could imagine him tugging the string for the alarm for dear life, a weak worm hiding behind his henchmen.
“How are we going to get—” Gideon started.
Not messing around, Chloe summoned a fireball and flung it, and the door crashed off its hinges in a glorious blaze. Tohken emitting a piggish sq
ueal as he ducked and hid behind his bed, emerging a second later with a broadsword that looked far too heavy for him to hold.
“Oh,” Gideon finished. “Like that, I guess.”
“Enough of this,” Tohken snapped, his hair standing at funny angles. “Leave this room now and I will spare your lives.” He turned wildly around, looking for the invisible girl.
Chloe stepped out from under the material, an ice shard hovering above her open palm. “Oh, ready to make deals now, are we? That might have worked well for you last time, but it won’t work on us.”
“Us?” Tohken said, looking around crazily. “You’re even madder than I thought.”
Gideon, Ben, and Tag appeared and stood behind Chloe. “The last thing I’d call Chloe is mad,” Tag said, patting his hammer against his palm.
“Please!” Tohken smiled, flailing for words. “Spare me, I beg you.” His eyes moved down to Chloe’s greaves, jealousy erasing his weak-willed whimpering. “I’m only a humble nobleman, someone with whom you could do very well in this city...if you are on the right side of me. I have position. Power. Sway. I can make it worth your while!”
Chloe let out a small laugh. “After the stuff you put me through? The prison? The attack? The lies? What chance do I have to survive in this city anymore?”
Tohken exploded into an animalistic rage, trying to catch Chloe off-guard. He launched himself at her but fell to the floor after Ben’s arrow found the middle of his forehead.
Ben shrugged as they turned to him. “What? He was bugging me.”
Tag lowered his hammer, his mouth hanging open. “You experience snatcher!”
Chloe laughed, noting the flashing icon in the corner of her eye. She decided to save that one for later.
“Those who seal the quest’s completion gain an additional boost to their experience. Oh, here we go. See?”
Tag’s frustration was clear as Ben began to hover and glow in golden light, the musical notification announcing his rise in level ringing clearly.
“Ah, that’s better,” Ben said. “Ooo, I can specialize now!”
“Better save that little treat for later,” Chloe said, rolling her eyes and covering everyone with the invisibility cloak. “The guards are coming.
Sure enough, the guards arrived a moment later. They filed into the room, weapons drawn, finding nothing but Tohken lying dead on the floor.
“File out. Search the city. Sniff those weasels out!” the captain screamed at the others.
Chloe’s heart was lighter than it had been in weeks as they pelted down the front steps. The streets were alive with chaos. Those who had fled the auction had combined with the evening-dwellers and the guards, and now the whole street was bustling.
Chloe and the others navigated as best they could, squeezing into the dark corners, trying not to trip over Nauriel’s homeless and narrowly avoiding getting bashed and jolted around.
“Keep running,” Chloe urged, darting to the left to avoid colliding with a trio of guards running toward them. “We can escape this.”
“I’ve only got short legs,” Tag wheezed, holding the cloak over him as best he could.
“And his entire body is in proportion,” Ben teased.
“How would you know, lover boy?” Tag retorted. “You spend all day staring at digiboobs. When have you raised your eyes for a moment to see my...stuff?”
“Shut up,” Gideon hissed as they ducked behind a wall and held their breath. A pair of guards came from behind, pausing in the spot where they had stood before dashing off and up another set of stairs. The company followed.
They made their way ever higher, the chaos disappearing behind them as they ran up staircase after staircase. LeavenHawk had promised them transport away from the city, so they made for the highest tiers of Nauriel, where she had promised they would find it.
Above them gigantic birds cawed and flew, diving vertically down the length of the tree before flapping their wings and rising again. Chloe’s neck ached as she looked up at the platform where they were headed.
The Falcon’s Nest. That was what LeavenHawk had called it, a great plinth in the heights of Nauriel that housed the cowladites, a half-breed humanoid creature with the features of birds of prey but an intelligence envied by even the cleverest mages of Obsidian.
A large cowladite held out a feathery wing to halt them as they reached the top of the stairs, trying to regain their breath. “Halt, adventurers. Remove your cloak upon entry.”
Chloe was taken aback as she looked at the creature through the cloak. He had a long serrated beak, dark eyebrows, and amber eyes. His wingspan was at least two meters in either direction, with human hands on the ends and a swathe of enormous feathers trailing to the floor.
Chloe turned to the others, shrugged, and, unsure of what else to do, removed the cloak. They’d come this far. Might as well trust LeavenHawk’s plan until the end.
“A bold move to remove your one advantage in the presence of a stranger,” the bird-man said. “I could kill you where you stand.”
“You couldn’t kill us all,” Chloe replied, whereupon Gideon gulped beside her.
The cowladite’s beak parted slightly, apparently his version of a smile. “I’ve heard of your sharp tongue, Chloe the Blessed. Come, your friends are here already.”
Chapter Fifty-Seven
The air in the Falcon’s nest was crisp, a chill wind finding its way into the marrow of their bones. Chloe’s teeth chattered, her arms hugging her chest tightly as they walked along boards that looked far too thin to be safe.
The world was different up here. They passed more cowladites who clicked their beaks and looked up with interest as they passed. There were small tents that housed children, who were running around, flapping their wings and laughing. Various boxes of strange items and trinkets were stacked by tents and huts, which were constructed of woven wicker and various types of carved wood.
Chloe couldn’t quite believe it. The cowladites lived in the same city as everyone else, but they had their own little ecosystem up here in the heights. She wondered why they were left to their own devices.
“We don’t get much in the way of visitors up here,” the cowladite they were following said, his voice rough and coarse. “We don’t often spend much time down there, either. It’s a matter of respect. Of boundaries. The city folk leave us to our business, and we leave them to theirs.” He pointed toward the ground many hundreds of feet below, where the town bustled on. “Count yourself lucky you’ve gotten this far.”
Lights twinkled in the fading dusk. Chloe tried to make out the Auction Hall and the streets they’d left behind, but it was nearly impossible to see out from between the monstrous tangles of roots.
“Sounds like bliss,” Chloe replied.
Behind her, Tag clung to Ben’s arm, his knuckles turning white. “It’s all right for those who don’t mind heights, I suppose.”
“Tag’kir, by the way,” the bird-man said.
“Bless you,” Gideon replied.
The cowladite laughed, the sound a strange mix between a caw and a cough. “That is my name.”
Gideon flushed.
Tag’kir led them up a final set of steps and onto a branch of the tree, which to Tag’s relief, sported a guardrail along most of its edge. The only break was to a plank perpendicular to the branch that protruded into the open air. The sight of it reminded them all of pirates and ships of old.
And then they climbed a final set of steps, Chloe’s face breaking into a smile when she saw the gaggle of familiar faces on the platform ahead.
Jesepiah and LeavenHawk awaited them in the center of the platform, talking to what Chloe could only presume to be, the chieftain of the cowladites. Its hair fanned out in a wide headdress, and it was at least two feet taller than any bird-person they had seen thus far. Large scars decorated its beak and cheeks.
And there, hovering beside the three of them, was—
“Decaru! I thought we’d lost you!” Chloe ran ahead,
arms stretched toward the floating orb.
She was just a foot away when something struck her square in the face. She felt pain in her nose and pulled herself up from the floor, surprised to see Jesepiah shaking out her fist, knuckles bloody as she crouched to help Chloe back up.
“That was for stealing my cloak and running away and leaving us to die,” Jesepiah told her.
“To die?” Chloe clasped her nose and summoned Healing Hands, and the blood disappeared and her nose clicked back into place. “Bit dramatic, don’t you think?”
They laughed, Jesepiah dragging Chloe into a sweaty hug as she handed back the cloak. “Thanks. You have no idea how useful it was.”
“I can only guess,” Jesepiah said.
LeavenHawk broke off from her conversation with the chieftain. “I presume the deed is done, then? Tohken is dead?”
“How did you know?” Chloe asked, smiling innocently at the others.
“That was the only reason we could think of why the sight of the Auction Hall would make you act like a savage barbarian.” LeavenHawk’s words were sharp, but there was a smile on her face.
Chloe blushed. “Are you angry with me?”
LeavenHawk considered. “I don’t think I can hold a grudge against a roguish girl who doesn’t stop until she gets the job done. There aren’t many out there who see their tasks through to the end.” She held out a hand for Chloe to shake.
The woman took it.
“Congratulations, Chloe. You showed guts today, and you have rid this town of one of its many poisons. Hopefully, a great many people who were formerly under Tohken’s oppressive rule can now release themselves and return to normality once more.”
“I doubt it,” Jesepiah added. “You take out one weed, another will quickly grow to take its place.”
LeavenHawk nodded, deep in thought, but snapped out of it as the chieftain coughed into a feathered hand behind her. “Oh, where are my manners? Chloe, I want you to meet a friend of mine, Dang’thor of the cowladites. Cowladites are a very special race here in Nauriel. In all of Obsidian, actually. They offer great benefit to our world, and it is with honor that you stand before him today.
Collecting The Goddess (Chronicles Of KieraFreya Book 1) Page 40