There’s not a cloud in the blazing blue sky this morning, yet there’s a bite to the wind that says it will soon be time for the Festival of the Face of Cloud, signaling the start of autumn.
My stomach growls as I hurry through the wide, cobbled lanes of Noble Park. Servants airing out their masters’ linens on sun-drenched balconies wave, bow, or curtsy as I pass. I wave back halfheartedly, unable to fully appreciate their enthusiastic greetings with Evander’s heated words from last night still echoing in my mind. The stricken look on his face when I fled the rooftop makes me wonder if I should apologize. But an apology won’t change the fact that we’re at an impasse when it comes to our future.
I pass a market on a lower hill where most of the royal family’s errand boys and girls do the shopping for the palace kitchens. The smells of saffron and sage make my stomach groan again, and I quicken my pace. Hopefully Kasmira has something edible on board the Paradise besides stale bread.
The way to the harbor takes me past warm yellow and pink stone buildings, their fronts wrapped with flowering vines, where shopkeepers live and work. Farther on, I pass a boarded-up temple for the Face of Change, its once-proud columns cracked and sagging. Someone has drawn Change’s likeness in black ink on one of the building’s vine-choked sides. It must be freshly done, as vandalism of this sort is promptly painted over or scrubbed away at the king’s behest. The image reminds me of Valoria’s necklace, and I wonder how she’s holding up since her trip to the Deadlands.
Next I pass the convent for the blue-eyed Face of Death, a cheerful white building with a sapphire-hued domed roof flanked on either side by an ancient, hunched cypress tree. Within its generous courtyard is a sprawling garden, larger than the convent itself, where a few of the sapphire-robed Sisters pick rosemary and prune their potted shrubs. It’s also where I grew up. If I wasn’t in a hurry to get my coffee before I have to meet Master Cymbre, I’d stop in for one of the Sisters’ famed fig-and-raspberry tarts.
I pull up the hood of my cloak to take a shortcut through the Ashes. The cramped, tumbledown houses are where the city’s poor reside, those too sick or weak to go work on one of the farms outside Grenwyr City, and those too addicted to their favorite potions to do anything but sit on the filthy street and beg for coins.
No matter how many charities King Wylding organizes for the poor, this place never seems to get any richer.
“Blessed day to you!” a little girl’s voice says as I step into the shadows of the battered homes. I push back my hood enough to see her and try not to cringe as my lungs fill with air that reeks of spilled ale, sweat, and rotten meat.
The raven-haired, copper-skinned girl can’t be more than six. She sucks her thumb as she watches me from her crumbling front step. There’s a doll tucked under her arm, an ugly thing as big as her head, made of cloth scraps and bits of colorful thread. Judging by the doll’s long curly hair and pink robes, it must be a woman.
“How long has your mother or sister been gone, sweetheart?” I ask, nodding to the doll.
She pulls her thumb out of her mouth long enough to say, “My mom. Last spring. She had the black fever.”
The black fever. A sickness so foul, even the healers can’t cure it without killing themselves. It’s been ravaging the people of the Ashes for years.
“And where’s your father?”
“Scrubbing boats.” The girl pops her thumb back into her mouth and looks in the direction of the harbor, though tall, old houses block it from view. As she returns her gaze to me, her brown eyes widen as if seeing me for the first time. “Your clothes . . .” she says slowly. “You’re a mage, aren’t you? The kind that brings people back to life?” She grins.
All this girl will ever have of her mother is that doll, sloppily made by some friend or relative to look like the loved one she’s lost. I’ll bet every child in these rickety houses has at least one doll like that, a poor substitute for what they dream about but will never be able to afford: a raising by a necromancer. My services.
“Take care of yourself, all right?” I say, but the girl doesn’t seem to hear. She’s busy crooning a lullaby to her doll.
“May he reign eternal,” she says moments later, a farewell so faint I almost miss it.
The people of the Ashes adore King Wylding for never forgetting them, for not looking past them the way merchants and many nobles do. He comes down here sometimes, to serve them soup and bread, but I think they’d be a lot better off if he served them gold from his coffers or gave them jobs. Of course, that would be a change, so instead he’ll keep doing what he’s done decade after decade, wondering and worrying why his subjects are still suffering.
“May he reign eternal,” I echo hollowly.
Pulling up my hood, I practically fly to the harbor, where the sun in my hair, the stench of fresh-caught fish, and the green-and-yellow banners of the Paradise snapping in the breeze push the little girl from my thoughts. The worn dock creaks under my weight as I tread the familiar path to where the Paradise is anchored.
There are crates stacked all over the ship’s main deck. Barrels of elderflower wine from Ethria Province. Tart green apples from Adia Province. Bananas from Idrany Province, the islands that make up Karthia’s southernmost point. But the good stuff is down below, behind a false wall in the back of the cargo hold. Coffee beans. A bitter thing called cacao. Spices with delicious names like cardamom and anise.
I’m about to jump on board when a tangle of salt-crusted raven hair catches my eye, gleaming blue-black in the morning light as Kasmira bends to inspect a crate. Her cool brown skin is several shades darker than mine, and knowing she’s from Idrany’s largest island makes me think one of my parents must’ve been from Idrany, too.
“Well, well,” she drawls, turning to face me with a gleam in her deep gray eyes, “someone must be needing another fix.” She grins, her teeth bright white against her skin, and beckons me closer. “You’re in luck. I haven’t eaten them all myself yet.”
“Good. I’m desperate.” I hurry onto the ship and join her by a stack of crates. “After the night I had, I’d do anything to get my hands on some.”
She arches one perfect brow. “Anything?” She draws the word out, giving me an appraising look that makes heat rush to my face.
I wouldn’t be opposed to the idea of kissing her, except that my heart chose Evander long before I even realized it.
And since Kasmira is the only one who can take Evander out of Karthia, she’s partly to blame for last night’s stupid fight. Today, I just want to get my coffee beans and leave.
I cross my arms and step back. “I’m in a hurry.”
Kasmira frowns. “What’s wrong, Sparrow? You’re not your cheerful self today.” She studies the bandage on my arm, a scrap of one of Evander’s many black tunics. “Something happen I should know about?”