“Go down and escort the Lady of Salem back inside her Citadel,” he said crisply. The two soldiers stiffened and saluted.
“Yes, Captain Leto,” they chorused, then rushed off to obey.
Lily stared up at the men on the wall, holding her tongue. Silently, she took in their clothes, which seemed to be made of a new kind of fabric that looked a bit like leather but moved and bent with more ease. The weapons were strange to her as well. From what she could see, most of the soldiers were carrying crossbows, but not old-fashioned crossbows. These were high-tech and looked lethal. In fact, very little about this place struck Lily as medieval—somehow it seemed both modern and old at the same time.
And, judging from everyone’s deferential tone, apparently she looked like their ruler. Before she could crack that mystery, two soldiers who were hardly older than she was called to her from the beach.
“Would you like us to come up the rise and carry you down, Lady?” one of them asked, still out of breath from running to get her.
“Of course not,” Lily replied warily. “I can make it down to you just fine.”
She had no idea what was expected of her at this point, or more accurately, what was expected of this Lady of Salem they seemed to be confusing her with. Regardless, Lily didn’t want two armed soldiers carrying her anywhere. She half walked, half slid her way down to them. The two soldiers flanked her, waiting for her to take the lead.
“Which way?” she asked in as neutral a voice as she could manage.
The two soldiers shared a confused look, but quickly collected themselves and led Lily around the side of the Citadel to a path that didn’t exist on her version of this beach. She tried to act as naturally as she could, even though she had no idea what passed for natural here. Her eyes darted down to the odd, vicious-looking sidearms strapped to the soldiers’ belts. She guessed that her best bet at making it through this episode was to play along.
It was a long walk around. The Citadel was a castle on top of the highest hill, surrounded by a circular wall that was backed up against the ocean. Ballooning out from the seawall that Lily had walked alongside stretched a much larger wall that seemed to go on forever. Lily tried to see around it and decided that this larger wall must encircle the whole city. She scoured the landscape for something familiar but saw no landmarks she knew. The tallest buildings of a strange city poked up above the massive wall. Looking at the soaring spires, Lily had to forcibly calm her breathing so she didn’t start to hyperventilate. A busy metropolis had somehow sprung up to replace her little town.
From her vantage point on the Citadel hill, Lily could see a section of the city. It was dense and imposing, but the buildings were not the modern glass-and-steel skyscrapers she was used to seeing in her world. There were no rigid pillars of concrete, rising like arrogant middle fingers into the sky. Instead, a congregation of airy hives and nests spiraled and arched into the air in twisting ringlets, dripping green plants off their tiered sides. This city bloomed with vegetation on every available surface. It looked like a latticed bouquet, reaching high into the sky.
“Lady? Would you care to open the gate?” asked the soldier on her left. They had come to a stop while Lily had been gawking and now waited expectantly. She looked up at the massive portcullis in front of her, feeling exposed and vulnerable. Did they expect her to lift it up with her bare hands?
“I c-can’t,” she stammered. Her escort gaped at her, perplexed. The soldier on her right glanced down at her neck and drew in a sharp breath.