The Bound (Ascension #2)(39)

“Maybe I should go into the woods tomorrow then.”

Avoca gave her a sharp look and shook her head. “No. We’re very close to getting you out of here.”

Cyrene grumbled under her breath, but Avoca just ignored her and crawled into bed. She was an incredibly light sleeper and seemed able to pass out as soon as she closed her eyes. Cyrene heavily lay back in bed, and for the next two hours, she wished she’d had that talent of Avoca’s as well.





Everyone left extra early the next morning, rejuvenated with a sense of purpose from the news that Maelia would be in the palace soon. Cyrene was alone, eating a small breakfast, when there was a knock on the door.

“Your laundry, Lady Haenah,” a girl called from the hallway.

“Yes. Come in, Elzie.”

Elzie entered the room and set down a bundle of laundry on the trunk at the foot of Cyrene’s bed. “I had your cloak mended and washed three times, as instructed.”

She stood and plucked the cloak off the top of the stack.

It was the disgusting thing Ceis’f had gotten for her on short notice when outside of Strat. Her own cloak had gone missing, and she was glad that she had not brought the ermine-lined red one Edric had given to her as a present.

Thankfully, after a few good washes, this cloak looked to be in much better condition—not anything she would have worn at home, but nothing that would make her stand out in a crowd.

“Very good,” Cyrene said. She dropped a silver Aurumian trinket into Elzie’s hand and then dismissed her.

As soon as the door closed, Cyrene threw the cloak around her shoulders. She tucked her dark brown hair up into a cap that she had taken from Ahlvie’s belongings and then threw the hood over her head. Her own blue dress from Byern fit snug to her body, and without the added bulk of the Aurumian dresses, she felt like she could walk freely for the first time in weeks. As long as she kept her head down and returned quickly, no one would be any wiser that she had left The Lively Dagger.

Cyrene had memorized the comings and goings of Madam LaRoux by the distinctive sound of her gait. Every morning, she would meet with the gentleman across the hall for a half hour and wouldn’t return upstairs until lunch. She never bothered Cyrene. In fact, Elzie was the only person Cyrene ever spoke to in the inn. She wanted to keep it that way.

The familiar clunk, clunk of Madam LaRoux’s steps sounded on the second-floor landing. Cyrene pressed her ear to the door and waited. Like clockwork, Madam LaRoux knocked on the door across the hall. A man welcomed her inside and then shut the door.

Cyrene would have thirty minutes to get out of the building without Madam LaRoux knowing, and then she had the rest of the afternoon to herself before anyone else returned to the inn.

Cyrene slung a bag over her shoulder and slunk out of her room. The hallway was empty, but she encountered a man walking up the stairs. She kept her head low and hoped he’d just walk right by.

“Where ya goin’, missy?” he asked, stopping her in her tracks.

“To collect a tray for Madam LaRoux,” she warbled meekly.

“Well, tell the old hag to bring me some more of those breakfast rolls.” He strode past her and smacked her on the bottom as he passed.

She took a few deep breaths in and out before continuing down the stairs. All she wanted to do was turn around, throw the man back down the stairs, and teach him a real lesson about how to treat a woman. But she couldn’t afford that complication at the moment. So, she forced herself to put one foot in front of the other.

Elzie was helping another man, who kept trying to get her to sit on his lap. Cyrene was grateful for the distraction, but it did nothing but fuel her anger. She hurried out of the open front doors and onto the busy streets of Aurum.

It took her a while to regain her bearings in the foreign city. Back home, she had always had the mountains to guide her. Now, she had only the sea at her back and the looming castle on the hill. She located a street that she had taken on the first day, and the map came back into her mind. She retraced her steps, but without Ceis’f there for comfort, she saw what she had missed the first time.

Dirty faces. Hunger. Poverty that clogged the streets. Women and children left out to starve.

She swallowed and kept moving forward. These things didn’t exist in Byern. There was always plenty. That was what the Class system was for. At least, that was what she had always thought before.

Have I been blind to this in my own city?

Either way, she didn’t understand how the King Iolair could rule over people he allowed to suffer while he looked down on them from up high.

It made her stomach twist as she veered through the streets. She didn’t feel safe again until she was out of the winding streets and in the woods. She took a deep cleansing breath. It surprised her how at home she felt out here, considering she had lived her entire life in a big city and only the last couple of months in the woods.

But Aurum wasn’t Byern.

With the city behind her, Cyrene headed deeper into the woods at a brisk pace. If Avoca couldn’t sense the elements pulsing in the city, then Cyrene wanted to be as far away from the city as she could get. Avoca had told her that, once she could sense the pulse of the elements, then she could start manipulating them with more ease. It was the reason Avoca could still use her magic, even in the city. But Cyrene saw little hope for herself in that environment. It would hurt nothing to sit outside and meditate all day. She did the same thing in the room, and she couldn’t spend any more time in it.