Bring Me Their Hearts(19)
The city! A city! Y’shennria doesn’t move, but I eagerly stick my head out the window. There, in all its glory, is Vetris—a halo of whitestone spires ringed by emerald farmland. A sea of windblown grass all around us looks like crushed velvet from this height, swaying in time with the jade-green banners strung atop the intimidating wall that cradles the city proper. It’s so much more massive than I thought it’d be. Stone buildings and brass machines crowd inside, blowing out great buffets of smoke and steam. A giant building that must be the royal palace Y’shennria talked about lords over it all, tower upon tower glittering white in the high noon sun, the grounds around it latticed with an intricate pattern of sapphire waterways.
“Put your head back in this instant,” Y’shennria barks. “Before someone sees you.”
I retreat. “Please tell me using my eyes isn’t considered unladylike.”
“We aren’t here for your sightseeing. We’re here to do a job. A job which we will speak of no more, unless we are alone and in private. The court has ears and eyes everywhere. Caution is paramount to our success. If you’re unsure whether you should say something—”
“‘Don’t say it at all. Silence is better than chance,’” I finish for her. “Yeah, I remember that one.”
I fold my arms over my chest until Y’shennria quirks a brow at me. Right. Unladylike. I put my hands at my sides and crane my head, desperate for a good angle that’ll let me see the city again. Finally it comes into view. There’s another building, almost as big as the palace itself, coated with iron spikes along its edges. The tallest spire has a very familiar metal symbol on it—the Eye of Kavar. Three lines, angled through one oval, forming a sort of pupil where they meet. It’s strange seeing it so big—I’m used to very small versions as pendants around the necks of mercenaries and hunters. No doubt that’s the Temple of Kavar, the New God. Right next to the temple is the Crimson Lady the witches were talking about—an obelisk of redstone, but not as bright a red as I imagined. It’s a rusty color, almost dull, and it stretches tall, barely shy of the temple’s tallest spire. The top is flat, and nothing about it seems unusual save for its color. Whatever magic-detecting force it’s emitting is utterly invisible.
I say a moment’s prayer for the Lady to pass me over.
The road becomes busy around us, then busier, and then we’re in the very middle of an undulating crowd of humans and celeons alike: merchant carts, dust-weary travelers, farmers hauling their meats and vegetables into town, and lawguards. Lawguards. The chainmail armor they wear and the sword-shaped badges on their chests feel familiar, even if I can’t remember them from my human life.
“Sit up straight,” Y’shennria says. “We’re here.”
The shadow of the imposing main gate plunges over us. Fisher brings the carriage to a stop, his conversation with someone else barely audible above the crowd’s din. My ears ache—I haven’t heard so many people, so much noise compounded on itself, in so long. A celeon lawguard’s plumed helmet is suddenly in our carriage window, and I start back. His feline face is a rouge-ish purple-red, furred in some spots and smooth with iridescent scales in others. His tendril-like whiskers are far shorter than the assassin’s were.
“Good morning, officer.” Lady Y’shennria smiles. She never once smiled on our way here, but now she turns it on full-force.
“Milady.” The lawguard bows. “And who might this be?”
His golden eyes are on me. This is practice—if I can’t make eye contact with a lawguard as if I’m nobility, how will I ever look another noble in the eye? I force myself to gaze at him, burying the lies behind my irises with a sweet grin.
“This is my niece.” Y’shennria turns her smile to me, and I feel somehow itchy under it. “My stepbrother’s bastard, but of Y’shennria lineage nonetheless. The Minister of the Blood found her only recently—and I’m simply overjoyed.”
The lawguard smiles wanly, all his sharp teeth showing. “If you don’t mind my saying, milady, I’m glad of this. Kavar knows you deserve a bit of happiness in your life.”
“That’s very kind of you to say.”
The lawguard pats the carriage with his clawed hand, and Fisher takes that as a signal to trot the horses through. I glance up at the Crimson Lady, at the lawguards I can see now standing in the windows at the very top, but Y’shennria frowns.
“Fret not. If it had sensed anything, we’d be in the process of being arrested right now.”
“How? How would those guards up there tell the ones down here so quickly?”
Y’shennria motions to the side of the gate, where two or three strange copper tubes no higher than my waist stick up from the cobblestones. “The watertells.”
A popping noise bursts through the crowd’s cacophony, and I jump—one of the copper tubes expunges water wildly, then goes silent again. The lawguard nearby thumps his fist on top of the tube, and it opens like a lid. He reaches inside, pulling out yet another copper tube, smaller. This one holds a piece of parchment, perfectly dry. He reads its contents and searches over the heads of the crowd, pointing at a woman with a cart of eggplants. The other lawguards close in on the woman.
“Don’t stare,” Y’shennria mutters. I have no choice either way—Fisher presses the carriage onward, and I lose sight of the woman and her lawguard accosters in the crowd.