Someone is already grabbing underneath my arm, and I flail at being touched, my blood running so hot I can’t feel the cold rain. “Stop flailing like a dying pigeon,” says a voice I know all too well.
I glance up at Bones, his hair wet as rain runs down his face. Blood is splattered all over his outfit, and I look at the decapitated body that spurts out what’s left of the corpse to mix with the rainwater. Bones raises an axe in his other hand, eyeing the crimson liquid on his cold steel. “Shade won’t get far. Don’t worry. We’ll catch that cunt. Havenoidea what he’s thinking.”
A woman near us selling oranges yells out, “Oi! Don’t get my fruit bloodied! This street was supposed to be safer than Doggins!”
“He was taking me. Something about seeing an opening with Soren,” I get out through a pant.
Bone’s mismatched eyes flash with a depth of cunning that is usually hidden behind a bedlam personality.Bones completely ignores her, and it’s really the first time I’ve seen him this concentrated. With the way he normally acts, it would be hard to guess someone calculated lives in there.
“Bones, what’s happening?” I ask, searching the area for Soren. “Shade was withRosmertta. He was a guard there.”
“No fucking idea,” he replies with a gritty tone, looking in the same direction as me. “But let’s get out of the middle of the street. And if Soren doesn’t appear soon, I’m giving the signal, so be ready.”
As it was explained to me, Bones is expected to always appear first, keeping a skirmish to a minimum so I can be extracted with little notice, unless a cue is indicated. I don’t answer him as my hands roam my neck and face. “Am I burned at all?”
He frowns, looking at me like I might have hit my head. “What, no. We have to move.”
“Bones, they threw boiling water on me,” I implore, trying to findanyspot that might be blistering.
“Are you sure you’re alright, dying pigeon?”
“I—I guess,” I answer, dumbstruck. “I mean, I guess I am. Okay… okay, let’s go.”
I can figure that out later.
As we step to the side to walk along the walls, a few men move out of the alley adjacent to us, with a rather large one in the very front. Bones is swift to shove me back, releasing me to grab ahold of a second axe on his backside.Anotherset of hands are on my shoulder right away, and I see it’s someone I don’t know the name of, but I’ve seen their face countless times with Soren.
He’s not alone.
The man who faces Bones is a stranger, clearly aged and beyond his prime, yet still easily matches Soren’s height and thickness. His gray beard is braided and bristly, one eye completely milky. His worn leather contrasts his freshly sharpened steel—the only thing about him that doesn’t look threadbare.
Slowly, a handful of similar men reveal themselves from either alley, all with the same milky eye. With each one that emerges, so does another that belongs to Soren—whether it’s on a rooftop, or from down the street.
“You with Shade, old salty dog?” Bones asks.
He sucks his lip to his graying teeth and spits on the ground. “We’re not with any man that runs as cowardly as him.”
Each word sounds as if it’s been scraped up from the bottom of his chest, finished with a rasping undertone.
“You want to clarify what you want then, or just going to stand there? We got shit to deal with,” Bones says.
“He’ll probably just stand there,” says a new, smoky voice whose warmth contrasts so greatly with this cold weather. “Rorge doesn't have much of a personality. Unless there’s tobacco.”
Many heads turn to look behind us. I notice only Bones continues to face forward while I observe a woman approaching from our backside. At least both her onyx eyes match, standing out against her bronze skin. White streaks line her curly black hair, which is pulled back into a partial bun, the rest of it lying on her shoulders, the rain sitting on it in pebbles. Her leathers are well-fitted, and the blades sheathed along her are purposefully placed. “I’m Donna. Anyway, what Rorge means to say is that it’s time to meet the Scorpion. No more delays. We’ll deal with whatever the hells just happened outside of this. We still need to move.”
So,notrelated to Shade?
“You can fuck right off if you think I’m trusting you,” I reply with a tight tone, not liking that Soren doesn’t seem to be visible anywhere.
“We’re here to take you to the Scorpion,” she explains, nodding toward us, hands in the pockets of her cloak. “He was unable to fulfill his appearance just now.”
I’m starting to regret thinking that Coalfell was too boring for me. The stress of wondering what is going on, and why there are people staring at me as if I’ll disappear if they blink, is beyondexhausting. Let alone why so many have their left eye completely white, as if they all lost the same sword fight.
Panting, I turn back around,refusingto leave without Soren, or entertain these people for a moment without his input.
There’s so many watching us, but mostly from cracked curtains behind windows.Rumors of this will spread swiftly.
When no one moves, not even Bones, an aching solitude blooms rapidly in my chest as the stillness allows me to feel Soren’s absence?—
