CHAPTER SEVEN

  Where Journey Begins

  As the aute pulled to a stop, a panel in the upholstered wall slid open.

  “We’ve arrived, Yhness,” said the an.

  “Thank you,” Bram replied from his heavily cushioned seat that had barely protected him from the bumps on the rough road. “And you did as I asked?”

  “Yes, Yhness,” the an answered worriedly. “But are you certain you would rather not have me drive you to Reise’s gate?”

  “It’s a short walk, Baer,” Bram assured his an. “We’ll manage.”

  “But…” Baer’s brows stitched together. “…If the seneschal hears that I dropped you and Lady Rowan iskirts—”

  “—Ser Anthony won’t hear it from me,” Bram was already pulling the carriage door open.

  The pri off the aute and then offered his hand to the trickster who’d somehow vinced his household while he slept that she was a daughter of a fallen noble house from the north of Lotharin who’d rescued Bram from bandits two nights ago and then chose to serve him after they’d escaped death together.

  “Lady…Rowan.”

  Saying her name felt unfortable to Bram’s to was, after all, the name of a dead girl. Whether she’d taken it for venience’s sake or if there was another more iing reason, Bram wasn’t sure.

  “Thank you, My Prince,” said the trickster—no—Rowan, for that was who she now was to his household. “It was a fortable ride.”

  Rowan gave Bram a pyful smile as she put up the hood that kept her face veiled from the eyes of strangers.

  Bram did the same. “fortable…”

  He eyed the dirt road they’d passed and scowled. pared to the paved stone highways of the imperium’s wealthier kingdoms, the roads of Lotharin were awful to travel in. Bram’s sore bottom roof of this.

  “We make this better,” he whispered. “Eveer than the roads of tral Atn.”

  “We will,” Rowan agreed. “Now, how far to our destination?”

  “The town of ‘Reise’ is half a mile to our east,” Bram answered.

  Rowan ed herself in the dark green riding cloak Bram had given her as part of their disguise for visiting the tryside without catg the attention of the nobles who were stantly on watch for the prince’s whereabouts.

  “I do enjoy a leisurely walk,” she said.

  “So do I,” Bram agreed. “Though I enjoy riding just as much.”

  His thoughts turo Renfri who now had a cozy room in his bastion’s stables.

  Fortunately, Rowan, who’d tasted Bram’s blood on the night they met, mao retrieve Renfri from the stables of the town Bram had left the hart in, and the t the prince back to Bastille.

  “Renfri is a good panion,” Rowan said as if she’d read his thoughts.

  “He is,” Bram agreed. Then added, “But I did want you to experiehis iion of the modern world too.”

  The prince spent a long moment admiring the aute that had taken them from his bastion to the eastern outskirts of Bastille Shire where the quaint little town of Reise y led underh the shadow of the very mountain Bram had scaled to find the cursed cave. A sleek coat ht scarlet enveloped the four-seater carriage with its four wooden wheels ed in supple leather, the internal sorcerite engine growling noisily underh the driver’s seat—truly, the aute was an ingenious iion, a marvel of modern-day life in Imperium.

  “We improve on its design,” Bram mused out loud, his thoughts drifting to the sleek otherworldly carriage that had rammed into him in his most ret dream. “Add springs to the undercarriage or s out the tires’ leather for ones made of hardened sap from a rubber tree might help absorb some of the shock that es from traveling on a rough road.”

  “Rubber…tires?” the broad-shouldered an chuckled. “That’s a daft idea.”

  But then Baer’s face turhe same color as his aute.

  “Begging your pardon, Yhness,” he added quickly. “I only meant—”

  “—you’re n. It is a mad idea.” Chug, Bram turned his back to the an. “Wait for us here, Baer. We’ll return iernoon.”

  They walked in silence while their feet carried them closer to the split in the road that marked the entrao the town. In that time, Bram pted his an’s agination—the spark that fueled innovation and progress—and wondered if the oners of his shire were of a simir mind. Would the people of Bastille even appreciate what he was trying to do for them?

  “I sense your doubts,” Rowan said as she matched his quicker pace.

  “I have no doubts.” Bram took a deep breath and the all out as if he were expelling doubt from his body. “I’m not allowed to doubt.”

  “True, doubt ot exist oh we walk,” Rowan agreed. “Though it is admirable that you would sider the opinions of others, remember that someone’s point of view is often shaped by their surroundings, meaning—”

  “—they be ged,” Bram deduced.

  “Exactly,” Rowan answered.

  “ge doesn’t always happen. Some biases take root too deeply in a person’s mind for it to accept ge,” Bram argued.

  “True enough… ‘Tis the age-old question of nature versus nurture.” Rowan eyed Bram curiously. “Would this not hold true as well for those mortals of the other world you wish to employ?”

  “I have an idea about that, but first…” He stopped walking. “…Time to see if Reise is a suitable destination to host our future guests.”

  They arrived at the split in the road. A short distao their right y the town of Reise with its high stone walls casting shadows over the surrounding grounds. Beyond these walls, Bram saw the tops of straw thatched roofs with the tall steeple bell tower of the sun god’s temple further in.

  “Reise… ‘tis a word of the old tongue,” Rowan’s face turned ptive. “Do you know its meaning?”

  “It means journey.” Bram grinned. “It’s why I chose the town.”

  Getting into Reise wasn’t difficult because the prince could don a disguise as easily as spping dirt across his face. Today he had dyed his hair a bright red, though he couldn’t quite copy the luster of Rowan’s scarlet locks. He wore a red cape too, though it was nothing fancy. Just something bright a bard might wear. His favorite lute—which Rowarieved along with Renfri—hung on his back. These were enough to vihe two guards proteg Reise’s wooden gate that Bram was indeed a bard looking for work ihe town.

  “You’re a bard, but you’ve got the build of a merary too,” noticed the older-looking guard whose shabby spear floated in the air at his side, proof that even oners possessed more magic than Bram did. “I hear the merary guild’s looking for recruits. You’re wele to find work there too so long as you don’t cause no trouble with the locals.”

  He eyed Bram up and down—impressed by the young man’s physique—before switg his gaze to Rowan.

  “And—”

  It was hard not to stare. For even with her hood c most of Rowan’s face, one couldn’t help but imagihe beauty hiding underh. Her allure was that potent.

  “Venna’s breath…” The younger guard ihe name of the Goddess of Love for he too couldn’t help staring.

  Bram chuckled.

  He stepped between the guards and Rowan to shield her from their gaze with his body. The effect was immediate. With the trickster hidden from view, both guards began to blink as if they’d just woken up from a daze.

  “We’ll head in now if that’s alright, bruv,” Bram said in his practiced oner’s drawl.

  “S-Sure,” the uard replied.

  While the younger guard said, “W-Wele to Reise!”

  They crossed through the gate and into a wide cobblestoreet enclosed by quaint-looking buildings oher side of it. These buildings were mostly two to three-story houses of timber framing with stone or pster between their wooden frames. They looked shabby pared to the tall manses and manicured wns of Bastille’s Hightown, but the variety of colors painted on each dwelling’s wall gave the town a festive feel that Bram didn’t dislike.

  “They call Reise the rainbow town,” he recalled. “Now I see why.”

  Rowan’s eyes lit up with wo the sight of the street and the people walking it; the locals who hung close to their homes, and the travelers wearing clothes different from the styles of the region who wielded sorcery to carry their heavily den shopping bags aloft in the air around them.

  “I like it,” she said as if that settled their choice. “Shall we go expl?”

  It wasn’t long before they found a line of shops and stalls further along Reise’s main street. Smithies and apothecaries that seemed busy with mid-m shoppers, as well as storefronts with a variety of s which filled the air with many sts that drew in visitors like moths to a fme. The curious Rowan was no different.

  “What’s this made of?” the trickster asked as she picked up a small, pink bar that smelled of roses.

  Bram, who’d e up behind her, sighed.

  Unlike his practiced oner’s drawl, Rowan sounded like a he curly-haired, middle-aged woman manniall noticed this too.

  “It’s soap from the port of Norfolk,” expihe shopkeeper Rowan a sly smile. “Most highborn dies pay a premium for it, but I’ll give it to you at a dist on at of how pretty you are… ss.”

  It seemed she’d chosen not t attention to the trickster. Bram thought this was a show of discretion rarely seen amongst oners.

  Rowan seemed to think so too when she gnced over her shoulder to wink at him. “Buy me this.”

  So, Bram returhe shopkeeper’s smile. “How much, love?”

  “Venna’s breath…” His smile was so pleasing that the shopkeeper couldn’t help but blush. “For such a lovely pair, forty criffins a bar. Sixty gets you two.”

  Despite her pliment, one of Bram’s eyebrows twitched upward. “That’s a little pricey for soap, ain’t it?”

  Ten more coppers and he could afford to buy himself a det dinner iown’s inn.

  “The craftmanship’s worth that much, d,” the shopkeeper insisted. “Plus, goods from up the Rhyne have gone scar at of the north lessening trade with the ter.”

  Bram frowned.

  It was true that trade with the northern region of Rhynend had lessened since he took office weeks ago. Bram thought this was just the northern nobles expressing their distent with him, but what if there was more to it than that?

  “Aye, we’ve heard these rumblings in Bastille too…” He leaned in as if to whisper in the shopkeeper’s ears. “Seems silly to me that they’d stall trade just to start a pissing test with an imp.”

  “It’s more than simple piss they’re looking to deal him…or so I’ve heard.” The shopkeeper rapped her fingers spicuously against the wooden ter.

  Bram assumed this gesture meant her information was worth something, and so he pwo silver griffins on the wood. Ara hundred and sixty coppers worth of information was a generous deal in his opinion. Enough at least to loosen one’s lips—and the shopkeeper seemed to agree.

  “The merary guild’s sent out a call for strapping young ds like you,” she began in a low tone, “and they only do that if they need hands, whily happens—”

  “—In wartime,” Bram deduced.

  “Aye,” the shopkeeper nodded. “Now, this isn’t firmed, so take it with a grain of salt, but I’ve heard it’s the northern nobles who’ve been hiring all the famous merary panies in Lotharin. Only, we’re not at war with any kingdoms b us…”

  “…So, the ing flict’s internal,” Bram guessed.

  “Just ohing’s ged these past months, and that’s the imp priaking over as guv’nor…” She leaned over her ter so that only Bram and Rowan could hear her. “The northern nobles haven’t been this riled up since”—she paused for effect—“the fall of House Wolfe…”

  Bram gnced sideways at Rowan. From what he recalled; Wolfe was the house of the dead girl whose name she took.

  “You ask me, they’re getting greedy challenging an imp,” the shopkeeper chuckled nervously. “He may be an ill-fated prince, but he’s still the sn’s pup.”

  Bram’s eyes twitched at hearing his ill-fated moniker. “…And your source?”

  She tried taking the s from the ter, but he wouldn’t let go.

  The woman cast a nervous gn both sides of the street before she admitted, “My husband. He’s a clerk for the mayor’s office. Heard it from his lips myself.”

  “Thanks for the soap.” Bram let the shopkeeper take the s while he straightened up. “And the kind words.”

  The hooded pair tinued along the cobbled road, making sure they were out of earshot from the shopkeeper with her loose tongue before Rooke her mind.

  “Do you think the northern nobles sent the assassins?”

  “The White Rose moves only at the behest of a royal… Although we ’t dist their involvement, I doubt Lotharin’s nobles have the o murder me without the support of one of my siblings.”

  “Then why court war?”

  “The ill-fated prince is a weak governor without allies to call on. I would be the perfect hostage for the northern nobles of Lotharin to trol.”

  “So, a show of force to ge your point of view and turn you into their puppet.”

  “Nature versus violent nurture…”

  “A rebellion for power… How like yods you humans are,” Rowan giggled.

  “It’s not just for power,” Bram reasoned. “The port cities of Rhynend provide most of the trade in Lotharin, which means they’re better off than the rest of the kingdom, but even with all the trade they do with the other kingdoms, the north ’t escape the dee that’s gripped the rest of Lotharin…”

  “You speak as if you uand them.”

  “They seek ge, a ce to uplift their people, through violence or coer if necessary… It’s not so different from what we’re pnning.”

  “The one difference is that you want what’s best for the whole kingdom. The north does not. If they did, they would have attempted to work with you before sidering more drastic measures.”

  “You’re n…”

  At this point, the pair had passed the shops along the main street and moved on to the residential area which was in the same ne.

  “‘Tis as if this town grew on a siretch of road.”

  Many of their fellow uters cast sidelong g Rowan and her burly panion. Such gazes followed the duo’s backs long after they’d walked past.

  Feeling the heat of their stares on his spine, Bram sighed. “ you do nothing about your…whatever it is you do?”

  “Could you ask a butterfly to polymorph into a moth?” Rowan tered. Smiling, she added, “You’re er. I’ve noticed more than a few young dies giggling at the sight of you.”

  Bram couldn’t help feeling a little smug. “I guess I’m a butterfly too.”

  Past the residential area of colorful dwellings was Reise’s town square; a cobblestone expanse of thirty yards ih and width that was surrounded by grand buildings on all sides. Amongst these important structures were the mayor’s mahe sun god’s temple, and the town’s only inn.

  The mayor’s manse was a gaudy dispy of color—a fa?ade of reds, blues, greens, and indigos—that demahe attention of first-time visitors.

  “‘Tis like a painting made by one locked in a fever dream… Your otherworlders will enjoy seeing such a y.”

  “Any attra that catches their i is good for us.”

  Beside the mayor’s manse was a well-manicured wn, the only one Bram had seen since he arrived at Reise. Behind this wn was a temple to the sun god; thick round pilrs held up a domed portico at the front of a raised regur building made entirely of expensive white stohere was also a steeple bell tower whose golden bell had begun to annouhe arrival of noonday.

  “Excessively extravagant,” Rowan whispered, “so like Phoebus, the arrogant prick.”

  The temple’s obvious extravagance wasn’t the only issue—it was the smell.

  A stench of retly burnt flesh wafted toward the pair who stood by the road, her of them uo turn their gaze away from the sight of a corpse that had been burned oake erected to the side of the temple’s front wn.

  “What crime deserves su ignoble death…?” Rowan asked.

  “Heresy,” Bram answered.

  The burning of heretics at the stake was a on sight throughout the Imperium whose gods’ demanded piety from nobles and oners alike. It was an especially regur occurrence here in Lotharihe sun god’s influence was great.

  As if her earlier excitement for Reise was but an illusion, Rowan’s crimson eyes fred with hate. Bram noticed this physical ge that came with the heavy pressure of magic leaking out of her. Others would notice this too if the trickster’s irritation wasn’t quelled quickly.

  “If it annoys you that much, then why not give them a taste of their own medie,” he suggested.

  “I enjoy the way you think.” Rowan’s face lit up like a dle was alight inside her head. “Wait here. I’ll only be a minute.”

  She crossed over to the edge of the temple’s wn and theo touch its grass. This curious se sted but a moment, and then Rowan was baext to Bram and smiling impishly at him as if her earlier tantrum had never happened.

  “Feelier?”

  “Much.”

  He noticed the cut on the forefinger of her hand. Seeing the bead of blood leaking from it sent his gaze drifting back to the temple’s wn. It was a small ge, but the grass that Rowan had touched was beginning to wilt. Bram didn’t doubt that the rest of the wn would soon follow.

  “Bloody hell.” He couldn’t help smiling. She was a trickster after all.

  “I seem to have worked up an appetite,” Rowan said as she linked her arm around his. “Shall we have lun?”

  GD_Cruz