Page 68 of A Reign of Roses
“He’ll give us away.”
“You’re going to suffocate him—”
They were sure to find us. I’d have to fight the mercenaries off, which meant leaving Arwen here. With him. And if she passed out from her wound, if he sensed her lighte—if he touched her…I didn’t want to harm the vagabond. But I’d have to knock him out to ensure her safety.
“This way,” a mercenary’s voice echoed.
My hackles rose. The vagabond gnashed against my hand. I moved behind him, guilty, already regretting—
“In here,” a small voice whispered behind me. Arwen and I spun to see the wall beside us open into a shop. We ducked inside just as the herd of mercenaries passed.
My relief was as tangible as Arwen, back in my arms, sagging breathlessly against me.
Inside the shop was both ashy and humid, and smelled of burnt hinoki. There were no shelves. No glass cases to display jewels or crates with fruit. Just three thick candles sputtering for life, and a threadbare carpet with too many dark red stains for it to be a coincidence. Only a minuscule break in the panic, as relief was replaced by nagging suspicion.
“Thank you,” I said to the woman, who was wrapped in layers of dark fabric to keep out the heat and the rancid air. All I could discern were her sunken hound eyes and hunched frame.
“What is this place?” Arwen asked me too quietly.
The woman craned her neck to get a better look at Arwen’s wound. “She’s dying, your girl?”
I recoiled as if struck, cradling Arwen even closer. “No.”
“I’m fine,” Arwen coughed, grasping tightly at her abdomen.
The woman only nodded from behind her rags. “Soon, though.”
“Do you have bandages?” I asked. “Any medicine?”
The woman shook her head.
A cold sweat broke across my neck. Not from fear—I was strong enough to best this meek woman mortal, let alone full-blooded. No, the weariness came from something else. From the realization that this place was not a shop at all.
Arwen stumbled into me farther, dizzy from blood loss. “I need to lie down.”
“We’ll give you fifty coin for her.”
“She’s notdead,” I snarled.
“Soon,” the woman said again. Like a promise.
My claws itched to shred through my knuckles. “Where is the Dreaded Vale?” I gritted out.
“South of here. You aren’t far. Daybreak will arrive any minute.”
I understood her warning: these slums were dangerous in the dead of night, but in the harsh red light of dawn…every soul in Aurora would be drawn to Arwen and me like buzzards to carrion. Lighte was the commodity in Lumera—the power in our veins the only currency that mattered. For addicts, for harvesters; to feed crops, to give power to those hoping to one day escape.
“Do you trust me?”
Arwen’s eyes had gone cloudy, but she swallowed hard and nodded. “Always.”
The alley behind the hidden door had been silent since we entered, and given the pallor of Arwen’s skin, time was not on our side. I managed my thanks to the woman and ducked us back out into the muggy, forlorn streets.
The Dreaded Vale was lessof a valley and more of a winding maze of black, parched trees that rose so high into the night sky I couldn’t make out their tips from their trunks.
I couldn’t risk shifting and drawing the attention of any mercenaries still on our tail, nor flying too fast and passing the rebel king’s hideout altogether. I’d been walking for at least thirty minutes, Arwen cradled in my arms. Her eyes had begun to flutter closed.
“Hey. Stay with me.”
