Page 17 of A Sword of Ice
“Ready to pack up our little hidey hole, huh boy?” Fluffy purred in response. “I think it’s time we took a nice, long vacation, don’t you?”
George swept a glance over his things and sighed. It was going to be a real bitch getting everything to move, but he had connections in abundance and that was the least of his worries.
His fingers grasped at his chest for a particular strand and tugged.
“Tudor.” He smirked as he felt a slight pull in response. “I think it’s time I left Porir for good. Death is on the horizon, and I don’t want to be here to see it.”
11
The Final Plan
Iona wished that would have been the end of it, but there was more she still needed to do.
She decided to take a page from George’s book and stashed away the important documents in a secret location where she’d get them later when it was time to leave.
It was hard to move around when the city suddenly found itself invaded by competent soldiers as opposed to those who wasted away on piss-poor ale and drugs.
They marched through the streets, banging on doors and pulling people from their homes. Whether they be Fae or human, it didn’t seem to matter. They pulled them and herded them out into the streets to test for Fae blood.
Iona witnessed it all from the shadows as they pressed iron against the skin of people. Those who didn’t flinch were sent back inside. Those who did were skewered with swords or taken away.
The sight of blood pebbling the streets took her back to another time. When crimson splattered from her wrists down to the sand. The blow that knocked her unconscious, but not before she saw the soldiers take her sister by the feet and drag her away, screaming and clawing at the ground as she begged Iona to help.
She had to swallow back the memories and do something to take the nerves away. She bit the inside of her cheek and pressed her fingers against her thighs as she darted through shadows and found a place to rest for the night.
The sun had long since fallen, and she wasn’t finished. There were still threads in the last bit of her plan she needed to weave before she could get her familiar and leave Porir for good. In all honesty, she didn’t know what she was going to do or what direction to head towards first. Any plans she’d had before she was forced to revise, now that she had a familiar who wasn’t exactly inconspicuous.
Maybe tomorrow she could go down to the docks and buy tickets to travel by boat. Even if her body dreaded the thought, it would be an easier method of transportation than walking through the woods. Without a community at her back, it would be a dangerous endeavor to travel the human lands.
It would be even more dangerous to do anything without money.
All day she’d wanted nothing more than to slip into her rented room and grab her hidden stash of coins. She’d scoped out the place and had found it to be surrounded by soldiers.
Almost as if they were waiting for her.
Fucking Petey,she cursed, using those words like a daily prayer to Mana.Fucking Petey and his bullshit.If Henry were alive, he would have been pissed at his son’s behavior. Since Mana had taken the sweet, old soul, Iona had enough energy to be pissed enough for the both of them.
Because of his stupidity, Iona was now on the streets, cashing in favors with those who owed her. Those who were still safely hidden from the soldiers. She’d had to move fast, afraid that anyone who owed her money and favors would suddenly find themselves skewered at the end of an iron sword.
Tangling her fingers through her hair, Iona sighed.
She’d been able to collect about thirty golden coins total. She knew she needed more if she wanted to survive and establish herself somewhere far away from here. She had enough money to buy tickets for a boat, but that previous, fleeting idea didn’t exactly seem prudent. She was Fae, and traveling with human passengers while she had a polar bear at her side would garner too much attention she didn’t need, even with the forged documents.
It wasn’t like she had enough money to buy a private boat that would fit both her and her familiar, but she wasn’t above stealing one from an asshole of a human to travel by water.
Just the thought of getting on a boat made an ache build in her chest and spread. It had been so long. The last time she’d tasted the water, she’d been drowning on it.
After waking up on the shores of Teg, she’d thought about going back to the Feylands. It was the rumors that had stopped her. So many had claimed that Tir na Faie hadn’t only just fallen, but that it had changed completely.
What had once been lands thriving with magic had become a deserted blight. Mana had seemed to have seeped from the Fae’s home and made way for the unrelenting soldiers and their iron.
No one stepped foot in the Feylands anymore.
But Iona would. If she had no other choice. And the way it seemed? Shedidn’thave any other choice.
Slipping into an alleyway with one exit, she made her way back towards the shadows, dusting away her footprints as she went. The problem about staying somewhere with only one exit was that she could easily be cornered, but there was nowhere else to hide, and this was the safest place right now. It was isolated and hidden well enough in the shadows that she was sure the soldiers wouldn’t find her.
Iona pressed herself into a corner, spreading her legs out in front of her. She didn’t dare take off her boots or clothes. Not just because the freezing weather or the snow that had drifted down all day and covered the ground like a cold blanket, but because if someone snuck up on her, she didn’t want to be caught in a vulnerable position. Everything had to stay on.
