Page 3 of A Sword of Ice
The winding roads of the city were laced with ice and frost. Snow slowly trailed from the sky, coating the ground in a thin, ashy layer. Winter was here, and in only a few days, Porir would be knee-deep in the cold.
Winter was always the harshest month, though Iona was sure winters in Teg could never compare to the winters in the northern kingdoms like Ielwyn and Vellm. It was still cold, just the same.
The soles of her boots created enough friction to keep her upright instead of sending her sprawling against the ground. It was one of the first things she learned when she came to Porir: invest in good shoes.
The city was quiet this early in the morning, save for the whistling wind and the occasional footfalls as the citizens made their early morning commute. Iona’s ears perked up from beneath her hair, eyes scanning every inch of the street. Besides being known to harbor Fae, Porir also harbored criminals of all kinds, and one could never be too careful.
Catching sight of a soldier, Iona tensed on instinct. Leather and steel armor covered his body, making him look bulky, and an iron sword gleamed at his hip as he patrolled the streets. There was a wobbly swagger to his step that let her know he was drunk, or high on the street drugs the criminals here sold like she used to sell flavored ice.
Iona didn’t allow herself to relax until she passed him without incident. She recognized him as one of the soldiers who went into her building to collect debts in exchange for silence, and though she’d already paid her tithe, she was nervous. The soldiers could decide at any time that they didn’t want their meager favors and could turn them all in. Every day was like living on the edge of your seat, worse yet, at the end of the chopping block and waiting for the blade to drop.
She walked a few more blocks as the sun rose overhead, illuminating the city in soft tones of white, gray, and black. Industrialized businesses rose up, smoke pluming from towers to blacken the sky. Zigzagging through streets and broken down, tattered buildings, Iona finally made it to the other side of the city, closer to the coast and to her job.
The Porir City Zoo.
The building spread out in a circular shape across the terrain, with tall, iron fences and rusty tin walls. Built like a prison, with dozens of side-by-side cages and glass domes that held animals both common and rare.
Circling the building to the back entrance for employees, she procured her thick iron key. It singed her fingertips every time she touched it, leaving behind the imprint of light scars against her skin. She slipped it into the lock, opened the gate, and pushed her way inside.
The myriad of smells were overwhelming to her sensitive senses. Shit, piss, hay, andfishmingled with iron and steel.She should have been used to them by now, but she gagged every time they collided through her nostrils.
Despite the odors, Iona was just glad to have stable work, something she’d fretted about when she’d arrived. It would have been hard to blend in as a human without a job or a place to stay. She was lucky she’d gotten hired at the zoo. A lot of places required thorough checks to ensure humanity, which left a lot of Fae either jobless or dead.
Some of the Fae in her building were turning tricks, becoming prostitutes, for the soldiers and homeowners. It meant the humans could use them whenever and wherever the need struck them. To keep themselves safe, to have a home.
Things could have been much worse for Iona. She was lucky to have landed here instead of in a lonely soldier’s bed.
It wasn’t the best work anymore, but it was honest and rewarding, if a little sad.
She made her way straight to Petey’s office to let him know she’d arrived. The owner of Porir City Zoo liked to dock pay and threaten letters to the emperor if she was late. The asshole.
Rapping once on his door, she pushed it open and found him sitting behind his desk, a bottle of ale in front of him. As per usual. She tried not to sneer at him like she really wanted to.
“Morning, Petey,” she greeted in a bored tone.
He swallowed back the contents in his bottle and belched loudly. Petey reeked of piss, ale, and week-old food. Being in close proximity to his stench was worse than the animals housed behind cages.
“Iona, just the Fae I wanted to see.”
She didn’t react to the malice in his tone but felt it as easily as if he’d pressed a blade to her throat. Petey liked to remind her who had the upper hand by making veiled threats about her heritage. Even just mentioning what she was aloud was laced with wicked promise of perdition.
In his late fifties, he had bald patches along his scalp and wisps of stringy, dark hair. His skin was tough and flushed pink, his eyes beady, with a gut that hung over the edge of his too tight pants.
She never would have stepped foot in the zoo looking for a job if it had been Petey in charge of the place at the time. No. It was his father whom she owed her life to.
Henry was a sweet, human man with a strong constitution and warm smile. He’d been twenty-two when they’d met; Iona had been seventy-seven. Taking a single look at the tips of her ears, Henry had known what she was and had taken her in anyway. He’d given her a job at his family-owned zoo, along with a wage that would pay enough for her rent and food.
He’d been kind, had treated her like he would a friend. She’d watched him grow old, get married, have children. His skin shriveled before her eyes until he was no longer the vibrant youth he had been. As he aged and she didn’t, he eventually treated her like a daughter, as if she wasn’t older than him.
He’d cared about the zoo, too.
There had been a time when it had been a thriving place, when the animals had been healthy instead of the malnourished skin and bones they were now.
Iona had been heartbroken when he’d died and pissed when Petey had driven his father’s legacy into the ground. After his father perished at the age of ninety, Petey had inherited everything. That meant he’d inherited Iona and her secret.
And he used it against her every chance he got.
She would have left. She’dwantedto leave when the only person tying her to the city was gone. It hadn’t been that simple of a task. Not when she’d required funds to do so and Petey had cut her pay, leaving her feeling like she was trapped in a suffocating place, her heart filled with both uncertainty and hope. And all the while, she’d waited for a sign from Mana. For a hint that it was time to leave this life behind and do what she felt, deep in her gut, she was meant to do.
