Page 74 of A Dagger of Ice and Intrigue
Navigating the rare icy patches stubbornly sticking to the shadowy back alleys I frequented was another story. The first time I marched on top of one, I skidded straight into the first wall.
Luckily, I didn’t fall.
Now, whenever I couldn’t bypass the ice, I walked over it as slow as a snail, arms unfamiliarly outstretched, like I was walking on a tightrope.
Ice in Aquila was a rarity, usually brought in by official convoys as an offering and used to loosen their unending drinks at the banquets. Even when I hunted in the snowy mountains, the ice didn’t have time to settle into more than a thin layer that crunched under the softest step.
Everything around me was unfamiliar.
I didn’t wander down the main streets, sticking to the paths where I met nobody but fluffy stray cats–even then, they watched me like they knew I wasn’t from around here.
The warriors watched me when I left the fortress, too, their questioning stares stuck to the back of my hood long after they were out of my sight.
I didn’t know whether I should have been glad or insulted that the Commander had kept his word and let me roam around the city unimpeded.
As if I wasn’t a danger to him and his people.
As if I hadn’t faced a rain of arrows with nothing but courage and half a ceremonial arch.
Three days skulking around these narrowed paths, the grey houses towering over me with their menacing height, and I already knew which third left turn to take to end up right behind the tanning barrels from the hide shop, nestled right at the lip between the alley and the circular market place.
My hiding spot smelled something awful, the stench clawing into my throat.
But I saw everything while nobody noticed me–except for the dogs.
Or wolves. They were much too large to be pets, one of their paws the size of my head and their fur as long as my hair, but the Blood Brotherhood civilians in this crater didn’t seem to think so. Each time one of them prowled past the barrels, they stuck their glistening noses in the air and barked straight at me.
Like they could smell the Protectorate stranger in their midst, even while dressed in the Blood Brotherhood’s best.
Or maybe they heard my stomach growling from crouching in one place from when the sun rose to the moment the market closed, legs stinging from the strain, eyes watering from the smell.
But I wouldn’t have given up this vantage point for anything.
This crater had to have at least one entry and one exit.
The Commander had carried my coffin in this bleeding place somehow.
There was no way this city could survive inside this crater without some resources coming in.
Meat and pelts were easy to come by in a forested area, even one as dangerous as snowy as the one surrounding us.
Fish could always be found underneath the ice in healthy lakes and rivers, though I’d seen none from my balcony or the fortress roof.
Roots and vegetables could be grown in hidden hothouses and rope could be twisted from the bark of young trees.
But honey, sweet, decadent honey I could never get enough of…honey needed bees. Bees needed flowers, large fields, and sun to create it. Even the stiff breeze which sometimes blew through Aquila kept the little critters away from our gardens.
There was no way–absolutely none–that honey could be produced locally under all this snow. Especially not the jars upon jars that got transported each day to the only sweets shop in the entire market, a beacon for my sweets-loving–and currently sweets-deprived–self.
My mouth watered every time I saw the courier heave the crates of jars, the swaying golden honey calling my name. The courier was always the same tall, blond man, with at least seven decades etched on his smiling face.
The delivery carriage–a creaky thing half-covered by worn wooden planks with rust marks around the nails–came in every day at seven.
Which meant it could make the trip to and back a flower field–and a pretty large one to supply such a constant demand–all within less than a day.
If there was a way out of this crater, that rickety carriage would bring me to it.
Or close enough to it that I could manage the rest of the way. I’d have to find a satchel and start squirreling away some of Mrs. Thornbrew’s homemade bread for the journey. Maybe snatch some of the silver ornaments in my room in case I needed to barter on the way home; I’d send the Commander the money for them once I got back to Aquila.
