Total pages in book: 169
Estimated words: 161535 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 808(@200wpm)___ 646(@250wpm)___ 538(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 161535 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 808(@200wpm)___ 646(@250wpm)___ 538(@300wpm)
“State your business,” the guard says as Kalos and I make it to the front of the line.
“Travelers,” I say brightly and lower my hood. Kalos does not. “We’re on a pilgrimage to see one of the gods during the Anticipation.”
He indicates I should show him my pack, and I do so. This reminds me vaguely of being at the airport back home, and a pat-down would probably make me homesick. “You just missed one,” the guard comments casually. “Not that you’d want to meet the one we had.”
“Oh no?” I try to keep my expression eager.
The guard makes a tossing-salt gesture over his shoulder. “Vulture God.”
I wrinkle my nose. “Ew.”
“Exactly.” He tilts his chin, indicating the high walls of the city behind him. “There’s a district with marked doors down by the temples. Avoid them and you should be fine.”
“Of course.” I take my pack back from him and slide my arm into the crook of Kalos’s. “Let’s go, honey.”
His gaze goes to my hands, and then to my face. We share another fraught moment, our eyes locked, and for a breath or two, it feels as if there’s only the two of us in the world. I stroke my thumb against his sleeve, wishing I was touching skin instead of fabric.
Kalos’s mouth shifts from the forbidding flat line to a hint of a smile. “Of course, my darling. I am at your bidding.”
Heat flushes through me. Whew. That did not have to sound nearly as sexual as it just did.
We take two steps forward before the guard calls out. “Wait.”
Shiiiiit. I turn around, making my expression bright and confused, like I’m just a poor simple woman who has no idea what’s going on.
Another guard points at Dingle. “That your goat?”
I glance down and Dingle has a scrap of yellow fabric in his mouth, no doubt torn from my cloak. He chews happily and, when I pull it out of his mouth, bleats at me. Kalos sighs and loops Dingle’s lead tighter around his other hand. I turn back to the guardsman. “Yes, he’s ours.”
“Don’t let him out of your sight or someone’s gonna make a dinner out of him,” the guard comments. “Food’s sparse lately.”
“We’ll keep an eye on him. Thank you for the warning. Is that all?” I pat Kalos’s arm, waiting for someone to demand that “my husband” lower his hood so they can check him for plague.
The guard waves a hand. “On you go.”
Whew.
Chapter
Eighteen
The interior of Balsingra is unlike the other town we passed through. The streets are cobbled instead of dirt, with large, rutted trenches down the sides for people to toss their trash and chamber pot discards into. There’s a sweeper that comes through and shoves everything into the trenches with a broom, but it still leaves behind a horrid smell. The buildings here are tightly packed along the streets and they’re tall, looming over us, and I feel like a mouse being corralled through a maze.
It’s a little unnerving.
Also unnerving is just how quiet it is for a busy city. Balsingra is easily ten times as large as the town that Gental had claimed, and yet all is quiet. The people we do pass on the streets either have their mouths covered with a scarf or they wear wreaths of garlic around their necks. No one stops to chat, and everyone keeps their distance. There are a few shops scattered along the streets, but most are boarded up, their doors locked tight.
Then, of course, there’s the plague district.
The crowds grow sparser the deeper we set into the city’s winding streets, and it soon becomes evident why. There’s a large, hastily constructed gate just outside what looks like a town square with a water pump in the center of it, topped by a large statue of a woman pouring a jug. There’s a symbol painted over the statue’s face, and the same symbol is painted on the cloth draped over the gate. A guard stands there, his face swaddled, and he holds a hand up as we approach the street.
He shakes his head at us. “No one comes this way. Plague.”
“We’re just passing through,” I say. “Heading for the temple district.”
The guard points down the street we’re on. “Keep heading that way and cover your mouths. You never know what kind of bad air has been left behind.”
I nod and thank him, obediently using some of the fabric of my hood to cover my face. As we walk past the district, I see each door in the neighborhood is painted with the symbol, and there are cloth-covered human-sized lumps lining the street. A knot forms in my throat.
“Before you ask, yes.” Kalos says as we continue past, the streets eerily quiet.
“What do you mean?” I turn to him, curious.
His face remains shrouded in his hood. “Yes, that’s my symbol. And no, this wasn’t me. It was the other Aspect. You’d know if it was me.”