The Drowning City - Amanda Downum [17]
“He recovered, but he wasn’t the same. We waded through death to the knees every day, but it finally came too close. And he said…He said I was too young to nurse an old man to his grave. I argued, but he put me aside. We fought for a year. And now he’s sent me away, far enough that I can’t play the termagant.”
She smiled, bright and bitter, and shook her head. “And that’s the whole of it, mawkish as a bad play.”
They sat in silence for a time, music and laughter and water swirling around them. “I’m sorry,” Isyllt said at last. “You didn’t need to hear all that. But as I said, I know what we’re here to do, and my feelings won’t interfere.”
Adam only nodded.
She glanced at the nearly empty flagon and blinked. “Black Mother. Lucky I haven’t made more of a fool of myself than I have.”
“Eat some more,” Adam said, nudging the plate toward her. “Then we can walk it off.”
Isyllt shivered in spite of the heat as they left the tavern, wrapping her silk shawl over bare shoulders. Wine burned in her blood, stung her cheeks. Corset stays pressed against her ribs, and she wasn’t sure more food had been a good idea.
Moonlight shimmered on rooftops, glittered on the water. The city was full of spirits tonight. Or maybe it always was, and she only now heard them. Not ghosts, but water creatures, jungle creatures, flitting and whispering in voices she couldn’t understand. She paused, eyes closed, and let the strange sounds wash over her. The ground spun beneath her.
Adam’s hand closed on her arm and she opened her eyes. “Are you all right?” he asked. His calloused fingers were warm against her clammy skin and she fought not to sway on her feet.
Very lucky not to have made more of a fool of herself.
“Can you feel them?”
His smile stretched lopsided. “Some of them. Not like you do. I hear them sometimes, the louder ones.”
She cocked her head, studied the play of shadows over his face. “Are you a witch?” she asked, even though she caught no hint of power under his skin. But the way he moved, alert as a mage…
“Not even a little. Charms are Xin’s job. I just kill things.”
She looked down at his hand, let her vision unfocus. Colors blossomed around him, deep forest greens and grays, swirled red and black around his hands and sword. “You’re good at it.”
“I am.” For an instant his eyes gleamed green-gold like an animal’s and a sharp-toothed shadow hung over his.
“What are you?” she whispered. “Not just an orphan brat.”
He smiled a wolf’s smile. “Tier Danaan. Half-breed, at least.”
Isyllt blinked, colors fading. Adam was just a man again—a man she was leaning on drunkenly in the middle of the street. She straightened and took a step back. “I’ve never met one before.”
“People in civilized places usually haven’t.” He started walking and she fell in beside him. “I wasn’t raised among the Tier.” The careful flatness in his voice warned her away from the subject.
They crossed an arching bridge over one of the broad canals that bordered the districts; someone sang from a passing skiff below. The breeze tugged strands of Isyllt’s hair free of their pins, stuck them to her sweat-damp shoulders. And they called this the dry season.
Descending the bridge steps, Isyllt tripped on an uneven stone. Adam caught her before she fell. The streetlamp’s glow revealed a crack in the rock, several inches deep.
“The street is sinking,” Adam said, pointing down the side of the canal where the pavement sloped sharply toward the water.
“Lovely. Let’s hope it doesn’t finish the job tonight.”
The streets in Straylight were narrow and cracked and the houses tilted drunkenly, some leaning so close their gardens grew together. Wards dripped from shop signs, shimmered in windows and doorways. Many lamps were out, only a few puddles of orange-gold glow marking their way. Someone stirred in the blackness of an alley, racked with a consumptive’s cough. Isyllt