Strife & Valor: Book II of The Rorke Burningsoul Saga by Regina Watts (red queen ebook .TXT) 📕

relax—“and these fine ladies are my companions in my mission to acquire a lost artifact for the Temple. However, since they cannot all stay as guests of the Temple, I thought it best we find an inn somewhere. Erdwud suggested here, but if it’s too much of a problem, we can look elsewhere.”

Sternly studying me, his eyes darting behind me a few more times, Sharp lowered his pistol all the way. “You ain’t under some curse, is you?”

“No, friend, nothing like that. We’re hoping we won’t be in Skythorn more than one night. These women have been a great boon in the task I perform on behalf of my Temple.”

Relaxing somewhat further, the man set the pistol down even if he did not put it away. It rested by the money he resumed counting, saying as he did, “Don’t believe in the gods. Believe in gold and silver and copper.”

“There’s a god for those, too,” I assured him, earning a brisk glance back up and a hefty sigh.

“Seven silver pieces a night a room,” he said. “My best offer. You won’t find nowhere more discreet in the whole of the manufacturing district.”

And that is the story of how we ended up once again divided across two rooms, albeit ones that were of far lesser quality than the pair at The Weeping Willow. Indra and Odile careened over from theirs, having locked their equipment safely within and divested themselves of their cloaks.

“What a price!” Odile pressed her hand to her forehead, grimacing. “And what a fool I was. You just don’t think about your body language in the heat of the moment.”

“These things happen, Odile.” I patted her sympathetically upon the shoulder and chuckled as she slunk past me to throw herself upon the bed where Valeria and Branwen already reclined. “We’ll make our business here as quick as possible to avoid incurring another fee, then we’ll get onto the task of searching for Roserpine’s ring. It’s all a mater of talking to the priests, so I’d ought to go now.”

“We’ll stay here and rest,” agreed Branwen.

“And guard our equipment,” muttered Odile, glancing at the wall as though through it. “This place isn’t nearly as nice as the one in Soot.”

True enough. The Mongoose was dirty, our room’s bed was barely made, and I was quite certain I heard a rat scrambling through the wall. Nevertheless, it was good to have a place where, no matter the personal distaste of the innkeeper, we were with someone for whom our privacy was their best interest—if only to save a friendship with Erdwud.

“Gather your strength,” I told them all on my way out the door. “But remain alert in case something happens or I return for your assistance in hunting the traitors.”

On my way out, Sharp’s eyes burned into the back of my skull. I ignored him, interested in only one thing at just that moment: retrieving the Scepter of Weltyr.

Though, I do confess…free for the moment of the women I adored, who took so much of my attention because I loved their company, I was at last fully able to steep my senses in what it meant to have returned to Skythorn. Even considering how ardent I was in my beliefs concerning that great god of Light, I was still perpetually amazed by the things he did for me: by the sorrows he allowed me to evade, and the trials he permitted me to conquer, and the women who emerged from the world before me like flowers in the meadow of life. And, to top it all off, I had been permitted this chance to return to my home.

How full the city was that day! How long it seemed to take me, that march down the slope to the center of the northernmost district and the Temple situated there. However, unlike the pattern of El’ryh, as I drew closer to the eponymous structure of Skythorn the traffic began to lighten. Soon it had evaporated altogether. Centers of all forms of commerce were scattered around the many quarters of the city. Those citizens who had any brand of wealth at all tended to live as close as they could to the central structure—not just out of religious belief, but out of a general sense of security.

Areas near the Temple were kept free of loiterers and well-patrolled by guards. As one traversed these quieter neighborhoods, one found all manner of stylish gardens and splendid homes. When there was no room for a garden, there was almost always a window box—but more than likely many such structures had rooftop gardens, or their own small plot in a back yard. Birds twittered with pleasure and, with evening’s approach, the air had begun to cool. I felt a great yearning pain for the days when I was a young man, barely even a trainee, and these streets had not yet been laden with any nostalgic sentiment because they were simply the world to me. Now the Temple and the area around it was only the orientation point—the center of a great circle of reality that I had already come to find was more infinitely varied and wildly rewarding than I ever could have anticipated.

Where would my children, Weltyr willing, call the center of the world? With so many women in my intimate company, I could not help but turn my thoughts to these matters as I never before had. It was entirely possible I had left a few heiresses behind in El’ryh—I was still not certain of the mechanics that permitted the durrow species to be a race of only females, and that permitted them to still seem so purely durrow despite being begot by typically human fathers. Still, if any daughters of mine remained in the Nightlands, I considered that they may well go on to live there for the sum total of their lives. I would never know them.

And for the children I would someday know, whom I would call my own? I was somehow