Hive Queen by Sinclair, Grayson (positive books to read .txt) 📕

“All right, let’s get dressed. We’ve got a big day ahead of us.”

I headed down the stairs to find a slew of items waiting for us on the table by the kitchen. A few packs lay bulging on their backs, just waiting to be opened. Raven padded down the stairs softy behind me. She wore a gray shirt and pants, and she’d tied her long onyx locks out of her face into a ponytail. Raven followed my eyes to the table.

“Guess Orryn dropped by early this morning.”

“Yeah,” I replied, rubbing the back of my head. Damn it, if he’d been an assassin, we’d be dead. I shouldn’t have slept so hard.

I was slipping. The slightest noise should have woken me, and it hadn’t. I’ve gotten too comfortable around other people. The years of solitude trained my senses, but they’ve dulled since Eris came into my life.

I need to retrain them. Just another thing to add to my to-do list.

“Duran, come and check over everything. Magnus is thorough, but even he has blind spots sometimes.”

I’d grabbed everything I thought I might have needed back in the war room, but more supplies could only help, and maybe there was something I was missing.

I picked up one of the packs at random and dumped its contents out; they spilled and clanked out across the table. Several vials of potions: wraithsight, invisibility, fleetfoot, lightstep and a few Agility and Stealth enhancers. It covered every angle of what I might need, but there was no way I could take them all. Potion sickness would begin to kick in after the third potion, and system overload would follow a potion after.

Nice to have, but too much. Least I’ll have them if I need them. I turned my attention to the other items on the table, which were much more mundane in comparison. A tightly coiled length of rope, torches and matches, a lockpick and burglar’s kit so exquisite they put the one I carried to shame, and a few teleportation scrolls.

“Seems like everything we need for something like this,” Raven said as she looked over the items.

“Yeah, but too many people have already failed attempting this. Magnus sent thieves with far more experience than me, which tells me there is something that we haven’t accounted for. This isn’t going to be easy.”

“We might die.”

“Maybe, but at least I can come back,” I said with a slight grin.

Raven smirked and smacked me lightly on the arm. “Ass.”

I quickly packed up the bag before stowing it in my inventory. “All right, let’s get a move on. It’ll take us a while to get to Gold Hightown, and then we have to scout the area,” I said and headed for the door.

Raven sighed deeply behind me. “Least my life isn’t boring,” she said softy before following me.

***

Gold Hightown hadn’t changed much since I’d last been there. While Lowtown festered in destitution, Hightown thrived in opulence.

The air was even sweeter, less polluted with heat and the stale scent of poverty. There were still plenty of stone buildings, just more refined and well-designed, but it was in Hightown where we started seeing wooden houses and manors as well.

It was the only place in Aldrust where the dwarves built their buildings with wood. It wasn’t that expensive to buy, but to have it transported, constructed, and maintained in the cool underground cost some serious coin. Only the wealthiest dwarves had the coin or were vain enough to attempt building a house out of wood.

Most of the buildings were still stone, but it wasn’t just stone, most had marble or wooden accents to their houses, especially around the roof and windows. It was a less expensive method of showing off wealth, but status was status, no matter where.

The streets were smooth and had been freshly replaced—not a single crack or chip in the flagstones.

“It’s gorgeous here, and the air is sweeter. Warmer, too,” Raven said, glancing around.

“We’re closer to the surface, so more fresh air gets let in from the vents that run through the rock to the surface. As we found out last night, Lowtown doesn’t get the luxury of fresh air, so it stagnates and rots on the lower levels.”

The walk to the Iron Cathedral was a long one, and I was already nervous. Why did I agree to this again? Oh, right, I didn’t really have much of a choice. Raven shifted her eyes to mine, and I knew she could tell I was feeling the pressure, and she tried to keep me distracted.

   “It’s like night and day,” Raven said as we passed a rather large three-story manor constructed of dark rosewood.

“Nobility is the same no matter what race you are. If someone can have something, then there must always be someone who doesn’t. It’s the way the world works.”

She picked up her step and walked along side of me, nudging me with her elbow. “Waxing philosophical, are we? Still, the wealth of this place is staggering compared to Lowtown.”

“Says the girl working for the richest man in existence.”

She snickered. “Touché.”

As we stepped along the smooth cobblestone streets, I kept my eyes open. Humans were welcome to go mostly wherever we pleased in Aldrust, but there still wasn’t a huge number of us in the city. Raven and I would stand out to any casual observer, and that was the last thing we needed before we cased the Iron Cathedral.

We passed numerous dwarven nobles going about their day. The style of dress had changed slightly, and tailored button-ups with colorful mantling around their shoulders seemed to be in fashion for the dwarven males, while the ladies wore flowing dresses that stopped mid-calf. The dwarven nobles have always had their eyes on the latest trends,