A Crown of Gold

Hychorra

I tugged impatiently at my collar. The sun began to bake us on the open deck, the southern heat making itself known. The pregnant girl had been wrenching over the ship's railing for an hour and a half. My patience was thinning rapidly. Though the skiff seemed to glide along the wide river at an impressive speed, it felt as though we'd been sailing for longer than just three days.

I glanced over at Nik and Gunweld, who were both talking over a map of Hychorra. Nik was pointing and gesturing here and there while Gunweld nodded, his eyes skittering across the parchment just as fast as Nik's hands darted back and fourth. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but I assumed it was generally the same as what they had been for the past couple days. 

Nik had a plan. We'd enter Traveller's Bay as refugees of the violence in Wetchport. Apparently, diplomacy was losing its meaning in the city quickly, and we'd only caught the tip of the iceberg. It seemed the entirety of The Mapp was on the brink of boiling over. I gave my blouse another pull. 

While we were in Silk Harbor, Nik had gotten in contact with someone who forged papers for entrance to the city. The passes came at a heavy price, but it was "nothing to the prince of Greenbrock," Nik had claimed.  

As we entered, I'd wear a blindfold, and Nik would explain that I had been blinded in a breakout riot. "Once we're through and have safely found lodgings, you can ditch the blindfold and trade it for a hood," explained Nik. "Just make sure you keep your head down, and stay alert."

Once in the city, we'd work our way through its sectors and toward the center--where most of the military would be out on display to rally the people. From the maps I'd seen, Hychorra was laid out in a hexagon shape. Inside, it was divided up by rings--or sectors--which essentially separated class from class. Along the outer ring was primarily just farming and the factories which processed the silver brought in from the rich mining vein which sat right along the city. Among the factories were the slums, which housed the poor and many of the immigrants which flowed into the city daily. The next layer was made up of the largest part of the city's population and was mostly just a dwellings sector. Among the grid-like houses, were other services like textiles, the bartering center, and the prison square. When Nik had pointed it out, I got a shudder. The prison square was where they crammed creatures they'd managed the capture as they awaited execution. The inner ring of the city was where we would be trying to get. It was where the aristocrats and higher-ups of the city lived--and also where the public executions took place.

"We'll follow the flow of the crowds," Nik had said. "They should take us right to the city's heart. We'll see what we came there to see, and we'll leave in the commotion of the executions."

I felt sick. We'd be using the public executions of innocents as a rouse to slip in and out of the city. Regardless of my distaste to the situation, I knew better than to intervene. Nik had given me a long "don't-be-a-hero" lecture, and I wasn't stupid enough to think I could crumble the city from within by myself. No. That part I'd save for when I was mounted atop Darius, sending a column of fire into the city's direct center: the castle.

Drawn on the map, the Hychorrian castle stuck out as a long spire, towering menacingly above the rest of the city. I knew that was the point. From what I had gathered, the royal court of Hychorra desired to crush those beneath it tightly. I felt my jaw tick at the thought. 

The pregnant girl wretched again. I pushed myself up to my feet and joined her at the railing. I pulled her damp hair from her neck and face, patting her between the shoulder blades. "Just a short while longer now, I presume," I tried to comfort. "Then we can all rest."

"I believe that may come sooner than you thought."

I turned to see Nik approaching us, his eyes on the river ahead. I looked to follow his line of sight, expecting to see more winding river spanned in front of us. Instead, the stoic walls of Hychorra stood unmoving in the distance. We had made it to the Silver City.