Iron Bullet Legacy

Chapter 4: Drunk and Stupid

Drunk and Stupid

Torryn's POV

Day two on the wrong side of the veil, venturing around the fay streets alone in glaring military garb and no sense of direction. There are plenty of humans on the enchanted side. Do I stand out in particular?

The sun is on its way to set. I've passed a few portals labeled with outposts I vaguely recognize, but I'm hoping to find a waypoint that puts me near Yaling, which is where I was heading before the ambush. Travel on the enchanted side equates to double the distance beyond the veil, since this side is multiplanar, connected largely by portals and tears. As I travel further into North Haven, I should be heading South on the other side.

That's what Lennox told me, anyway.

The younger fairy woke me up by accident the yesterday morning, stubbing her toe on the door. She yelped something about rosemary in her distress, and I groggily breached consciousness, calling her the wrong name by mistake.

"Can I ask who Fiona is?" she later asked as we shared morning coffee.

I tugged my hair out of its ponytail to comb through it. "My younger sister. When I lived at home, she came into my room a lot in the middle of the night." She's plagued by this recurring nightmare that keeps her from sleeping. I'd take her for a walk by the river to calm her down. "Sometimes she'd bump into my nightstand on accident and wake me up."

"Is that where you were headed on your journey? Home?"

"No, I'd just left there. I was looking for a city I've never been before. Yaling."

That's when she gave me a hybrid map for both sides of the veil, and showed me how the cardinal directions exist opposite one another. According to it now, I won't make it to the right waypoint by nightfall. I should probably post up somewhere until morning. There's an inn marked a few streets away. I can probably make my way there.

I hate being in places I don't know. Well, I love it and I hate it. I hate having to watch my own six so closely, mainly because I get so fixated I end up lost, but I love seeing all the differences from home. Fay tend to collapse their wings on the other side to blend in with humans, but, here, there are so many fairies in one spot, sparkling in a way they only do beyond the veil, using their wings to hover above the ground. It all looks magical... which only makes sense, since their bodies rely on magick to function.

Magick...

"You there!" a street merchant calls out to me. "Would it be you're lost?"

What was my tell? The map, or me walking by his stand three times now? I guess I'm an open book. "Looking for somewhere to spend the night, actually. Headed to outpost 37 south."

"37 south? That's a ways more to go. Aye, you'd best take up a room at the inn the 'round the corner there, on your left."

I was this close the whole time... Well, I'd surely have found it eventually.

"There's a cracking bar next door there, too, if you fancy yourself a nice brew."

It'd do me no good to get tanked in a city I've never been, on the wrong side of the veil, but a little alcohol sounds like a good means to take the edge off the last week's chaos.

The inn has a bright, lit-up sign even a foolish mortal could spot if he'd walked down the right street. The receptionist is a young fay by the name of Quillan, so says his name plate. He sets me up with a room for the night before I even get the chance to tell him that it's Torryn with a y, not an i.