Myakson, Kinam, entering Hyrib.
Clavis slipped out of the window, leaving Loredan in the room. She hoisted herself from the windowsill to the roof, before sliding down the slope she had made a few years back for easy access to the lower floors.
Nodding her head to the various people greeting her, she crossed the bustling street and caught onto the back of a horse-drawn omnibus. When she glimpsed the entrance to the worst part of the slums, she hopped off it and sidled inside. Welcome to Hyrib.
The entire place stank of piss and other stale bodily fluids. Clavis wrinkled her nose. She swiped a scarf off of a woman's neck and simply melted into the crowds when the woman made a fuss. Wrapping it around her nose and mouth, she ducked into a busy pub.
The Black Bunny Bar was well known for being the drug centre of the city. If you needed to swap some sketchy packages, then there were plenty of free rooms in the inn above the main pub. To stay in one of the rooms was to risk your life. That was the first rule of surviving in Hyrib. Never stay in a pub.
Clavis caught the eye of one of the waiters and gestured him over to her.
He came forward, grinning widely. "Clavis! It's been too long! Come, I have your folder." He beckoned her after him, leading her up the stairs.
Clavis couldn't help but smile at him. Colin was the nicest kid here. He had come to Myakson as a refugee when he was eight, and quickly fell in with the wrong people. Clavis had found him bleeding in an alleyway when he couldn't keep his end of a bargain, and she had begged Miles to keep him on the payroll in exchange for information. Miles had only agreed because he wanted to get her off his back about it, but a win was a win nonetheless.
She followed Colin up a staircase and into a shabby, cupboard of a room. It was no place for a 14 year old to live, but Colin didn't seem to mind too much.
He lifted up his mattress and handed her a black folder. "There you go, 'Vis. All the new juicy gossip on the streets," he grinned. He had a gap between his two front teeth and two differently coloured eyes. Clavis loved how unique he looked.
"Thanks a million, Colin. You're such a queen." She playfully punched his shoulder.
"Don't I know it." Colin put his hands on his hips and posed. She laughed. When she had first met him, he had felt dull and lifeless. Drained of everything that made him, him. Now, with a stable source of income and relative safety, he had really come into his element, bursting forth as one of the most colourful and vibrant people she knew.
"How's things with Drinal going?" Clavis asked.
He made a face. "Well. They're not."
"Colin, you could've done better than him from day one." She rolled her eyes. "Never liked him. He smelt like cigarettes and leather, which would normally be nice, but then there were the clouds of weed that followed him everywhere."
"You can't say anything. You're dead." He poked her arm.
"You know what, Colin, kill yourself."
"You wanna give me a tutorial?"
She looked at him, unimpressed. "Low blow."
He laughed at her. "Anyways. How's Trench Coat keeping?"
"I couldn't tell you, even if I wanted to." Clavis shrugged. "Oh, but he kidnapped someone else today."
"I heard about that!" Colin exclaimed. "Medium height, cute nose, palest dude you'll ever see."
YOU ARE READING
Souls On Souls
FantasíaLoredan always knew he had to leave his gilded cage. What he didn't know was that fate would send him on a journey, far away from everything he knows, with dangerous people, to find one very valuable prisoner. But the universe likes to play tricks...
