The Phoenix Stone

Chapter 11

We made it to Nevermore just as the sun sank below the hilly horizon. Nevermore was a huge city; the biggest in all of Greater Everneau. It didn't take long to find a hotel that could accommodate both us and our horses but it seemed to be very busy inside. There were a lot of drunk people at the bar inside and that usually wasn't a very good sign but we were too tired to try and find a different inn.

"How can I help you?" the innkeeper asked huskily, completely ignoring all the sounds around us.

"We'd like to rent two rooms for the night, please." Kael eyed the drunken people stumbling around the room suspiciously.

"Only two rooms?" I asked, a little confused. After all, there were four of us.

"Yeah, one for the boys and one for the girls," Evander explained to me. "It's more money effective that way."

"Oh. Of course." I slapped my forehead, feeling seriously stupid. "I knew I was tired but I didn't know I was that tired!"

He laughed.

Meanwhile the innkeeper had sent one of his helpers upstairs to figure out if they did have two rooms available. When she came back down and confirmed that there were rooms he said, "Done. Pay up." The innkeeper held out his fat paw.

"How much per room?"

"Three hundred," he said with a giggle.

"Three hundred?! That's daylight robbery!" Kael exclaimed angrily.

Evander tapped his shoulder. "Umm, sir? It's not light outside. Wouldn't that mean that it's nightlight robbery?"

"Shut up, Evander. I'm busy and I don't need your witty comments right now."

"You gonna pay up, mister?" The innkeeper was getting impatient. "There's other people I need to see so if you don't make up your mind soon I'm gonna leave."

Kael rolled his eyes. "Fine. But I'll leave a bad review if the rooms aren't clean, just letting you know." He took his money pouch out of his bag.

The innkeeper was grinning like a little boy in a sweets store when Kael poured the jingling money into his hand.

The rooms were almost spotlessly clean but weren't soundproof at all and we could hear the shouts from downstairs well into the night. The next morning none of us had slept very well because of the noise but we had to keep moving. I was glad to leave the inn. The drunken fools at the bar had terrified me.

Nevermore was a very pretty and modern city. Uflolia trees lined the dusty cobblestone streets along with little patches of various flowers planted beneath the orb-like street lights. The roads were busy but very organized and the flow almost never backed up. There was a separate lane of the road specifically for horse riders but most of the traffic on the streets were walking. Even the market was organized by category of what you wanted to buy! Of course, the food market was the busiest out of the markets but it still wasn't as chaotic as the market in Duskstrand.

We stopped at the market to buy some extra food but didn't stop for very long. The outskirts of the city were just as pretty as the inside with lots of trees and flowers at the sides of the roads but there were a lot less people. There were a few little stalls along the road but we didn't stop because we already had enough food to last us the day.

At noon we stopped at the side of the road and had lunch in a grassy green field. Wildflowers grew in the tall grass and there were little rabbits hopping in and out of their hilly dens.

We didn't quite reach the Stormy Peaks before nightfall so we camped out in another field of tall grass. The next morning as we were packing up to navigate the Stormy Peaks Kael said something that made my heart ache.