A Whisper of Night

8.1 || ZALYNE 🔥

Husling City was busy - too busy, for Zalyne's liking. As the carts below thundered past, clogging the air with dust and curses, she couldn't help but feel painfully exposed.

Zalyne and Luka had come this way by cart, smuggled between crates of onions. Melia the innkeeper had forced them into leaving Aitma the morning after she'd cleaned and bandaged Zalyne's shoulder. Had it not been for Princess Scirocca, Zalyne suspected that she would've reported them.

"Zalyne."

She turned. Luka, who'd taken it upon himself to find food every day, stood in the doorway, clutching a parcel.

"Thank you," she said. "Really - tomorrow I should go get food - "

He shook his head. "I can blend in - there are tons of Pebble Islanders here. You're too noticeable. And with that shoulder...."

She sighed, both exasperated and amused. "I've told you already - nobody will know - "

"Wrong. The Lion Queen's men came up this morning. They put up posters all over the place. Everyone's talking about it."

She ran a hand through her hair, her eyes closed. Damnit. I thought we'd be able to make it to Little Bay. Now everybody'll know about oure scape.

Luka was still standing by the door.

"You can come in, you know," she said.

He blushed. "It's not...it's not proper manners for me to enter a woman's room. It's just tradition."

She resisted the urge to laugh. How can someone so fearless fear stepping past my door? "Do you have enough to eat, though?" The money Scirocca had given them had almost run out, and, despite his stoic silences, Zalyne knew that Luka was skipping dinner and lunch every day.

"I'm not hungry."

His stomach growled.

She rolled her eyes, opened the bag, and passed him an apple and what looked like a wrapped pastry. "How are you going to run if you're starved to death?"

He opened his mouth to protest, but -

Boom.

Both of them froze.

Downstairs, men began shouting, their voices rising above the shattering of porcelain. And then silence.

Zalyne glanced worriedly at Luka. "I'm gonna go – "

"No - you stay here." Luka crept around the corner. "No, stay!"

"For the Lightgiver's sake," she snapped, "I'm not a dog." Ignoring his protests, she shut the door behind her and locked it. "Let's go."

He sighed, then shook his head and followed her down the stairs.

A young man - sixteen or seventeen, by the looks of him - stood in the center of the hall. A pot of gravy had shattered on the ground at his feet, and the liquid dripped down his face and hair, pooling over his scrawny shoulders. A mob of men raged around him, clad in purple, swords in their hands.

Zalyne frowned. There was something about the man...something familiar....

"Let me go - let me go!" shrieked another man, as the purple-cloaked men seized him and shoved him to his feet. "I didn't mean it, 'kay? I - "

"You threw a pot of gravy at a prince!" screamed one of the men. He wore an armband of pale purple, like the rest of the gang around the so-called prince.