Harbinger of Justice (The Shadowbinders Trilogy Book 1) by Andrew Watson

Author:Andrew Watson [Watson, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-06-08T16:00:00+00:00

24

Thieves of a Different Kind

Kit was nowhere to be seen, so Nya headed back to their rooftop. His rooftop, she corrected herself. The city was humming with energy. Guards had flooded the market place where the shadow man had preached. They were questioning anyone they could get their hands on, so Nya made sure to slip away discreetly.

She didn’t know what to think of Rai. Could she trust him? Was he going to turn out to be like the jackal-masked man? Flashes of the coiling black shadow stabbing through the guards sent a shiver down her spine. Even if his intentions were true, the means were not.

Nya couldn’t continue like this. She could have hurt a lot of people today. She would have to speak to Rai again, even if he did scare her. But what did he want? He wasn’t going to help her for nothing, and he could see she didn’t have money.

He will use you, Bom said. Use you as a weapon.

Nya paled but didn’t respond.

She wove through the city towards Kit’s roof. Her body ached, bruises and cuts flaring with every step. It was quieter the further she moved away from the square. Sand foxes, like Dust, ran through the shadowed alleys hunting for scraps. Murmuring voices dwindling to silence, and sand hissed as it scattered up the streets in the warm midday wind.

Ahead, an elderly woman laid down a deitan in front of a temple. A deitan was an offering to the deities, usually consisting of a palm sized plate containing edible roots, cheap fruits, spices, and incense. The woman wore a sunburnt orange robe and she bowed her head before retreating down the street. She hadn’t even passed out of sight when a street kid appeared from nowhere, snatched up the deitan, and scampered off in the other direction.

Deitans weren’t uncommon. People placed them in front of homes and business in hope of good favour from the deities. However, it was a dying practice. Once it would have been a sin to steal a deitan, but times were hard and the deities were falling from the minds of the people.

Nya hesitated in front of the temple. It was a grand structure with pillars on either side of a great two story opening, faded carvings of Ma-ilus, a deer like deity, etched onto the pillars. Nya had never thought much on the deities. They were no more than fanciful stories to her and most living on the streets. She had never met a devout follower. Starving, beaten, and struggling for survival made deities that were meant to look after the Tarrisian people hard to believe.

If there were once deities, they had abandoned the people.

“You can’t be thinking about going?” Kit said.

Nya had returned to the roof to find Kit and she caught him up on what happened after they lost each other in the crowd.

“Why not? You were the one who wanted me to speak to someone like myself,” Nya said.

“Yeah, but I didn’t think

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