Tide of Darkness: Book I by Calderini Amarah

Author:Calderini, Amarah
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-08-30T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Three

Mirren

I breathe in the abundance of life that teems from Nadjaa’s wide streets greedily, as if it’s oxygen that’s been starved from my lungs. People are everywhere, the different shades of their skin creating a rainbow as enviable as the houses that sprawl across the mountain. Excited chatter and various chords of music spill into the public space from open windows creating an exuberant symphony I’m eager to be a part of. Shaw wraps his cloak around my shoulders and pulls the hood over my head, shadowing my face. He steers Dahiitii away from the clamor, turning instead down a deserted street that leads around the edge of the city.

Disappointment threads through me. “We aren’t going to the marketplace?”

On our way down the pass, I glimpsed the way the city threaded itself across the valley and up the mountain. The most bustling section, the market where sailors sell their wares and shops line the cobble stone, hugs the curve of the bay. The Bay of Reflection, Shaw told me, named for the way the entirety of its black waters reflect the moon once a lunar cycle.

“Not with you looking like that.”

I peer down dubiously. My jumpsuit is stained with dirt and blood, the slash marks from Shivhai’s knife hastily stitched with the same thick thread I used to sew Shaw’s skin. And that is without taking into account my bruised face and throat, the cut on my forehead, and the matted state of my hair. Shaw might have a point.

“The fastest way to the manor is across the bay.” He gestures to waters below. “We use small boats to traverse the distance. But with Dahiitii and the state we’re both in, it’ll be better to take the long way around.”

I find that even the long way isn’t long enough for me to drink my fill of the city. There are no gray quarterages piled atop one another here. Small, well-kept houses, each painted in splashes of bright color, blend together up the mountain in a rainbow sea. Bright green grasses and trees line the clean, white paved streets. Fresh blooms crawl up trellises and dangle from the sides of buildings. A cool sea breeze threads through open windows, carrying with it the scent of baking delicacies.

We cross a bridge that arches over a sparkling river that curls lazily down the mountain. Nadjaa doesn’t possess the quiet of Similis, but an ease settles over me anyway. A feeling of contentment. A small sigh of pleasure escapes me, and Shaw stiffens behind me.

“Will you sit still, you menace?” he growls in my ear. It isn’t the first time my movement has seemed to cause him discomfort and I push down the urge to laugh. “We’re almost there.”

We ride for a quarter of an hour, around the southern side of the bay. Hills guard this side of the bay, miniature versions of the ones that surround the city. The houses here are large and spread further apart, hidden by thick foliage. We

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