Travelers (The Transcendent Trilogy Book 1) by K. A. Riley

Author:K. A. Riley [Riley, K. A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-06-04T16:00:00+00:00

27

Food Chain

On the way out, Cardyn rubs his hands together and pumps his fist in pretend celebration. “Oh goody. Tests. And all that happens is that we get killed if we don’t pass.”

Brohn gives him gruff orders to knock it off.

A crew of two girls and a boy in red robes with white belts and matching shoes leads the way. Young and eager, they keep getting too far ahead and Harah or one of the members of her Royal Court—the round-bodied, long-haired girl she introduced as Countess Colleen—has to keep whistling through her fingers or clapping her hands at them to call them back.

Walking between us, with me and Brohn on one side of her and Cardyn and Rain on the other, Harah tilts her chin in the direction of the three kids. “Those are my Attendants-in-Waiting. Page, Squire, and Steward. Such an impatient lot.”

In addition to the three scampering kids, we’re flanked on either side through the palace hallways by the four knights, two on each side of our procession, in full armor—helmets, boots, riveted gauntlets, steel chest-plates, lances, swords, shields…everything. The floorboards underfoot shudder under the weight of all that shifting and clanking equipment.

“Personal security detail?” I venture to ask, trying hard to keep the snark out of my voice.

Harah doesn’t seem offended, though. “These are my Bodyguards of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms. It was their two brothers—Sir Edward and Sir Steven—whom you met in the maze.” Harah holds her hands about a foot apart in front of her. “Sir Steven is still in the infirmary with bandages this thick around his neck.”

Cardyn makes a clicking sound with his tongue. “Does everyone here have a title?”

“Everyone everywhere has a title,” Harah says. “In the end, it’s how we define ourselves, isn’t it? It’s all we really have.”

Rain crinkles her nose, an act which Harah is sharp-eyed enough to catch out of the corner of her eye. As we pass a cluster of kids huddled together on a curving, carpeted staircase, she asks if Rain disagrees.

“I like to think we’re more than just our titles,” Rain admits.

“And what title are you? What do you call yourselves?”

Rain shrugs.

Brohn rubs his hand along his jaw before saying, “Like Cardyn said, we’re a Conspiracy.”

“That you are.”

“No,” Cardyn offers in an attempt to clarify, “We’re Emerg—,” but I cut him off with a subtle but sharp elbow to the ribs.

“We’re travelers,” I tell her.

Harah gives me a wide, white smile. “Travelers. I like that.”

We exit the palace through a set of gold-plated doors. Harah’s Attendants-in-Waiting continue scampering ahead, leading us along a winding walkway of polished paving stones.

We pass more clusters of kids as we go. Like the others, they’re dressed in combinations of colorful silks and sturdy canvas fabrics. Here and there, a few of them are in modern clothes. They’re the ones who step back and avert their eyes as we pass. I get the sense that these are the ones who are somehow on the bottom rung of this feudal social ladder.

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